Thomo & Marina Build a Wembley 35: Construction Update - Week 25

It has been nearly two weeks since my last post so my apologies to my loyal reader (sorry mum).

Things have been moving pretty quickly. Last Wednesday was our Practical Completion Inspection (PCI), a huge process that took over 2.5 hours. When we got to the house it had been cleaned (mostly) and looked quite presentable. This had been one of the criticism's of our independent inspector who had been through a couple of days previously.

During the PCI, the key things that were identified as requiring fixing included:

There is a leak and flooding near the water meter
The balcony handrail is not fastened correctly
The staining on the timber window frames is inconsistent
The lock on the bi-fold doors needs to be adjusted as the door is not closing properly
The wiring for the lighting in the Rumpus Room is back to front (the main light is on a dimmer switch, where we wanted the down-lights to be dimmable)
There is a small leak in the kitchen basin plumbing
The windows all need adjusting so that they open and close smoothly
There are dozens of minor painting, caulking and filling fixes

Having worked with builders and trades previously where any questions about defects are met with denial and blame and finger-pointing, we were expecting a bit of a battle with our Site Supervisor regarding a few of the items, and in particular the staining on the timber window frames. On that specifically, we can tolerate some variations in colour - after all that is exactly why you stain timber (okay it also protects the timber) but what I mean is that it is the colour and tone that is the aesthetic reason to do it. To his credit, he looked at several of the window frames and concluded, like us, that the guys who did the staining could have done a better job.

And that's how it was with nearly everything we raised - we discussed it, our site supervisor provided clarifications but generally put it on his list of things to be fixed. It was a good experience and I guess it's just nice to be treated as a customer sometimes.

A number of things have already been fixed and/or completed, including:

The kitchen island bench-top has been replaced.

A timber infill has been installed above the laundry door
A service has been booked in to adjust the windows so that they open easily
We got some clarification on the tap near the laundry door not aligning to the drain. It turns out that Porter Davis do not install drains beneath exterior taps. The opening in the video is not a drain, but a sewer overflow. Basically, if the sewer gets blocked, this overflow will mean that any flooding will occur outside the house, rather than inside. The fact that it is almost aligned to the tap is coincidence.
The pointing on the alfresco roof has been finished.

Here are some pictures of some of the items