It's a Miracle, we got handover!

Yes we thought there was no way in the world we would get handover today especially as nothing much was done by 3:30 yesterday. Anyway we went to the appointment at 10:00 not expecting anything but just to see what happens. Almost everything had been done and the things that were not were the cabinets and the cleaning and they arrived and finished it while we were there!

After we waited for the cabinets to be finished we went off to the Berwick office and got the keys!!!!!

There are a few little things that still need to be done like a missing flyscreen, a missing roof tile, Renani hot water controller not working and the keys we were given only open one of the doors so we have no keys for the other ones. But WE HAVE A HOUSE, YAAY!!! We thought it would never happen but our SS managed to make it happen.

Will write more we I have time, lots to organise now.

Can't see handover happening

David and I went to the house today at 3:00 (handover is meant to be tomorrow morning) and we could see the downpipe has been fixed but the cabinet makers have obviously not come nor had the painters. The flyscreen laying in the backyard is still there all bent up and the house has not been cleaned. There was nobody there of course.

Considering once the bathroom vanity top has been replaced they still need a plumber to put the sink back on there is no hope for tomorrow. SS has not answered his phone all day. I called CSR to find out what is going on, she said she would get the building manager to call but again nothing.

We are totally at a loss as to what to do, there does not seem to be any hope of ever getting everything done and we have the people coming on Monday to install the plantation shutters. Maybe they will accept our offer of handover now in return for a $10,000 refund??? Speaking of refunds they actually have agreed to give us the $1000 refund for the gutters to not be replaced.

We still haven't given notice on our rental so maybe we can just give up on getting the house and keep renting. It would be just like having an investment property but with no-one living in it!

Spat the Dummy

Last week our site supervisor agreed to meet us on Tuesday morning 10:00 at the house so we could go through what has been done and what it will take to get us in. We had not been able to look inside for quite a while so we really need to see what had been done. This whole thing has been so stressful and is making me sick literally I have got really bad bronchitis. So anyway after being up all night coughing and thinking about the house and getting no sleep I was in a fine mood by the morning NOT! David is so busy at work at the moment he could only get til 1:00 off so we drove in separate cars, at 9:30 when we are both on the road SS calls to say can we make it 11:00 as he has been called into a meeting with building manager, how rude! David basically says no way get your butt down here. Now I am in an even worse mood.


SS was only 10 mins late in the end which we were expecting worse but in that time we had found an open window and jumped in and started looking around, this is when my blood started to boil. In 4.5 weeks hardly any of the items on the list had been fixed and even some new problems had come up such as some idiot leaning an unused door up against our feature wall causing the paint to be scratched and dented the whole way along.


I had never met SS before but I totally went nuts at him he just cannot seem to get anything done. He started calling tradesmen in a panic. In the end we came up with a list of items that had to be fixed before we get handover and I told him we want handover on Friday which he said we would definitely have he absolutely promised. I said ok can I get tradesmen to come on Monday? and he said definitely. I even mentioned that if there is no handover on Friday I am just breaking a window on Monday to let my tradesmen in. I also said that if the house is not ready on Friday we can negotiate a refund to cover the fact that we will need to get all the things fixed ourselves and I am thinking $10,000 should cover it. Obviously he said that he could not authorise that sort of thing and we would have to speak to the building manager Dean. This is the same building manager who has never once got involved in our job even though we are way over contract time. Thanks Dean!

There are a number of items on Kevin's list that we are just not bothering about as they are just not capable of fixing stuff, we now just want the list to be manageable and only the essential stuff on it. Some examples of this are tiling that is not right and stains on the render.

As for our Colorbond gutters that had been damaged by the brick cleaners and have now been painted over. I called the manufacturer and they confirmed that it would no longer be under warranty and that they should be replaced and we are getting an inferior product even though we have paid for Colorbond. As there is no way in the world we want to wait for the entire gutters and fascia to be replaced I decided to write to PD requesting a $1000 refund to accept the inferior product.

Here are some pictures of the things that need to be fixed:

The cabinet makers (apparently named Claytons) finally came back to finish the walk in robe cupboards. This is a picture of the door they installed. No thought to the fact that it was damaged and would just need to be replaced.
This is how neatly they get things to line up NOT
This is where they have put the shelf in the wrong way with the chipboard facing the front, we cant just change it round because it has a hole drilled in the back to accommodate the pipe.
This is the top of the bathroom vanity that has been scratched for ages but still not replaced
This is our new baby's wardrobe door handles that don't even come close to lining up (not sure if you can tell from the pic)
Again not sure if you can tell from the pic but Kevin noticed this feature column is very crooked. We have given up on bothering getting this fixed after SS asked us today "so which one is it?", he has had the inspection report for 4 weeks and not bothered to find out!
A render stain in the front bedroom window. We have given up on this one too as you can't see it from the street.
Scratched down pipe right through to the metal, this is on the to be fixed list.

Still Nothing

After sending my email on Tuesday to PD explaining how totally fed up we are we finally heard back from CSR this morning (she might have been away). She sent an email saying "I have passed your e-mail onto our management team as well as SS. Please advise if you have not received any contact from SS by the end of the day". I have just written back saying we did not hear from him.

If that email did not promote any action then nothing will, I give up. I guess we will see what happens in the next few days.

Walkthrough Cancelled

Yes we had a walkthrough scheduled for today where we were supposed to see a finished house with the potential for handover this afternoon. I drove by yesterday morning and could see of course that the house is no where near finished. David called SS so say shall we cancel the meeting and SS said that things would be finished that afternoon. Anyway SS sends text this morning saying save your leave (from work) the cabinet maker did not come. So walkthrough cancelled. Luckily I had not bothered to get the bank to send the final payment because I can see we are still miles off handover.

I have driven past every day lately and there is never anybody there including today. We are now 33 weeks since site scrape and we were sold into a guaranteed build time of 20 weeks with a verbal indication of 16, what a joke! We are now 1 month over on our contract and I cannot see any end in sight. Kevin's list of issues that came out of the inspection is nothing short of horrifying.

One of the issues he picked up on was huge scratches on our bifold doors. The Building Commission’s, Guide to Standards and Tolerances clause 18.04 Glazing, states: "Scratches, fractures, chips or blemishes on glazing and mirrors are defects if they are caused by the builder and can be seen from a normal viewing position. Minor scratches, fractures, chips or other blemishes that are not more than 10mm long and where there are not more than three blemishes per pane, are not defects’
Our scratches are huge and very visible.
This is the response we got from PD about the issue "the windows after being inspected by the Building Manager will not be replaced as they are not deemed defective"

We did not pay 4k to upgrade to bifold doors to have them handed over as damaged. During the entire build process PD made NO effort what so ever to protect any of the windows on the house from damage. On other builds I have seen the windows had a protective plastic type coating on them but not ours. Hence of course the windows have been damaged by careless tradesmen, why should this become our problem? We are waiting for the handover of a new house not a damaged one. I cannot see where the building manager is coming from to say the scratches are not defects when at least one of them is 10 times the size mentioned in the standard.

Regardless of issues that need to be fixed we still do not have a bathroom mirror or walk in robe cupboards. These are just yet to be installed.

I am so thankful that due to reading everyones blogs we decided not to give notice on our rental until we have the keys to the new house in our hand. Although this will cost us an extra month's rent it will mean we don't have to accept handover of an unfinished house due to having no where to live.

I have just sent an email to our CSR basically saying that we are fed up so we shall see what the result is.

Practical Completion Inspection

Sorry I have not posted about our inspection yet, I just have not got around to it, I was also waiting to hear what was happening but I still don't know anyway.

We had our Practical Completion Inspection last Friday at 10:00. We had let our SS know that Kevin was coming to do his inspection at the same time and he was fine with it. I thought that was a bit strange because our first SS did not want to be around when Kevin was inspecting (which I can understand). Anyway at 9:15 Friday SS calls us to say it can be embarrassing for both parties if SS is there at Kevin's inspection so he would just come and unlock and then we would call when Kevin was leaving and he would come to continue inspection.

Kevin found quite a few things I can't remember what they all are (he said he would have his report done by Wednesday morning but we are not getting it til tomorrow now). The worst item was that the Colorbond fascia has been affected by the brick cleaning fluid (see picture) the entire way around the house. Kevin say this cannot be repaired according to the manufacturer and must be replaced otherwise the whole lot will just rust. He said sometimes he sees this happen on bits of the fascia but rarely around the whole house like we have it (great!)
SS has the Colorbond people coming out today to advise if it can be fixed without replacing gutters and fascia (sounds doubtful) but if not the whole lot has to come off and be replaced!

Other issues were not as bad. Lots of paint touch ups needed, scratched windows including the bi fold doors, scratched and dented cabinets, cupboard shelves missing, leaking pipes, kitchen sink not installed properly, feature column installed on a slant. Many issues we would not have picked up on without Kevin's help.

In the end SS did not show up so we just left after trying to finish the inspection ourselves. We have no idea when handover will be now but we will certainly need a re-inspection before hand.

Our ensuite mirror has been put in and also the shower screens. Painting issues have been fixed but we have not checked the work.

We have a handover date!

We were thrilled to find out yesterday that our Practical Completion Inspection is booked for Friday 10th Oct with our hand over date to be the Friday after. Obviously this relies on everything getting fixed in one week so it is certainly not set in stone. At least they know we are having Kevin do the inspection so are less likely to pass things off as ok when they are not. We are not going to give notice on our rental until we have had the inspection so if any of the items are major we will not have to accept handover because we have nowhere to live.

The house has been cleaned internally so we can get a nicer view of the kitchen. I am not sure if the house gets cleaned again but it is nowhere near clean! The spa still looks like it did in my last post.
The bobcat has also been to visit the outside of the house and the rubbish cage has gone. It looks so much nicer. David and I spent a back breaking couple of hours last weekend clearing up all the dried concrete, broken bricks and builders rubbish from around the back and sides of the house and put it into a big pile in the front. We are glad this has been taken away, we are also glad we made the effort because a lot of it was sort of buried and we think they would just have tried to cover it up.
This is the alfresco area, they have bought dirt in to cover up the slab a bit.

There is really not much left to do inside just shower screens, mirrors and some tapware that I can think of. All that is booked for next week. The holes in the tiles have been fixed.

All our door handles are on although the wrong ones have been installed on the front and laundry doors. I even told the guy they were wrong but he put them on anyway. There is no doubt they will have to change them because the PCV is very clear.

Contract Finished, House Not

Well today is the contract finish date but of course we are not finished. From tomorrow PD have to start paying us penalties. This certainly does not make things hurry up. We are supposed to be given a handover date next week but as we are having Kevin do another inspection I am sure it will not be achieved.

The temp fencing and portaloo have been removed so the house looks a lot nicer from the front. The stain on the windows and portico have gone quite dark which is nice but it has made our garage door look even more orange so we might have to change them one day.
The tiling has now been grouted so it looks nicer now. It is hard to get a pic of the feature strip because it always looks wonky from the angle.
Some of our taps have been put in. It will be nice when the spa gets cleaned up.
Our shower heads have been put in. This is the one in the ensuite, it has holes in the tiles on the side. Does this mean it has to be re-done?

The water tank is now in. It is annoying that the concrete slab is so much bigger than the tank as it is taking up more of our precious back area than it needs to!
Since I took these photos on Friday the internal door handles have been installed so that must have been done on Saturday.

Tiling Almost Finished

The tiling is almost finished. There is just a few more tiles to do today and then grouting on Monday. The tiler seems very good and cares about his work, he really seems to make the effort to get everything perfect (not that I would know the difference between good tiling and bad tiling). He even called us in on his first day and gave us a few different options about the placement of the tiles in the shower so make sure we got the cut tiles where we liked them best.

This is the ensuite shower. I think the feature tile would have been better with two across instead of three but it is hard to tell without the grout and the shower screen on.

The only thing he has done that I am not a great fan of is this shape in the shower base, I would have preferred them straight squares. David likes it this way.

Main bathroom looks great.
Spa hob
Laundry
Here is a pic of our new splash back. I turned the lights on to see how it looks. I was expecting that these lights would be in the cupboard shining down like in the display homes not on the outside underneath. I think the splash back looks ok now.
For some reason the step down to our garage is really big so PD said they would have to put in an extra step. I don't know why this is because it is not on the plan and surely the height of the garage floor compared to the main house is a standard thing with their houses? Anyway the step is nearly finished but I found in fact it is two steps, grrrrrrrr. This is taking up a nice chunk of our garage!

More progress

The glass splashback went in today. We chose white with starfire glass which is a bit boring. We have white ceilings and a different shade of white skirtings and sort of white perspex inserts in our cupboards and a sort of white bench. The splashback adds yet another different shade of white, I think it would have been better to get the wall colour or something exciting like red! I will reserve judgement on this til I look at it again. I will post pics tomorrow.

The electrical work continued, lots of the downlights are in now and wires are hanging out where powerpoints will be. Our rangehood and toliet/shower exhaust fans and in too. For some reason the man hole has been put in the walk in robe instead of the hall which is not a bad thing but it makes it hard to put a light in the middle of the walk in because that is where the man hole is! We will try to get them to put a light either side of the man hole otherwise we will have a dark end of the robe.

The water tank has been delivered and is now in the garage, it is not as big as I was worried it would be.

The tiler called to ask to meet us at the house tomorrow so we can tell him where we want the feature tiles so that is great that he is going to start. I am very surprised at the pace things are going at now.

Electrical Started

I can't believe I am posting again already! I went today to check if the tiler had started but alas he was not there. The painters were still finishing off their work. I was most surprised to find the electrical work had started. All the aircon and heating vents are in and they have started making holes for some power points and lights.

This is the back wall of our master bedroom. We included a light switch so that we don't have to walk all the way to the door to turn the lights off. We thought the switch would be with the power points down low but it is our stuff up not to have clarified this. Now we have a white light switch slap in the middle of our brown feature wall. Oh well can't do much about that one, serves us right for being lazy!

Feature walls

How exciting, some of our feature walls were finished on Friday. This one is in the rumpus room. The colour is Cafe Noir.
This is Hayley's room. It is called Pink Love and has come out great. We did not get a sample pot for this one so we did not really know if it would be nice but we are very happy with it. We wanted it to be reasonably bright because the other walls in the room are white. Hayley seems to like to too and she said the word "pink" which we have never heard her say before.

5 days work in a row!

Well things are looking up, the painters have worked five days in a row! Things are finally moving along again. All the woodwork on the front facade has now been stained, we are really happy with how well it matches the garage door.
Front door has just been stained. The mark on the glass is a sticker. As much as clear glass looks best we decided on translucent glass for the door and sidelights so people can't see in at us.
This picture shows the skirting colour contrasting the wall colour. Ensuite
The tiler was supposed to start this week but the painters said no way to that so now he is supposed to start on Monday. Our SS says we are three days behind the estimate he gave us of "mid October" but he says he should be able to make it up but it is still at least two weeks over the contract period.

Now we are going backwards!

Yes we have been waiting for ages for the painters to turn up but as you can see from the pictures the wrong sort of "painters" did. We have this lovely black spray paint over lots of walls now. It seems we had a visit last Friday night from those who got in through the rumpus room window. This window was probably left open by the useless unreliable painters who never show up (but that's just our assumption). At least before we had one layer of paint on the walls now we are back to square one!

We are so fed up now with Porter Davis and their promises. What a load of crap their guaranteed 20 week build is! We have had one days rain delay and no delays on materials so our build going over contract time is due totally to incompetent project management on their behalf. Again we were promised that the painters would definitely be there on Tuesday, so far I have driven past every day this week and of course NOTHING and no word from anyone as to why this is. We were promised this week would be heaps of activity but so far only the carpenter and plaster have turned up to finish the fix which as far as I was aware was finished (and paid for) 25 July. I think they also fixed some cornices etc that were pulled out while fixing the leak in the roof (not that we have actually been told it has been fixed or what the problem was). So it is now SEPTEMBER and painting started 31st JULY grrrrrrrrr.

On the brighter side, some time during the last few weeks of inactivity our Quantum Quartz kitchen benches have been installed and they look good. It has a covering on the top so it is hard to see it properly.

Anyway we are so angry at the moment it looks like it never going to be finished. Maybe we wont even be in by Christmas? The tiler is supposed to come on Monday to start the tiling even though the painting is not done so it will be interesting to see if he turns up.

Also the step down from the hall way into the garage is so big that it would not get a certificate of occupancy so now they have to build us a step. They are suggesting they use left over bricks with concrete on top to build this. Would this look ok? Or should it just be concrete with no bricks?

Render is painted

The render has been painted over the weekend which is good. Other than that nothing has happened. It is so frustrating the painters started on 31st July and have only been 3 days all up so nothing has been done since last pics. The tiles were delivered ages ago but I think they have to wait for the painting to finish before they start. Our 3rd SS started last week so will take a while to get up to speed. In the mean time every time I drive past there is no-one there, grrrrrrr.



When inside recently we have also noticed new watermarks all over the slab in three adjoining rooms with a very big section in the rumpus room. There does not seem to be any water marks on the walls so I guess it must be running down the wall cavity from the roof. Great!!

Painting Continues and Garage Door On

All but one time this week when I have driven past the house there has been nobody working. Painting is under way but could be faster. The whole house has been sprayed but there is obviously a lot more to go. It is amazing the 10 huge tins of paint were left in the garage from Friday til Tuesday in full view of the street with the temp fencing wide open and still nobody stole it. As far as I know we have not had one thing taken from our site!

The issue with the unwanted wardrobe brackets has been resolved and they are being removed. We upgraded our wardrobe to be exactly as in the display home with a cupboard on each side and some extra laminex so we expected it to look the same. No to mention the fact that the brackets were right where the cupboards were supposed to go so they couldn't stay anyway. I will be interested to hear about what happens with the others building with PD who have these brackets and don't like them.

The tiles have been delivered (I could see them through the windows), hopefully they are the right ones. Not sure when tiling will start.

Our timber look garage door has been installed, I pulled it down a little bit to take this photo. The colour looks good and will look even better once the render is painted and the timber windows and features are stained.

This pic shows the contrast between our wall colour and the ceiling white.

Painting Started Today

Yes as the title of this post says, painting started today! There was nothing really to photograph but maybe in a few days there will be. They are starting with the garage ceiling because apparently the garage door is due to arrive very soon. It should be interesting because we have chosen a timber look door but have not really seen what it looks like so it could be a disaster. Our SS says we are about 4-6 weeks from handover but more like 6, this is about what I expected.

One optional extra we chose was to have a double bin in one of our kitchen cupboards for rubbish and recycling. It is meant to fill the whole cupboard but the one they have installed is so small and only takes up the bottom section of the cupboard and is pathetic looking. This extra was $625 so not cheap, SS is supposed to sort this out.

Our basins have been installed and look very nice. This is a pic of the main bathroom vanity. In the ensuite the taps don't line up with the basin so the plumber has to come back to fix them as well as the position of the spa taps.

Also here is a pic of the hanging space in our walk in robe. What are the two brackets below the shelf? SS say they are meant to be there. Is he kidding? They are not in the display homes. Not to mention the rob has two parallel sides and one side has the two brackets like this and the other side has just one in the middle!

Kitchen is in!

Yes our kitchen is now in. It was not totally finished when I took these pictures yesterday but it is only some handles missing.


This picture is in our pantry. The benchtop is a laminex version of the Quantum Qartz bench we are getting for the main benches. Very are very happy with the colour combination of the cupboards and the benchtops.

The laundry with all the cupboards installed
And our ensuite vanity again. No handles or basins yet.