How often do u talk to your SS (site supervisor) & for what?

Funny how the only time he answered your call was on his day off. Maybe now when you leave a message, he'll return your call. Did you make a complaint about how he spoke to you?

Did you guys and gals get a slab (of beer) for the SS at the start of your build? I've heard a little "gesture" at the start helps him focus his attentions on your build a little more.

Nope - no gestures here. It is his job to facilitate the job - he is paid for by the company. When the house is completed to our specs then he will get a small token of appreciation but not before.

And this is a man who has gone above and beyond for us during our build - but again not until the house is done will he be "rewarded".

WOW people, reading all this and I am so very very happy with my SS. He is very hands-on.
The morning of the site scrape he was on site at 0700 hr, instructed the men and then talked us through the whole building process and all the paperwork that comes with it. He told us that we could expect him twice a week on site and that he would do the paperwork on Wednesday. He left that day around 10 Am. 5 Weeks into the building process we see him twice a week on site and every Wednesday we receive a phone call in which he tells us what the planning for the coming week is. Every time that he is on site we walk through the house and any concern of ours is dealt with immediately. No discussion about the way we look at things or if we are right or not. The end result is always as we want it because we are the customers and it is going to be our house.
Every time he is going to tick a stage as completed he gives us a ring so that we know when the Progress Payment is due.

Communication with the rest of the company is basicly non excisting because the SS deals with it. Sometimes he asks me to send an e-mail to the CSO in case a change in material has to be confirmed, but that is it.

I get contacted by my CLO if we need to sign a variation or pick a colour etc. Apart from that I usually make all the contact and ask all the questions. They have an online progress thing but ours was broken until last week.... and PCI is in about a week and a bit.

I have met the SS once at the tile meeting but he has called a few times to organise things with my boyfriend (outside the company jobs). We have his mobile number and I can probably guess his email address but the rule is not to contact him directly so we don't. Our CLO is very good so we don't really have to worry about contacting him. Can't distract him from workig hard and finishing our house!!

well I have just been given my SS details. I plan to visit our site tomorrow and then ring him on Monday, have a chat tofind out how he wants our "relationship" to work, I will then explain how I want it to work and we will take it from there.

Within a couple of weeks I will organise to meet him (always better to have a personal relationship) and then I plan to find out if he is a beer man or a bourbon man. I have every intention of schmoozing him because I want him to deliver good results for me and that will allow me to ask for favours and hopefully allow for a trouble free and with luck quick build.

Well thats the plan anyway, its worked on other projects I have been involved with so I am hoping it works for my house

I have been in frequent contact with our SS from the get-go, mainly by phone. He'd call us for updates or to clarify things (usually once a week) and at that time l'd have my list of questions or concerns ready for him If it was something major then l'd call him straight away.

Now that the house is almost finished we've had much more in-person contact.... probably because l'm up at the house a heck of alot and catch him when he's there doing stuff

He's been a terrific SS overall...a bit forgetful with telling tradies minor things we wanted done (eg placement of heater thermostat) but with us having unlimited access to the house, l've been able to quickly pick up any errors or clarify stuff with the tradies directly

Its pretty simple, screen your calls. If its not convenient, return the call when it is! Dont EVER tell a customer not to call.

Our SS told us he would ring every week to keep us informed about the progress. It has turned out to be closer to once every three weeks. We were not given the SS's number, and despite a number of emails to the Construction Administrator, only one has been acknowledged or answered. The one that elicited a response was when we sent a copy of our independent building inspector's report, and, apart from being told we would receive a response in 10 days, she took us to task for being onsite without the SS present, despite us having tried to set up a time with no response from her.

I did acknowledge that I would be happy to arrange visits 7 days in advance, but they would need to let me know earlier when the next stage was reached. She also included a section on the requirements for anyone coming on site from a health a safety view point, including what footwear they needed, what H&S training they had received and so on.

They know the building inspector well, so it was a little petulant of them.

I also had a look around with my data cabler and was amused to see that their concern for H&S did not extend to the contractors they use. None of the people on site that I saw were wearing safety shoes!

We are also concerned that some of the problems our inspector spotted, and drew to the attention of our SS's boss that evening, would have been easy and quick to fix had they have been acted on quickly, instead, work has continued and, as I understand the situation, will now require brick work to be removed in order for the problems to be remediated.

Not happy.

That's terrible, I don' t understand some builders. My SS replies to my TXT messages I guess I got a good one.

Call him back up, tell him to grow a pair, and inform him of who's paying his wages - YOU!

Heya bigred,

It appears something has changed since then. He calls me now to give me progress updates and is extremely polite. He said there was a new policy to ensure better communication with customers.

Perhaps sooooooo many customers complained that management HAD to do something about it.

Or maybe they were reading through the Homeone forums

Hehehe so in other words, he doesn't want to call you, he just has to coz otherwise he gets sacked.

Our SS has called us EVERY Friday (except one). He's great.

As long as they call what difference does it matter why? It's not like they are going to just call to have a chat, so yeah it's their job and that's why they do it

What kinds of jobs are people asking the tradies to do for cash? Maybe I can save some money too And are they doing the jobs befoe or after hand over?

Would you let us use your SS? Pretty please! We'd love to have that level of communication.

Nah - I don't think that's a good idea before handover.

Those tradies are sub-contracted by (or employees of) the builder.
If you pressure them to do something off-plan for cash, they may well do it - but then they may well get the sack or lose all further contract work with the builder if the change is discovered.

Feel free to take their contact details for post-handover work though.

What do other's think ?