Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Oct 29, 2011 11:38 am Hi all
Im extremely dissappointed and peeved at the moment.We have got a transportable house, drawn up with a bullnose verandah on the front.This plan Im posting is the only one we have signed, but the builders turned up to do it thursday, and its different, has 2 extra posts and also the ends are different, we specified we didnt want the the flat ends like the old shopfront buildings.Well that is what we have, the flat ends.Im okay with that, I can cope, but I only found out last night that we have 2 extra posts along the front, and one of the posts is not where it was in the plans, its actually in front of the front door, which is where we were going to have decking and steps.Just not sure where to go from here, cant talk to the foreman until monday, and dont think they will care at all.The builder [who is not associated with the company, only contracted for this job]will finish the verandah on monday and has already told us that he would be flat out and would not be back for some time.What has happened is the draughtsman has drawn the verandah on in the pictured plan, then the builder has said that plan is not good enbough and needs a more detailed plan.So the draughtsman has done a floorplan for the builder, which we have not seen, and somewhere somehow its altered and more posts added.I just cant work out what kind of halfwit has put a post in front of the front door.In the pictures you can see the grey posts are the ones Im referring too, the pine ones are support only.GGRRRRRRRR......where do we go from here?I dont want to be difficult, just want what we signed for. cohttp://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/img0011600x1200.jpg http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/verandahside1600x1200.jpg http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/verandahside1600x1200.jpg http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/frontofhouse1600x1200.jpg http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/fromfrontstep1600x1200.jpg http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/fromfrontgate1600x1200.jpghttp://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h350/nickbradjaxen/othersideverandah1600x1200.jpg Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 3Oct 29, 2011 1:27 pm The trouble is if we insist on it being changed now, we will probably end up with another delay of up to 2 months I reckon, so dont know if we can do it now at this late stage.just dont know what to do about it at all! Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 4Oct 29, 2011 3:52 pm They either provide what you have signed your contract for or compensate you in some way. If it is their error they must still rectify it and complete within contracted time frame-this is on the proviso that you are not an owner/builder...plans cannot be changed without your signing off on them... Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 5Oct 29, 2011 4:27 pm Quote: So the draughtsman has done a floorplan for the builder, which we have not seen, and somewhere somehow its altered and more posts added. I think as you didn't sight the amended plans which contained the ridiculous post spacings in front of a door (and windows) you have a legitimate claims against the draughtsman and builder for not getting your OK before work started. Did you get it in writing that it was to be built with returns, or hips, in the roof? Its a bit more involved than simply moving the posts now as the joins in the fascia should to be over a post for strength, which the builder may have done using the extra posts. Moving the posts could see the fascia joins midway and unsupported The builder is calling your bluff into accepting what he has thrown together when he says he wont be back for sometime. Tell him two can play that game and you will be knocking $100/week off his price while he is absent. Just be careful the builder doesn't sneak back when you are out and finish this mess, without your changes. Hopefully you haven't paid either for their work. Arfur Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 6Oct 29, 2011 4:51 pm Mary don't let them bully you with the 2 month wait, you'll be left with their stupid mistake for much, much longer...and why should you have to accept it?? I know I wouldn't!! There are too many mistakes made that they try to bully us into accepting just to cover their a**ses!! I was talking to a building supervisor about this during the week, he's been working O/S for 10+ years and is appalled at the lack of quality in the building industry since his return and says until homeowners complain and complain (where there is cause) then it won't change anytime soon because the young blokes who will be apprenticed to the current tradies will only carry on their slack ?workmanship, then they will pass it to the next generation...and on it goes!! You get the drift?? If the builder won't rectify the mistake, tell him/her you will be contacting the Fair Trading Department and requesting their inspector come and take a look. Make sure you keep us updated on the progress, please? Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 7Oct 29, 2011 5:11 pm Quote: tell him/her you will be contacting the Fair Trading Department and requesting their inspector come and take a look From my experience with Fair Trading they will only offer an opinion over the phone with suggestions what you do, then go back to warming a chair leaving you on your own. I agree 100% with everything else HappyCamper said and stare in disbelief at the pitiful building industry standards in pursuit of the almighty dollar, since I retired a few years ago. Arfur Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 8Oct 29, 2011 9:04 pm thanks so much everyone,im not being unreasonable am I? my husband is not happy with it either but he is thinking we just put up with it,and adapt to it he doesnt want to get into a wrangle with the company and have a long drawn out battle about it.we're thinking if we have to have it, we will have to make a deck which is accessed at the carport end of the house with steps leading up from the side.I can cope with that, but I think having the post where it is just looks plain ridiculous and ugly in front of the door!Im just so dissappointed about this, still a minor thing in the grand scheme of life tho. Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 9Oct 29, 2011 9:14 pm Mary, they are hoping you will back away and let them off the hook. Why should you change the deck which sounds like it will cost extra $$$'s...it will still look terrible and while I'm not familiar with S&T's I'd guess it's not permissible to have a post in front of steps either because it could be dangerous. Can you contact the building inspector at your local council? I expect they would be doing the inspections? ....in saying that I do hope they are more on the ball than their counterparts in this area. I'm sure there was nothing wrong with the $$$'s you paid this builder....so why should there be something wrong with the house he's built for you?? Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 11Oct 30, 2011 8:07 am well another restless night spent worrying about this. like I said my husband doesnt want to rock the boat too much on this as he doesnt want it to be a long drawnout process.there has already been delays with the verandah, as the house was delivered over 5 weeks ago and just been sitting waiting for the verandah to be done.also we are renting a house short term, no lease and the owners have another tenant waiting to come into the house as soon as we are gone.They have been fantastic and have let us extend our stay twice already.So my husband was thinking we just put up with it so we can get our house, my thinking was if were stuck with it then were stuck with it, but I will have a wang at the company when its finished, and maybe say we wont pay the full price.But im thinking thats not gonna happen, I dont think they will negotiate anything with price.so now ive decided to contact them first thing in the morning and point out the difference from the plan,before the builder travels here in the morning to finish the verandah off.once again this isnt the fault of the builder erecting the verandah as he is just working off of the floorplan passed on to him from the house company.our house was built in a yard on an assembly line type of thing then transported to our site.any external additions are contracted out to another builder.another query is, on all our drawings there is 6 posts an these were the drawings that get submitted to council, and approved, so technically is there an issue there? as the company originally put our house at the wrong setback on plans and for us to move the house forward they would not do so until we went and got an amendment to our plans all stamped and officiated by council, as the company insisted it had to stick to the plan.now these plans have 2 extra posts and at different placements? Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 12Oct 30, 2011 12:18 pm I have no experience in these matters but is there not a contract involved here. Are there provisions for damages if not finished on time. Can you not get this arbitrated by some authority as I cannot think that people can be bullied into accepting sub standard work. There must be some avenue that protects home owners from this. Sorry not much help but I would be accepting this. Years back I had a Kitchen made in Singapore for my apartment and when it was installed the measurements I specified were all off as they built standard widths that are used for Gov flats. I said to the contractor either take it out and fit what I paid for or suggest an alternative. He knocked 1500 off the price. Get DH to think why is he compromising and see the building authority. Cheers Mark Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 13Oct 30, 2011 2:26 pm Quote: another query is, on all our drawings there is 6 posts an these were the drawings that get submitted to council, and approved, so technically is there an issue there? There will not be a Council issue with extra posts, conversely as there would be with less posts and greater spans. Personally I would call the verandah builder and the draughtsman ASAP, call a halt to the work and thrash this out before ANY more work is done. It is NO good coming at them later. Tell your husband not to be a wimp and demand things be rectified. As I previously posted, dont let them just move the posts and leave the fascia joins midway between spans as it will create untold problems later. You could leave things as they are and offset the deck steps from the doorway but it would look like crap and I doubt if you would ever be fully satisfied with it. Personally I dont like posts in front of windows either Surely this is not holding you up moving into your home? Arfur Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 14Oct 30, 2011 6:11 pm hey arfur, thanks for your input. I did decide to do something about it now before its gone any further.I got hold of the SS/foreman, [who does seem a really nice guy].I explained the situation to him and emailed him through some photos, so I guess he will meet with the builder in the morning and see whats to be done.I now remember there was one day that one of the girls doing our selections rang me to ask me about a slight change with the placement of our towel rail in the bathroom, so cant understand how this amendment has been overlooked.When speaking to the foreman this morning, he said that there was an amended plan to add the extra 2 posts, yet we have not seen these amendments. oh well can only wait and see now.weve had a few people dropping in to have a look, and one suggestion was to let them finish it as is, they add another length of wood behind the front join to reinforce it, then remove the offending post.my husband thinks that this will look crappy also. will keep you all posted as to what happens. and yes it most definitely is holding things up.we do net get handover until this is completed, it also still has to be painted too. Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 15Oct 31, 2011 5:04 pm Make sure you get all 'promises' of proposed changes in writing, rather than over the phone, so you dont give them any wriggle-room later. [quote][and one suggestion was to let them finish it as is, they add another length of wood behind the front join to reinforce it, then remove the offending post.my husband thinks that this will look crappy also./quote] Your husband is 100% correct. A 'plating' of the fascia over the joins and post removal, is nothing more than a botched job in appearance and a pathetic attempt to cover their proverbial. I notice there was no suggestion about the missing return ends? The uniqueness of a bullnose veranda is its lack of timber in supporting the bullnose iron roof. Make sure when they eventually lay the iron it doesn't have 'waves' along the line where the straight section starts to curve down into the gutter and by each hip. Good luck Arfur Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 16Nov 01, 2011 9:53 pm just an update. spoke to the foreman/ss monday morning, who said he had all our paperwork showing 8 posts, so he was waiting for our consultant[i guess thats what you would call her], to arrive at work to check her plans etc.I didnt hear from her for a couple of hours and I suspect the reason why was she was looking for all our paperwork, and trying to find drawings with a verandah with 8 posts that we had signed.Obviously she didnt find any as they dont exist.Conversations on the phone since then have been suggestions about us leaving the post there and working around that, but Ive remained firm that I dont want the post there at all, so we are now negotiating alternative ways to move the post without it looking ridiculous.I have asked if we do that that we have some of the price of the verandah reduced as either way its still not the verandah we wanted.Our cosultant has said I need to write an email stating the situation and what we want done and why, for her boss, the company owner.When I asked her about pricing she said maybe they could take off some of the upgrade prices, like maybe the range hood, which is under $300!, but it would have to be approved by her boss!I dont think that sounds like a very fair tradeoff!We were priced $5400 for the verandah, and she seems to think that we should be happy with that price as a steel framed one was priced at $9000.We have a friend whos a really good builder, who stared at me in disbelief when I told him the price of ours. Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 17Nov 01, 2011 11:55 pm Stick to your guns.... if you have it in writing then they would be in breach I think. Either they fix it to build specified or leave as is and provide remedy in the amount of what the retrofit would cost. It is insulting to think that a 300 potential discount will cut it because if if was truely 300 bucks to fix it properly as specified then you would not be having this conversation at all. Rather insulting actually. Hope it all works out..... Ciao Mark Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 18Nov 02, 2011 9:17 am It's going to cost them a lot more than $300 if they need to remove it and build a new one to contract! Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 19Nov 02, 2011 7:51 pm And there seems to be no discussion on your agreed design having return ends, which when adding that to the additional posts, would mean the whole thing has to be almost re-built, so for them to offer a paltry $300 (instead of rectifying their mistake) is an insult to any client's intelligence Arfur Re: verandah not quite as planned...photos!what to do? 20Nov 11, 2011 10:44 pm another update... we met on site with the builder[who has his own business and is only contracted by the housing company[.we decided rather than make them redo all the posts we went along with an option that was suitable to the builder.So today they finished, and at first glance it looks ok...not great and not as we originally wanted but it will do.Later on I went back and met my husband there, who pointed out that fdirectly rom the front , looking at the front profile it looks okay...until you move across a bit you can see where the roofing sheets join, theres gaps all along each join right to the end, the first 2 or 3 sheets are good, but then they look crappy.I m starting to wonder if our expectations are just too high,and are we being too pedantic but seriously we wish we had of just done it ourselves.my husband would have done a much better job himself, he built and cemented our shed, also built another outdoor room, and is planning on building the carport and outdoor entertaining area himself also.The only thing Im happy about is that we didnt get the planned carport and verandah through the builder also. will post some new pics tomorrow. 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