Courtyard paving

As an update to the landscaping efforts to date, the front courtyard paving has been completed and we are very happy with the results. Adbri Masonary Stone was used for the walls and Austral Riviera 'Imperia' 400mm pavers where used for the base and seat. Links included below for those who wish to know more.

Austral Riviera Imperia
Adbri Masonary

The colours work well with each other and also pick up well with the colour of the house and paperbark windows/gutters/garage door etc.







A merbau deck is now under construction which will lead out from the front door with a step down to paver level to connect the two. Once that is complete we will be organising plants and mulch and stones to complete the front landscape - hanging out to have this completed.

Landscaping journey begins

Time for a landscaping update.

We've had the boys from All FX Concrete out again to do some more 'hard landscaping' work for us (you'll remember they also did our driveway for us) And no, I don't mean hard as in difficult. I mean hard as opposed to 'Soft Landscaping' - ie. planting and laying mulch etc :-)

Out the front we are creating a courtyard with a seat and a paved area - something to break up the garden.

Here is a pic with the section excavated ready for the slab frame to go down.

And here it is all laid out.

We are also getting the alfresco paved with the same pavers as the front.

Down the blind side of the house we are getting standard concrete without pavers to minimise maintenance.

We are also getting a slab laid for a freestanding spa.

...and of course every mans basic need - a garden shed.

The access these days is getting a little harder so they enlisted the use of a concrete pumper to get to all the locations.


Here we can see the guys hard at it......on all the slabs.


And what slab wouldn't be complete without signing it. The cherubs thought it was great - a little bit like Hollywood!


While the diggers were there we also got them to level the backyard ready for a retaining wall. This area will eventually be lawn for the cherubs to play on. They took out 3 truckloads of soil.

Tank, Drain and Conduit

Finally some time to catch up on what been happening at the Cherubs place (and its been a lot!) So grab a coffee and a Tim Tam and have a read.

Rain water tank
In an attempt to save some valuable water, I have installed a water tank, a 4,500 litre version to be exact. This was the largest size I could install in the available space we had. It was a great spot too as I was able to plumb two downpipes into it which has now enabled us to completely fill the tank with what little rain we have had.

Firstly the area was cleared of all the crap the builders leave embedded in the ground.


Then I bolted in a frame to contain the packing sand base.


The two pipes shown below are the reticulated termite protection pipe (purple) and my water pipe (black) for extending tank water to other areas of the front and back garden. I took out a piece of the treated pine sleeper to allow them to pass through.


And finally here you can see the finished product.


From the tank I have connected a pump (capable of managing 4 outlets) and connected a tap at the front (so I can wash my car at home again :-) ) and one for the rear.



Power Conduit
In the backyard we have organised to have a slab laid and a Shed constructed. The shed will have 2 skylights for light during the day but at night will have mains powered lighting. In order to provide power, a PVC conduit had to be laid from the house to the shed location prior to the slab being poured. Here are some of the pics showing the trench and the conduit.








Balcony Drainage
As many Cremorne owners will know, the balcony facade provides an option where you can have the base tiled for a couple of thousand dollars and a letterbox drain fitted to one side. This is an excellent option as the standard is to have decking boards above and below as part of the balcony structure letting what ever rain hits the deck to come through on unsuspecting visitors - which is what we chose.

After throwing around some ideas with mates and other tradies, we have decided to do a similar option. The twist is that we will incorporate a drain through one of the balcony piers so the water escapes out of sight. A tiling mate will come over and water proof the balcony floor, tile it and include a stainless steel drain in one corner - a bit like a shower base.

Here is the balcony pier I have plumbed the pipe through.

When you lift the deck boards and look down the pier, the only obstruction is the wiring for the lights, which is minimal.

I then hammer drilled a hole at the base of the pier to allow the pipe to exit.

Then inserted the pipe.



And connected it to the existing silt pit as provided by PD.


As more work is completed on the balcony, I will post more photos.

Cherub safety and front lights

Thought I would show a few pics of some the features recently added to the Cherub's house.

We found that the stairs can be a lot of fun for the little ones but can also be rather daunting for the smallest cherub. They are pretty big steps after all! So we decided to add a 'cherub rail' to help with the stairs - and it is doing just the trick to help them with their mission either up or down the stairs. It's one of the rails normally used in wardrobes. It has a much smaller diameter - and is just perfect for small hands.

We also added some lights to the stairway to provide some soft light when you get up and down the stairs during the night. We have put in a total 3. One on each flight of steps and one for the middle landing. They run a 5w Compact Flourescent globe, and the lights are double switched at the top and bottom stairs for convenience sake. Here is a few pics of the lights close up and at night.




We've had our sparky install the lights across the front of the house too. It took us ages to find something we liked and suited, but we did in the end. They needed to suit the style of house and also light up the front of the house - more so than just a 'spot' light as such.

We currently have the landscapers over at the moment doing some slabs 'n' stuff so we should be able to bring some before and during photos to you all soonish...stay tuned.

Driveway and fence

Well you certainly don't get much time to blog once you get the keys. So much to do and so little time!

We have now had our driveway and fences installed and they came up up great.
Driveway
The boys from 'AllFX Concreting' did the driveway. First up, they got the Dingo in and dug out the area and laid the formwork and some crushed rock as a base with some reinforcing mesh.

Then came the concrete pour.

After the concrete is laid and smoothed over, they spray the surface with a retardant which prevents the top surface from hardening.

Once dry, they bring out the concrete saw and make the required cuts in the concrete.They then pressure wash the top layer off with a gerni.

Once the top layer has been cleaned off and the aggregate exposed and allowed to dry, they apply 2 coats of sealer. These take a few days to fully cure.


The end result is a nice shiny pebble mix effect.

"Late edit".....

Here is a clear shot of the entire driveway completed.



Fence
Our Fence has also been installed.
The fence is colourbond steel in the 'Merino' colour purchased from Stratco.







To all our friends and fellow bloggers - Merry Christmas, and here's wishing you all a safe and happy 2009!

Thursday 13th Nov - Handover day

Yes, WE HAVE THE KEYS!!
Sorry everyone for taking so long to get back on the blog; it has been a VERY hectic last couple of weeks and little access to the internet.

Tile Cleaning
As you would recall in our the last post, 'D' had issues with trying to get the floor tile grout clean which postponed our handover and has had to call in a professional. Here is a pic of him scrubbing the floor with a solution called 'Lift off' which is supposed to draw out the grime from the grout.


Well it seems to have done the trick as the tiles have come up pretty good.

Termite Protection
As most new home owners would know it is standard for the builder to spray the building perimeter for termites. During our inspection it was explained to us that the protection is only effective as long as you don't disturb the soil. WHAT THE?? This is a brand new house, of course we are gonna disturb the soil and plant stuff and lay pavers and concrete etc. So, while we were waiting for handover we organised for a reticulated termite protection system to be installed. As once we have the keys, the driveway would be installed soon after, and the system had to be installed before hand.

We got the guys from 'Fumapest' to install a reticulated system as they provide a 50 year warranty (provided you ensure the regular maintenance scheme is adhered to). First up they spray the perimeter with a solution called 'Biflex'. They then dig a shallow trench around the house and lay the flat pipe which sits on a sheet of plastic. The system is then capped at a single point and enclosed in a box which allows easy access for regular maintenance top ups. They then cover up the pipe with soil and pump it full of Biflex to soak the area.

Handover
On the morning of Handover we had suspicions that the house may not be ready (as it had been delayed now so often) and when we arrived the cleaner was still running around doing a final mop of the floors.

When the builder provides a clean of the house, they provide what is known as a 'Builders' Clean'. This is a not a full service as you would normally get from a cleaner. So when you get the keys don't expect the place to be picture perfect by any means.

There were still minor quality issues which we expected to be of a better standard, but to minimise any further inconvenience to us, we accepted the keys. As other new owners would know, when you insert the new 'owners' keys, the tumbler in the lock barrel changes to no longer accept the builders' set of keys. This worked for all the locks except the garage entrance, therefore requiring a call out from the locksmith the following day. Fortunately he arrived that day too, as the door handle mechanism for the study had become defective after closing the day before and would not allow us to open the study doors.

As part of handover the tiler was asked to come back one more time within 5 days and re-do the powder room grout as it was no an acceptable standard. For all those DIY'ers out there, it was rougher than 80 grit sandpaper!

Carpet laying
We accepted the keys at around 9:30 am and had the carpet layers in that afternoon at 4:30 pm. Boy they work fast! By the time they left that night, they had laid the rumpus, study and lounge and had prepped the upstairs with the carpet edging.

We are VERY happy with the colour of the carpet, in fact we are very happy with all of the colours we chose, as we can now see them all come together beautifully.

Water tank

In the afternoon of handover I ventured out the back and realised we didn't have a water tank or pump! A quick call to 'D' to ask where it was got a response to the effect of ....It must have walked?. It was later determined that it never actually arrived! Handover was becoming more eventful. Another tank was sourced and in place the next day and the plumbers were onsite in the afternoon to hook it up. Sadly the quality issues don't stop there. The design of the slab for the tank had not allowed for the pump to be situated alongside, and therefore the plumber had to locate the pump on some leftover bricks imposing on our side access as shown below.

Another visit from 'D' later and a more acceptable solution has been devised by adding a pair of 600mm square concrete pads to the left side of the tank to locate the pump and re-route the plumbing accordingly behind the tank to the other side. At this stage we are still waiting for the sparky to turn up and extend the weatherproof GPO to the left side to connect the pump switch.

While the Plumber was erecting the initial pump set up, he severed the reticulated termite pipe, which required a call out from the 'Fumapest' boys again to mend and refill the system.

Driveway
On Friday morning we had Adriaan from 'AllFx Concreting' out to work his magic on the driveway. The guys battled the poor weather to get the drive scraped and formed ready for the pour which will be on Dec 3rd - sadly they can't get it any earlier :-(

Thanks for waiting. You've nearly caught up now - hopefully our Internet is connected soon and we can contribute a little more often with some photos of the inside completed ;-)

8-11-08 Our Second PCI

Yes, we have been a little quiet with blogging, and some may have believed it to be because we were busy moving into our new home; but in this case "no news means, no bloody house".

The shortish version of events goes a little like this. 'D' (our new SS) has been cracking the whip to get the place back into shape ready for our second PCI which had been scheduled for Fri the 31st of Oct. Sadly the more he looked the more issues he found. Subsequently, the date was then moved out to Monday the 3rd to allow the new painter, 'L', to work right through the weekend to eventually re-paint the entire house. Then on Monday morning we got a phone call to say that they would need to move the date further out to Wed the 5th as they didn't realise how big a job it was.

Finally, on Wed, the inspection took place, starting at 2pm with both 'D' and the 'L' onsite. First impressions were that the finish was much, much better than the original; 'L' was a providing an excellent finish to the gloss woodwork with a mirror result. We were alsolucky enough to score a bonus of 'Wattyl ID' paint on all the feature walls and skirts/Arcs as part of thr re-paint. 'L' advised that some have taken 5 coats to get it right and said in some ways we are lucky that this has happened because the finished product is looking just 'shmicko'. Anyway, as we wandered through the rooms and pointed out paint defects, 'L' was straight on to them, scraping and filling as we went - how's that for service! 'L' was a very friendly & lovely guy who was only too happy to fill & paint anything missed and just apologetic and explained that it was a huge job and that sometimes he could miss some dents. The number of defects found was around 5% of what we had found in the first PCI and a much welcomed surprise. Several items were still to be rectified from the original PCI list which annoyed me a little as this should have been completed for this inspection, but we had confidence that they were in hand and know that these things can happen. During our external inspection we were happy to see that all of the brickwork had been cleaned up nicely from the re-bricking for the inclusion of the weep holes. (Ohh, and just on the cleaning, the cleaner had not turned up that morning, so the house was not in a totally clean state to be able to determine the finish on certain surfaces). A lot of the guttering had been replaced due to dents and scratches and was looking very nice till we rounded the back corner of the house and Lou noticed several scratches across a 1 foot section of guttering. 'D' wasn't happy - "It wasn't there on Monday" he said. The PCI concluded in a couple of hours, which is what the first one should have been.

In the end 'D' said they would be able to rectify the remaining issues and would more than likely be able to provide us with the keys on Friday afternoon, the 7th Nov - Woohoo!! (note this is the same day as settlement on our existing home). Late afternoon on Thursday the 6th I received a call from 'D' saying that the cleaner had been in and that they had been unable to get the grout clean in the main walkways throughout the lower level. He went on to explain that because the tradies had been tracking mud through the inside constantly they would need to get the tiler back in to scrape out the old grout and re-grout most of the flooring. Handover has now been set for Wed afternoon :-(

On handover day, as most PD owners would know, you normally inspect the house, confirm acceptance and then drive out to the relevant head office to hand over the cheque and accept the keys. In our case 'D' has offered to bring the keys along with him to the handover inspection and save us a 90min round trip to the Berwick head office. He said it was the least they could do, after the process and experience we have had prior to our letter to PD management. I must also say, he has bent over backwards trying to make it all right again and we have confidence he means what he says. He cant stop apologising enough!

Our existing home has now been handed over to the new owners and we have had to shift our household belongings into storage and then move in with Lou's Mum and step dad. As annoying as it is to have to move our stuff into storage, we would rather have the house completely finished and feel it is wholly ours, then to have tradesman entering weeks on end to finish off minor issues. We have explained this to 'D' and he agrees that this is what you should always do too, so that is comforting :-)

While we are on the subject of storage, we found a company that provides what look like medium sized containers, which they call PODS (Portable On Demand Storage). They drop off a POD and you fill it. You can then either get them to pick it up and deliver it to your new address, or they can take it away and store it for a while and drop it off later. We have had to use 2 PODS as well as a couple of trailer loads to friends and relatives.

At this point we must say a BIG thankyou to a few people who have helped us thus far with making the move as effortless as possible; Leam & Shez, Ails & Scotty, my Mum and Dad, Lou's Mum and step Dad, Sean and Gary and Hayley. Thanks also to all our friends and family and fellow bloggers for their well wishes and support.

28-10-08 Nearly there...

Two weeks ago we decided that enough is enough. Enough of the poor workmanship, enough of the slow response time to get things done, and enough of our house looking almost the same, week after week after week from our first PCI. We wrote to PD informing them in no uncertain terms, our issues and concerns with our new home, suggesting to them that maybe they should get someone out there to see for themselves what was going on. We also advised that we didn’t believe that our house would be ready for our second inspection by Oct 26th which had been suggested by ‘F’, because our house was so far off being completed, and it was so plain to see. We pointed out that we just basically expected a lot more progress on our house, 4 weeks out since the first PCI.

Within half an hour of sending the email, I received a call from the Construction Manager 'M', two up from 'F'. He was very apologetic and explained that they would have someone out there that afternoon. Two hours later, I received a call from 'T', 'F's boss, who had gone onsite. He too was also very apologetic and advised us that he would be taking over to manage the remaining issues and finalise construction. 'T' was basically shocked to find what condition our home was still in and agreed that there was no way the house would be ready for at least a few more weeks!

Since then, ‘T’ (who I might add has been fantastic) has come back to us with a schedule to rectify the remaining issues and is trying his best to have the house ready for our second PCI on Monday the 3rd Nov. Then, based on no major defects appearing, we should have handover on Friday 7th Nov. This date will mark 232 days (or 33 wks) since site scrape. Not an anniversary we want to celebrate.

On top of the existing list of issues and defects found by ‘K’ and us, ‘T’ has determined that several other areas around the house were not up to PD standard and has requested that additional works be carried out to bring them up to scratch. We are glad we are now much closer and on our way to a beautiful house and feel confident that the house will be at a much higher standard then what it would have been had we not escalated the issues. Having said that, we still can’t help feeling disappointed with most of the process pre-escalation and still feel a little ‘bitter’.

As a consequence of the situation, our moving plans have been thrown into disarray by the constant delays. We had allowed ourselves a 7 week buffer from the original (supposed) handover date to move out, but it appears that this wasn’t enough and PD will use up every single day of those 7 weeks. Work has been really good about the situation and understanding of the delays and my need to keep postponing my leave. We must also thank Andy and Tony, our carpet layer and sparky for constantly adjusting their schedule to accommodate our delays week after week. We have had to tackle some interesting logistics with the move process we have been forced into which has been documented so we can track who, when, how, where etc…. But we won’t bore you with that stuff. We can see a light at the end of the tunnel; it just may need some more batteries.


As part of the additional works being carried out, they have ripped up and replaced the balcony deck as the boards were laid to close together, resulting in little or no gap for drainage.


Extensive guttering has been replaced around the house (more than what we had suggested) mainly due to scratches/dents during the build.


The 'z' flashing along the outside garage wall (which sits in between the top of the brickwork and the Gutter) has also been replaced. The flashing has to be sitting either vertically or leaning away from the building to deflect any water - ours was leaning into the wall creating a water trap.


The Plasterer has now finished patching up all the walls - this one three times.


This section of cornice has been re-done 3 times.


The tiles around the nib walls have been ripped out and replaced.



The tiles near the Rumpus entry have been ripped up and replaced to float them higher and decrease the gap below the door, as there was a slight valley near the entry.



As part of our inspection we realised that they had forgotten to install the front door 'reed switch' as part of the Alarm install. They have now included the switch along with a few more holes.


The brickie has now finished off all of the weep holes and flashing above the upper storey windows.




The cleaners have done a once over and the painters are due to start today. A second clean will then be carried out before our 2nd PCI on Monday.

Sorry for the long post, but a lot has transpired in recent weeks.

7-10-08 More delays....

Just to provide some detail as to where we are at the moment, we are now into the 28th week since we started building our new home and still more to go; a far cry from the 22 or so weeks it took to build M&Ms, Andy's and P&B's Cremorne 41. It is also 18 weeks since 'K' carried out his Pre-plaster inspection, and 3 weeks since we had our Practical Completion Inspection.

During our Pre-plaster inspection, 'K' made note that there needed to be weep holes and flashing in the brickwork to allow drainage. Refer to the quote from the report:

"There have not been any head flashing, or their accompanying weep holes, installed into the brickwork across the tops of all the first floor window and door frames around this house; nor across the top of the electrical meterbox...These flashing's and the weep holes must be correctly installed to properly water-proof all of these openings"


Fifteen weeks later, when 'K' carried out his pre-handover inspection, the same issue was noted in his 'second' report. Last Thursday, (three weeks after the report), I received a call from 'F' telling me that his building manager has agreed with 'K' and that they will now need to organise to have this issue rectified to be in accordance with the building code. He also advised me that this would add an additional one to two weeks on to our ever increasing schedule!!

To keep coming back with delay after delay based on poor workmanship is so just f'ing FRUSTRATING!
__________________________________________________

I have included some pics below taken over the weekend to show what work has been carried out recently. They have re-aligned the wall near the garage entry door...

...and also re-aligned the wall in the kitchen.


You can see in the picture below how much the base has had to be brought in to make it square again with the tile lines.

The rumpus room ceiling has been adjusted...

..as has the ceiling in the family room.

The wall in one of the cherub's rooms has been straightened.

The games room ceiling has been rectified - previously sagging.

Quading has also been installed across the front door and the garage entry door to neaten up the joints.

One item which we noticed during our inspection was that when the mirror was installed in the Ensuite, and as the basins had already been fitted, they were not able to get the silicone to seal the full distance behind each of the vanity basins. Of all the places to not prevent water getting through, this would have to be one of the worst! This was also included on our inspection report.

And as a final note, we had a quick visit late yesterday afternoon to visually try out the look of some external lights and it looks like 'F' has since checked the work from the plasterers shown in some of the photos above. He has subsequently marked some of them up using the words 'wrong' & 're-do', which leaves you asking the question...How many plasterers does it take to repair a wall?

23-9-08 Bows and Dots

Hi All, sorry for the long breaks between posts and the lack of replies to the comments (which are very much appreciated), but not much has happened to the place in the last week. Work is currently underway to rectify the defects found during our PCI inspection on the 12th. 'F' has been busy scheduling tradies to fix up the defects and has the chippy and plasterer scheduled for this week and the Plumber and Sparky visited last week to do some minor fix-ups.
We are not exactly sure when the place will be ready for the next inspection and are just playing it by ear at the moment.
In response to some of the comments received, I have have included some photos to show what some of the walls looked like after we had checked them for defects. Each red dot represents either a scratch, dent or dag (technical term for raised crap on the wall/surface which was not sanded off before painting). Some defects, actually a lot of them were nails that had not been filled and sanded appropriately.
It amazes me that the tradies take no pride in their work and the even sadder part is that all of this disappointment and frustration falls back onto PD as they are the Face of the tradies. No doubt the tradies get hauled back in again to rectify their work, but you would think that if they get it right the first time they wouldn't need to come back, we would be satisfied with the result, they would be paid sooner and we would get our keys sooner - see, everyone's happy then!!

Here is a shot of the Rumpus room... 'K' picked up that the right hand corner of the bulkead needs to be lifted as it's sagging.


...and the master bedroom...


...the staircase - this area needed a LOT of work.


Once again, common sense played no part in the original location of the light switch for the stairwell. Similar to B&Ps place they had located the light switch behind the hand rail. As shown below, this has now been moved up the wall to a more practical location.


As part of the inspection you are required to sign that you agree that there are no scratches in the cabinets, bench tops windows etc. In the powder room we found several scratches in the bench top. We have been told by 'F' that there is a special team who come out and rectify these scratches and once finished will not be visible. Can't wait to examine the finished surface.


As mentioned in the previous post there are a couple of bowed walls which were picked up not only by 'K', but some of them also by us. This is in one of the cherub's bedrooms.


These next 2 photos show the non-squared walls in the kitchen - it doesn't quite follow the grout line does it?