We have Kitchen

Another busy month has gone by, with further works on electrical, eaves, carpentry and last bit of render work. It has been so refreshing to see trades on site everyday compared to this time last year. 

Inside works have been started with the 2nd fix plumbing underway, first as always is the waterproofing layer to go in:

Yet more area's under construction, ive sheeted up what i had spare lying around with more storage in the roofspace of the garage

 

 Door delivery arrived, and most of them are framed and installed with door hardware, carpenters have been very busy!

 I finished hanging my projector screen, with border, totals 3.2m across - slightly oversize for the room its going in

Testing some colour samples against the screen, the best so far has been a grey from Dulux called milton moon, im keen to try some darker colours next; have heard great things about black screen paint

Came home from work one day to find the kitchen and all the cabinets in, very happy wife got to see them shift all the vanities in.

The glass doors either side look fantastic, very happy with the choices we picked

Front door under construction, centre peice is WA Marri timber surrounded by American Ash, another awesome piece of work from our local furniture company down the road Scott's Custom Furniture

Stairs finally going in after originally being quoted years ago! took only one bloke to install and finish the whole thing

Landing is oversize, and the width of stair is just under a metre wide, should make for moving items up and down the stairs easier, plus storage under the stairs, plenty of room

Quick holiday to Pearl Beach with the family to keep us sane, getting closer to paint and tiling

Back on the Shovel

Its all underway, and what a change it has been. my motivation is back and ive been hard at work digging myself senseless; putting in all the trenches that i 'should' ever need.

Renderers on site to finish the remainder of the walls, guys all worked like a well oiled machine, cant wait to see what it looks like after its painted.

 

Every window to be removed, frames replaced and glass due to vandalism and damage

 Howards storage world closing down sale, so we bought the whole shop of frames and wardrobes

 

Meanwhile, we have Gas and Power on site, so no more generators just power bills :) This is the device they use to dig under the roadway to run the gas line.

Scaffolding back up to fix the render and repaint top floor, the cage is back on.

 

Finally stegbar install our dinning window, all the light coming in yay!

Progress after all this time is so awesome to see, just having the site cleaner arrive and take the skip away brings fresh new life into the shell that was our gloomy house. Below is the beam for the garage which was installed upside down... and was bowed 30mm in the centre - only after 18months since it was installed!

Here's me playing with the FLIR camera with the building inspector for a update on the remedial work, its great for finding leaks and assisting with moisture locating.

Another project ive been on is my projector screen i'm building, i have tested with lycra, backout curtain, projector screen material and found painted wall to be better then them all. Used heavy duty angle to hold the weight of the frame and magnets from old hard drives to steady it. Screen size will be 3.2m across ample for the room its in.

Irrigation valve box to house the bore pump and cabling

 

And finally me going to town on the trenches out the back, i stopped counting the shear amount of time it has taken me, it started off as a bit of a test to see how far i could go and how much motivation i had left in it, by the end of it i kept telling myself to get a dingo for one day and have it all done. I ran the gravity connection to the two rain water tanks, water to the deck and to the other side of the yard. together with power and networking to the shed. The sparkies thought i was crazy and even gave me a hand here and there. The things you find underground in your garden! some yee-old vacum cleaner all sorts of glass, golf balls, bricks and bra's

Mini Site Supervisor inspecting my joins, and the progress!

Next week ill be starting on the deck, huge effort from Desyn so far, great to see so much happening!

A New Hope

Well given this is the 5th time i've written this, its been hard to continue with this blog.

The last 6 months have been trying to say the least, and the short of it is that the builder went under and we got another one to continue. The long of it was that we had to:

• get lawyers
• building inspectors
• police involved
• 5 different quotes (and over 12x shut doors to lots of builders who wouldn't touch it), 
• months and i mean MONTHS of delays with the bank, 
• just under 100k of remedial work, 
• second building contract

and still thousands spent in the wrong direction.

From the fallout though, we got away lightly, some contractors have lost their homes. Almost 3million dollars owed to them and many other families like mine affected directly and more severely than ours. We still had a place to live and we had each others support.

Cafe in Central Market Arcade shuts after two months amid bitter owner split
https://www.insolvencynotices.com.au

Endeavour Homes is no more, and given it was management and namely the one person at the top is to blame. He dodged paying trades, dodged proper work ethic and insisted it was the clients fault for the company to fail. Right about the same time i wrote the last post; i found out later that he had opened a sandwich shop with the money that i and other people had given him; in good faith for works "somewhat " completed. Unfortunately the money didn't go to the hard working trades doing the actual job and buying the actual materials.

With the communication faults we had and numerous issues not being resolved my wife and i saw to take action. We first contacted HIA and received no assistance in resolving the said issues with workmanship and lack of updates; they suggested we speak to lawyer. (so yes let that be a lesson, if you need help in the building industry, and your a client you are on your own)
After sourcing a FANTASTIC lawyer in Adelaide (whom only deals with the construction industry) they suggested we get a snapshot of the house and get the building inspected properly. Note there is building inspectors in Adelaide for pre-sales and actual inspectors whom do work for lawyers - you get what you pay for.
We were astounded to find that we had over 11 pages of defects, and some extremely expensive to fix and structurally related. Gobsmacked to say the words.. could not understand how we had just gone through all this drama and found more things to not only fix but how could happen under our noses.
We then used the information we had to start the HIA legal process as part of the contract you sign, there is a dispute process.

The response we got from our builder was again astounding, they believed that the inspector was wrong, our complaints were premature, their management was not negligent and so on. (if you put in writing a report like this the builder MUST answer it as part of the contract you sign, they cant just ignore it) To add insult to injury, they used it as a excuse not to do anymore work until we pay for works not even started! - bah illegal!

Endeavour went under whilst this was underway, and it would seam that the other clients must have been calling lawyers like i was. We then went through a huge period of uncertainty; with things disappearing from our site front fence, down pipes, ladders and constant issues with vandals we had no one to turn to. Our house now wasn't even at lock up, pages of things to fix and we couldn't find a builder to take it on.

Lucky we were to find Desyn Homes they were within 10k of the other 3 quotes we had for the remedial and remainder of the build. So far we have now all the structural issues resolved, cosmetic issues with the render sorted, electrical almost re-ran! and now past the lock up stage into 2nd fix finally.

so there's my rant gone, we now move into the fun stuff

Insulation went in (Han Solo called and said stop shaving chewie)

Gyprock

The light at the end is getting brighter.... :)

Words cannot....

What can i report on? since the last post what 3 months ago now

All we've got since then is delays, excuses, vandals, drama's unfolding, slackness, lies and more grey hairs. We have had 1st fix electrical completed, 1st fix plumbing completed, roofing 80% completed....

We were told that before Christmas the house would be at lock up and people would be continuing through the break. Of course since my last post my builder went silent didn't hear a thing from him until the 4th of Jan and even then it was just simply the trades will be back at work on the following week. No grievances given due to the vandals that visited the house numerous times; giving us yet more to worry about. Since then its been a painful struggle with the builder to get trades on site and finish work.

Again very disheartening when you drive past to see no one on site; has caused us considerable stress. I expected the vandals over Christmas break damaging our air con and graffiti on every window and wall. But i didn't expect to find cracks in the render already; more things that need attention let alone following what bullshit schedule they give us.

Looking back over the year there has been large periods of no work or one trade a week; simply no way to build a house in my opinion. Ive been planning this house for over 8 years and it has really shut me down knowing that there's simply no end in sight. If i had more time i would manage it myself get it done properly. Ive lost all confidence in building in general.

The only good news i can give you is our gyprock is planned for next week and we have constantly nagged our builder to get shit back on track; so i can only hope that we can get to lock up early this month.

I can understand that companies have dark periods; downturn in the economy effects my work as much as the rest of the country. However what i cant understand is how people can simply lie to you nor not inform you of issues. I can only hope that this is my lowest low

Finally un-caged

Long time between posts; alot of progress but again it hasn't been without its fair share of emails, meetings, phone calls and nagging. You do feel at times like your having to carry the whip just to get people on site and get an answer so simple questions. As i look back on the previous post i still find it hard to believe that was when they were 'starting' the roof; i am updating my blog as they are now finishing it.


As those contractors finished the roof, it took further weeks of waiting to get others to start on external wall rendering, and even longer for eaves to be underway. Then finally the scaffolding could come down. All our friends feel for us and our struggle with our builder; endless delays and the news that not only we wouldn't be in for christmas, but we would miss the start of our daughters school and even the beginning of March is on the horizon. Most people wouldn't accept this; we have tried to be really patient and fortunately for the builder the trades and work on site has been nothing short of well done. It still doesn't feel great when we are now over one year from starting and still not at lockup as yet.

Base coat of render going on

First process was a primer to the magclad, then render, second finishing coat then paint

Bam! scaffolding is gone!

Actually starting to look like a house, services have started as well, air-con 1st fix completed and plumbers rough in is underway.

Mixer taps pretty much going everywhere, rain water hooked up to the laundry and all toilets

Side project ive been working on, roof access ladder rack, and a platform for my radio mast, very solid and super safe

Eventually we will get there, stay optimistic