Progress
Well a few things have happened during the week however nowhere near enough to finish by the end of this upcoming week.
On Tuesday plaster was put into the garage and on the ceiling in alfresco.
On Wednesday nothing really seemed to happen.
On Thursday the carpenter was there and her indoors caught up with him.
On Friday I got a call from the Site Supervisor but not too much seemed to happen
Yesterday I went by and had a look around after the heavy rain.
Carpenter v SS
Her indoors not being one to hold back had a good chat with the carpenter to see if he knew how progress was going and what we could expect next. As usual he seemed to be in a reasonably bad mood and was whinging about things. He did however tell us a lot about the building game and why some projects (ie. ours) get delayed. It is all to do with communication.
Apparently our carpenter pops by quite frequently to see if things have done. If he doesn't see that the plasteres are there finishing their work he doesn't see it is necessary to get on with his work. According to the carpenter the painters have been past quite frequently to see if the plasterers have finished and then just left. We still have nails in the plaster in the cornices to keep them in place and the garage and alfresco are not finished. It is only once this is sorted that the painters will start.
So why is it that the plasteres aren't finishing. Supposedly due to the current lack of skilled tradies they have a lot of power over the builders. If they aren't being paid fast enough or if there is not enough communication they will work on another builders project who is a lot easier to work with. To me this sounds like the builders are better at getting contracts sorted between their clients and themselves than they are at organising appropriate contracts with the different trades that they use.
It is not all that reassuring hearing all of this complaining about the builder from the trades but it seemed to be aimed at the builder themselves rather than at the Site Supervisor.
During this period of discovery her indoors thought that she had better check that the communication channels were actually working. She asked the carpenter whether he was aware that we were expecting the alfresco decking to have a border surround. It appeared to us as though he had started to make the deck without a flat border of merbau decking. Unfortunately with her indoors inability to think in three dimensions and her distinct lack of patience in explaining things the conversation with the carpenter about this aspect of decking took quite a lot of hand waving and took a while to get anywhere. In the end the carpenter understood, however he was adamant that he had not been told and that none of the information he had told him how the decking was supposed to turn out. He also said that most of the frame for the decking that he had already made would have to ripped out and rebuilt.
The next day I received a phone call from the Site Supervisor early in the morning. He assured me that he had told the carpenter that we wanted the deck with a border surround and that the carpenter must ave selective hearing. He also assured me that the it is just a matter of adding a couple of extra joists to ensure that I specified deck is achieved.
Issues
I thought that I had better summarise our current outstanding issues in the one place.
Timing - This is probably the thing that we worry about the most at the moment. When is this house going to be ours? On Friday morning the SS told me that plastering would be finished this weekend. This is clearly not the case. I think the painters will yet again come by to a non finished house.
Wet foundations - When I went by yesterday I again noticed that the drainage was very poor. I will yet again bring this up in writing.
Inclement Weather - We are yet to receive any details or justification for the inclement weather. This will form the basis of letter that will be sent to Romeo this afternoon.
Sill Bricks - These have not been rectified
Vents - There appear to be some areas where vents should be added to the brickwork where they do not appear to have been put in place.
