Day 184 Plaster and Cabinets

Plastering commenced 3 weeks ago followed by delivery of the cabinets. Lock up has occurred along with the payment request.  Painting will be starting very soon.

Here are some pictures:

Family room

View of outdoor area

Dining area

Hallway

Temporary ladder to upstairs

Bathroom

Doors delivered

Kitchen with cabinetry

Kitchen

Kitchen

Laundry cabinetry

Staircase!

Stairscase

Bathroom with waterproofing

Main bedroom ensuite

 

More pictures with the brickwork repairs and still more to go.

Brickwork removed due to bowing of the brickwork above the window. 

Brickwork done with support.

  

Brickwork repaired at base of pillar after a big chunk was removed with a bobcat

Heating duct

Noticed that the silver foil around the heating ducts above the dining area had black stains which happened prior to the installation of the roof tiles. These ducts were exposed to the weather for about two months. Our SS organised an inspection by the installer and was told it was ok.

Day 159

The SS called us last Monday in response to our concerns about the brickwork. He went to inspect the site and organised a site meeting with us. We met up with him on Thursday and he brought along a senior Metricon building consultant (who had brickwork knowledge). The senior consultant agreed with us - some of the chipped bricks, uneven mortaring and bricks that were jutting out needed to be redone. In addition, he noticed that the brickwork above the dining room window was not done properly (something that we would never have picked up!). He also noticed some streaking of the mortar from the bleaching process of the brick cleaning. The other issue is the inconsistent colour of the mortar which should be grey but in some areas it looks white. Our SS is organising for these to be rectified.

The storm water LPOD has been relocated and approved by the council according to our SS.

During the week the roof tiles above the garage, dinning and outdoor area were completed and the temporary scaffolding has been dismantled. Retaining wall constructed on the LHS of property (as per building plans).

The initial fitting of the fire place and flue is in place. 

The plastering has been organised to occur in the next few days. It looks like we are back on track. Thank goodness for our new SS!!

"Streaking" of mortar

Retaining wall

Relocation of LPOD

Fireplace

Day 152

Roofing on the garage, dining and outdoor area are nearly complete. No obvious progress inside.

Garage roof

We had a good look at the brickwork after the scaffolding was removed and noticed many imperfections in the brickwork. We understand that some imperfections might be expected with the bricking, however, there seemed too many chipped bricks especially on the corners, loose and cracked mortar, and in one area some of the bricks were jutting out slightly and so on. Below are some examples:

RHS Front Garage

Back Garage  

RHS Front corner of house

Chipped brick middle portico

Chipped brick middle portico pillar

RHS house - bricks jutting out slightly and loose/crack mortar

RHS portico pillar - difference in top brick pattern (see below)

LHS portico pillar - difference in top brick pattern

We will let the SS know and hopefully these can be fixed. They might appear minor but they happen to be in obvious locations and we wonder whether some of the chips and cracks occurred during the dismantling of the scaffolding. A big concern is if the mortar is coming loose now, what will it be like in a few weeks or months time?! 

Day 143

Not much happened last week except that we met our new SS last Thursday. He officially took over this week. He seems approachable, understanding and took time out to answer our concerns and questions. He was keen to get things moving along again which was great! So far this week he has organised:

• more bricks for completion of the brickworks
• a site clean
• scaffolding to come down
• carpenters to put the garage roof trusses up
• minor repairs to be done and inside of the building to be cleaned 
• Jetmaster fireplace to be delivered 
• brickies to leave some spare bricks for us (for emergencies)

Scaffolding down

Site clean

Site Clean

Garage bricking and roof trusses

Chipped brick

Chipped brick replaced

Loose noggin (marked blue) replaced with new noggin above

Day 129 Progress

1. Progress to date

We've been a bit slack with updating this blog. Here is the progress to date:

• Bricking of the ground and first floor with the garage nearly finished
• Insulation almost done
• Plaster has arrived
• Eave sheets being installed
• Garage roof trusses arrived 2 days ago

And basically that's it! Things have been moving very slowly. Roof tiles above the dining and outdoor area yet to be done (and cannot be done until the scaffolding comes down). See attached photos for progression of build.

We found out 4 days ago that there was a change in Site Supervisor and Customer Support Co-ordinator. We found out about the SS change when we were chasing him for our independent building inspector - who had tried calling the SS a number of times without a response. This change in SS may explain the slow progress.

Day 96 - Bricking

Day 103 Scaffolding delivered to site

Day 105 Scaffolding erected

Outdoor Area

Day 105 Garage wall

Day 107 First Floor Bricking

Day 121 Eaves installed

Day 121Garage T Bar and Eaves installed

2. Storm Water Drain update

A meeting was held on 20th March with the council inspector, base stage supervisor and plumber on site to discuss the relocation of the storm water legal point of discharge. It was decided to relocate the LPOD further to the right hand side of the property and closer to the existing driveway. We were informed by Building Support Co-ordinator on the 27th of March that the works would be completed ASAP. From what we can see it has not been done yet.

3. Outdoor Brick Pillar

When the pillars for the outdoor room were being bricked we noticed that the middle pillar (due to its depth of 710mm) :

• Took up a lot of space in the outdoor room and therefore reduced the useable space
• Looks intrusive and makes the outdoor area narrow. It looks out of proportion relative to the outdoor area
• Potentially will further obscure the view of the garden from the family room

Yes, the dimensions of the pillars are on the plans that we signed. However, being completely naive to the building process we were unable to visualise and put the scale of the plans into perspective. Furthermore, while we requested for the outdoor room extension we did not determine the pillar size and position and deferred to the expertise of Metricon's designers. We wonder whether this was an oversight because the middle pillar at the front of the house (portico area) is not as deep (470mm) as the other front pillars which are of the same dimensions as the outdoor area pillars. Even our independent building inspector agrees that the middle outdoor pillar could be less deep.

We contacted the SS and Building Support Co-ordinator but were told nothing can be done. We were surprised and disappointed that there was seemingly no attempt to help us rectify this problem. (The pillars were only half bricked when we contacted them about it.) We were assured earlier on in the process by the sales people that Metricon takes great pride in their final product as it is an advertisement of their work. In our opinion, this pillar is an eyesore! And to boot, every time we have friends and family over, it'll be one of the first things they will notice about the outdoor area.