Today my wife spoke to our site supervisor about a whole list of things and we have now uncovered - several mistakes we have made and a couple that Porter Davis have made.
Building Mistakes by Porter Davis
Window in the Wrong Spot
We have discovered (and had confirmed by our site supervisor) that the window in the master bedroom walk-in-robe is in the wrong spot. We noticed this on the weekend. There is no top casement moulding on the window. You can see in the photo that the sides go straight up to the eaves, which is probably the best that the guy who fitted the faux casement awnings could do. The reason for this turns out to be that the window itself is set too high in the frame. This is going to be a pretty messy fix, as everything needs to be taken apart, the window needs to be re-installed, and then the brickwork, plastering, awnings and so on will all have to be re-fitted.
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| Fail - The WIR Window is too high |
Wrong Taps in the Powder Room
Porter Davis have roughed-in the completely wrong plumbing in the Powder Room for the vanity. The rough-in has been done for two wall-mounted taps, rather than the combination faucet we selected. Our site supervisor says this cannot be changed now. Hmmm.... More on this to come.
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| The Plumbing that has been Roughed-In |
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| Our Plans |
Installation of Wardrobe Inserts
We asked for these not to be installed, because the standard ones are cheap and a bit rubbish. But they have been installed, and now need to be removed.
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| Hmmmm.... |
Mistakes We Now Realise We Have Made
So here are a bunch of mistakes we have made along the way. These have to be chalked up under the heading of "well, when you buy off the plan, you cannot get everything right." Remembering that we never had the opportunity to wander through a Wembley 35 display home, we were expecting to miss a few things. Here they are, in order from most annoying to... meh
So here are a bunch of mistakes we have made along the way. These have to be chalked up under the heading of "well, when you buy off the plan, you cannot get everything right." Remembering that we never had the opportunity to wander through a Wembley 35 display home, we were expecting to miss a few things. Here they are, in order from most annoying to... meh
Missing Window Casements
It turns out that the Oakville facade we have chosen does not include faux casements on all the front-facing windows. The stairwell window, study area window and bedroom WIR window do not come with casements. At the end of the day, this is reflected on the plans, but it is a little frustrating to only notice these things now.
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| I thought these windows had casements as part of our façade, but alas |
No banister for stairwell
We were never asked and so we never thought about it, but our staircase does not include a banister for the bottom half. Given we have three young sprogs, this will be a bit of an issue as the kids have nothing to hold onto when they climb up and down the stairs. This is in the category of "thanks for nothing - if you had told us, we would have bought it."
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| What do we hold on to? |
Rather Useless Open Space below Laundry Bench-top
Again this is on the plans, and perhaps we could have picked this up. One of "specials" packages includes a slightly extended laundry benchtop. Yay. But it creates a pretty useless space beneath it.
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| Anyone got a suggestion for this? |
Wasted space next to kitchen overhead cupboards
In the 'standard' plans, there is a bit of wasted space on the cupboard next to the walk-in-pantry. We had to argue hard to get this removed and have the cupboards sized accordingly. We didn't spot (and no-one pointed out to us) that there was a similar 55mm space-waster next to the cupboard by the fridge.
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| We spotted this and got it fixed |
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| But didn't see this one... |
Timber in the Stairwell
Not in the plans. The gap in the plaster-work in the stairwell will apparently be covered by a piece of timber. Go figure. No idea if that is going to look good or rubbish.
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| No-one told us about this one... |
Wrap Around of Moulding on Façade
This is not on the plans. We have rendered some elements of the front of the façade, but not all. And that leaves us with, well, I'm not entirely sure how to describe it.
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| Is there a technical term for this? |
Just Dumb
Different Heating Vents Upstairs and Downstairs
We have circular vents upstairs and square ones downstairs - I have no idea why, but if I find out I will post an update.
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| Upstairs |
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| Downstairs |
Thanks for posting this, I can understand how frustrating many of these things are, how simple would it be to tell you. I was never told about the stairs and have two young children and one on the way, it's going to be a pain. I did pick up about the overheads and they said nothing could be done because of the range hood. Also I picked up about the extended bench top in laundry, they only extend to the right of the trough leaving you with the great space. After arguing the point several times it was changed. It's a right pain about your powder room, I would do your best to push for this to be changed, the mixer is what you want, otherwise you will be lucky to get $100 credit back at the end!
ReplyDeleteOn personal note We have just had our slab poured, we have gone for the bel main facade, no balcony, or render, we just want. Brick only. They reason frame will be built by 1 st August.
Hi Adam, thanks for the comment. I think we are getting close to resolving some of our issues with Porter Davis. I will have another update post shortly. And it is great to hear that you are off and underway with your project. Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteYes it's all go, only three weeks have passed today and the frame is all done, this seems to be really quick! I'm guessing that as time goes on the process slows considerably! We just love the layout and design. We are all very very excited here! Hope the resolutions come soon, I guess you just got to keep at them until your satisfied. All the best adam
ReplyDeleteWe had our vents installed today and yes, we had circular and square ones. I asked the guy why this was so... He said that the cavity space between the upstairs and downstairs was too small to fit circular ones downstairs... Prob the truth? Shame this is not taken in to account during the planing stages!
ReplyDelete