Construction Update - Week 23 - Floors, Garage Doors and More

So I snuck over to the house this weekend to see if there was anything to report and, boy, did I get a surprise.  After a couple of quieter weeks, a lot has been happening over the last 7 days.

First thing I saw was the garage door, which I think looks great.  I recall this being an upgrade at our selections appointment, and in my opinion it looks really good.  Other exterior changes are:

• The final render coat has been applied to the façade
• The timber window frames have been stained
• The in-fill above the bi-fold doors has been completed

But it was the interior, where I had the biggest surprise - we have flooring.  The carpet has been laid upstairs and the timber flooring has been laid downstairs.  Additionally:

• The staircase has been stained
• The bath has been installed and fitted off

I am also pleased to report that the plumbing in the downstairs powder room has finally been fixed and we have the mixer we originally selected.

We have had a message from our site supervisor today, wanting to book in an appointment for the final inspection - it could be as early as this Friday.

Here are the pics

From the Front

From the Front

From the Rear

From the Rear, with Chuggalugs photo-bombing

Upstairs area with carpet - the fluoro tags are markers where things need to be fixed

Our bath is installed

Rear Bi-folds are finished and stained

The Powder-Room Plumbing is finally fixed

 

The staircase has been stained, but it looks as though one of the hand-rails is going to be removed...

Finally, following a comment on my previous post, I did a search for the Wembley 35 on the Porter Davis web-site.  Sure enough, the Wembley 35 page is gone, so it looks as though the house is not being offered any more.  There is no question it's a great design, so I can only assume they have more profitable products to offer clients nowadays.

Construction Update - Week 22 - Garage is nearly finished

The plasterer has been back this week and fitting of the plaster ceiling for the garage and alfresco has been completed.   Also the rear roller door for the garage has been fitted.  And the fix for the master bedroom WIR window appears to be completed.  Other than that, there has not been much progress on site.

 

But the big news of the week is that we think we have finally resolved the powder room plumbing issue.  I have posted the background to this previously,  the basic problem is that the wrong plumbing was roughed in for the powder room taps and we have been working with Porter Davis on what to do about it.

 

We have through quite a bit of back and forth on this one.  A couple of weeks ago we agreed to keep the wall mounted plumbing if we could choose some decent tapware and PD agreed to give a pair of hand rails for our staircase.  In the end wall mounted taps was not going to work due to our shallow basin.  Finally after much to and fro, Porter Davis has agreed to go back to the original plan,  fix the plumbing and install the mixer.  Credit to PD for this.  Interestingly as the pictures show, the extra staircase handrail has already been fitted, and even though we are going back to the plan, we are hoping that it stays...

 

The final bit of news is that we have shared with our site supervisor that we have a long list of things that we think will need fixing.   He is keen to see the full list,  so I will be sending that over to him later tonight.

 

Here are some pictures...



Fromt the Front

From the Front

From the Rear

From the Rear

Panoramic shot of Garage, with Rear Roller Door and Ceiling

Panoramic shot from Dining Area, with Lounge on Left and Kitchen on Right

Panoramic shot from Lounge Area, with Rumpus Room on Left and Dining Room on Right

Panoramic shot from Rumpus Room, with Hallway / Staircase on Left and Lounge on Right

Look! a staircase with 2X hand-rails!

 

Construction Update - Week 21 - Some More Issues

Last weekend I had a chance to spend a bit of time on the site, going through in a bit of detail where everything is at and getting a feel for the sorts of fixes that we will probably be asking for.  In fairness to Porter Davis, I am posting this before raising these issues with them, so I figure at least some of them may be being fixed in due course.

We have had no update on the Powder Room tap dramas and, as usual, we are having our calls ignored by our building co-ordinator. So I'm not really sure what is happening on that front.

 

As with my previous post on mistakes and issues, I am ranking this from major to meh, based on how much I think this will get in the way of us enjoying the house.

 

I posted previously the challenges of the external laundry door - that tops the list of new issues.  The list I made on the weekend had about thirty items in the end, but most are minor.  So here are a few highlights.
 

Crack in Kitchen Island Bench
There is a 20cm crack in the kitchen bench extending from the corner of the sink.

Not sure how clearly this will show in the photo, but here is the crack...

 

Most of our Timber Windows are Jammed or Stiff
We have timber windows installed on all of the front-facing windows and all downstairs windows.  Half of them do not open at the moment and the other half are very stiff.  Interestingly (and perhaps unsurprisingly) the aluminium window frames used in the upstairs rear of the house are all fine.
 

 

Exterior Tap Fail
This is the definition of Fail.  We have an exterior tap mounted on the wall near the Laundry door.  I noticed a problem on the weekend, which is best summed up by viewing the video below.

 

 Seriously, if I try to articulate my frustration at this, I am going to sound like a crazy person

 

Range-Hood Vent Gaps in Cornice

This is one of those things that I suspect will get corrected in due course (at least I hope so)

 

 

 

Unfinished Roof
Again, one of those things I expect is going to get finished off in due course.

This is the roof over the Alfresco (and in case my wife is reading this, no honey, I did not climb onto the roof.  This shot is taken through the upstairs toilet window).

Door to Garage is not Hung Correctly
There is a 10mm gap between the doorframe and the door.  This is visible in the picture below.

 

This is a 10mm gap between the frame and the door...

 

The fitting on the Bi-Fold Doors has not been installed correctly

Again, a video sums this up better than words.  Actually, it seems minor in the video.  But the problem here is that the fitting is already starting to wear, just through the casual use of the door.

 

 

 

The Termite Protection Pipes are Exposed

This is something that I might need to address as part of the landscaping once we have the keys.  The termite gas pipes (or whatever the technical term is) are exposed around the alfresco.

 



I think these orange pipes are supposed to be covered...

 



Crappy Exterior Tap Fittings

Look at the rusted, dented wall-plate on this tap.  Both exterior taps are the same.

 

 

 

Gap Between Splashback and Kitchen Bench-top

This just needs filling and, again, may be fixed in due course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction Update - Week 21 - A little Progress and More Back and Forth

Not a lot of visible progress this week, but we have had a lot of discussions with Porter Davis on some of the issues we highlighted previously.  Here are the updates...

Fixing the Front Façade

I am happy to report that work began this week to fix the front façade.  As posted previously, the framing for the window in the walk-in-robe next to the master bedroom was wrong.  Kudos I guess to Porter Davis for just getting on and fixing this.



View of repairs underway from the inside

But the Powder-Room drama continues...

I have posted the background to the Powder-Room drama in previous posts, but basically, the background is that Porter Davis have realised very late in the process that they have roughed-in the wrong plumbing for the taps / mixer in the downstairs powder room.  We have now had numerous discussions with both our site supervisor and our head-office coordinator on this.

Last Friday we thought we had basically reached a compromise which was that we were ok with the wall-mounted taps provided that we got to select (within price reasonableness) the fittings and PD would add some handrails to our staircase.

It was a lovely woman at the Reece plumbing centre who has thrown a spanner in that plan.  While helping my wife pick alternative tap-ware, she noticed our basin selection.  We have selected a more upmarket basin for the Powder Room, and it is one of those broad shallow designs.  The woman at Reece asked how high the mixer would be mounted above the basin and my wife confirmed it to be 25cm.  She said that there is no way anyone should mount a mixer that high above a basin like that - it is just going to splash water everywhere.



Powder Room - Now with Mirror

Ahh, yes, the old swanky-shallow-modern-basin-splashing-water-all-over-your-groin-as-you-try-to-wash-your-hands problem.  I have encountered this in hotels and bars across the world.

Anyway, we took this back to Porter Davis and basically said - "no deal".  To his credit, our co-ordinator has acknowledged that we (my wife specifically) have done what we can to fix this, and that this is a "design problem" (his words).  As at the end of this week, we have not heard back from PD to finalise what is going to happen, but the last we had heard was that our site supervisor was heading back to the site to see if a bench-mounted mixer could still be installed.

I guess we will have to wait until next week to find out what is going to happen, but interestingly, the mirror has now been installed in the powder room.  So that is probably going to limit options.




I managed to spend a little bit of time at the site today (without the kids), so was able to take stock of where everything is at and identify a few more mistakes and a number of things that still need to be fixed.  I will post a few highlights over the next couple of days, but to start with, I discovered some challenges with our laundry door.


The Framing for the Laundry Door is Bigger than the Doorframe
As you can see from the pictures, the door and door-frame for the Laundry door are smaller than the gap they sit in.  The gap is quite a bit taller and a bit wider than the frame. I expect that some sort of in-fill will need to be done here to fix this.




There is about a 10mm gap
between the door frame and the brickwork

And the gap above is, well, huge...

Laundry Door is not Hung Correctly
The rebate for the top hinge of the Laundry door needs to be made bigger, as the hinge is not sitting flush.  The net impact of this is a gap at the (see picture) and the door rubbing when it opens and closes.



And here are a couple of the standard progress pics I post every week



From the Front

From the Front - if you look carefully you can see the repairs to the front facade

From the Rear



From the Rear