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

Construction Update - Week 20 - A Bit of Progress and A Bit of Back and Forth

So last week was the first week that we have had to get firm with Porter Davis and following numerous phone calls I thought we had reached a way forward on three of the biggest issues that I posted about last week.  Namely:

• What to do about the misplaced window on the front façade
• What to do about the incorrectly roughed-in plumbing in the powder room
• What to do about the staircase hand-rails

Here is how it all panned out...

In the case of the incorrectly placed window, Porter Davis have admitted that it is a mistake and are going to fix it.  According to our site supervisor, rectification work will have commenced on Monday of this week.

 

The Powder Room plumbing is interesting and we have had four or five phone calls with our site supervisor on this.  Our PD "co-ordinator" at head office was unresponsive to our emails on this topic, but it turns out our site supervisor knows how to use a telephone and (like me) is a pragmatist.

 

As at the end of last week (I am posting this nearly a week later, sorry) as far as I can tell, the logic on both sides goes something like this:

• Our site supervisor wants to finish our house so he can move on
• We want our site supervisor to finish our house so we can move in
• He has never installed hand-rails on a staircase before and claims it is not included (note to anyone purchasing staircase "Option 4")

• His plumber has stuffed up the rough-in on the powder room
• We want hand-rails on our stair case
• We can live with Powder Room as it has been plumbed, if we can re-select the taps and faucet that we like
• He can only install the 'standard' taps and faucet in the Powder Room, but at least it will match our Laundry
• We think that's bollocks, as standard looks terrible.  I don't care what the laundry looks like - I don't expect my dinner guests to avail themselves of the Laundry when I invite them over to show off my new home
• He can't give us anything we want because he "cannot afford a $600 tap set" if that's what we choose
• We reminded him to look at the selections we have made so far (we are pretty frugal)
• He admits yeah, you guys are tighter than a cats bum (he didn't actually say that)
• We all agree to pick a tap set is fair and reasonable
• He agrees to install our choice of tap set and a pair (yes pair) of hand rails for the stair case

 

This all sounded good, but there has been a significant unravelling of this since last Friday, which I will post an update on shortly.

 

Dramas aside, in terms on progress on the house, the major highlights are:

• With the obvious exception of the powder room, the plumbing fit-off is completed
• The electrical fit-off is completed - yes we have lighting!

Here are the usual assortment of progress pictures...



From the Front



From the Front



From the Rear (with Chuggalugs striding through the weeds)



From the Rear

Panoramic shot from Dining Area with Living Area on Left and Kitchen on Right



Panoramic shot from kitchen with Dining Area on left and Living Area on Right



Panoramic shot from Living Area with Rumpus Room on left and Dining Area on Right

Panoramic shot from Rumpus Room with Hallway Staircase on left and Living Area on Right



Our Kitchen Sink Mixer



Buggalugs checking out the Ensuite - note the mixers

The Downstairs Powder Room - no mixer possible....

OK, it's just a toilet, but it's my new toilet

I had forgotten that we decided to do our own lighting (other than down-lights).  This is what the 'standard' light fitting looks like.  It won't last long after we move in...

Construction Update - Week 19 - Some Mistakes

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.

 

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.

 

The Plumbing that has been Roughed-In

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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."

 

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.

 

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.

 

We spotted this and got it fixed

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

Upstairs

Downstairs

 

Construction Update - Week 19 - Painting is Finished, Heating System Installed

Another week and a bit more progress to report.  This week the heating system has been installed and the painting has been finished.  Also the ceiling batons for the Alfresco have been installed and the shelving in the linen cupboards and wardrobes has been installed.

Here are the usual pics

From the Front



From the Front



From the Rear

From the Rear

Ceiling Batons for the Alfresco



Shelving in the Upstairs Linen Cupboard

And here are the usual panorama shots.  Not a lot has changed here, but if you look closely you will see the ceiling vents for the heating system

 

Panoramic shot of kitchen, with Dining Area to left and Lounge are to the right

Panoramic shot, with Living Area to the left and kitchen to the right



Panoramic shot, with Rumpus Room to the left and kitchen/dining to the right

Panoramic shot of Rumpus Room, with hallway and stairs to the left and the Living Room to the right