Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 04, 2008 2:41 pm Hi There.
Builder wise - I think we have signed on with quite a reliable builder. What is letting the experience down is the CSO - who is just slack and even a small thing is just too much for her and takes her so long. I have read in these posts that the construction is easier as you normally deal with the SS. Is this is general experience of you out there? How do you build rapport with the SS? can you get some favours through the SS? Basically what are the strategies that I can use to ensure that the SS is totally on my side? There is also the issue that the SS may be supervising many projects at the same time - so how do I work him but not seem too buggy any ideas? Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 2Nov 04, 2008 5:07 pm homebuddy925 Hi There. I think we have signed on with quite a reliable builder. What is letting the experience down is the CSO - who is just slack and even a small thing is just too much for her and takes her so long. I have read in these posts that the construction is easier as you normally deal with the SS. Is this is general experience of you out there? How do you build rapport with the SS? can you get some favours through the SS? Basically what are the strategies that I can use to ensure that the SS is totally on my side? There is also the issue that the SS may be supervising many projects at the same time - so how do I work him but not seem too buggy All very good questions. Unfortunately just getting along with one person won't guarantee you there won't be any hiccups. Construction involves teamwork and it can fall over anywhere along the line e.g. design, selections, plans, documentation, trades. It is usually communication which is the problem. Importantly keep a detailed diary and bring it out everytime you meet someone. It keeps everyone accountable. Record who you met, what was discussed and what was actioned. Save all email correspondences. The main go to person will always be the site manager when dealing with issues of workmanship or construction detail. Don't engage the subbies directly. Your builder has a lot more experience and 'people skills' to deal with those issues. Different companies operate in various ways regarding project management. The site manager sometimes is utterly dependent on the construction manager, some are allowed to show more initiative. The main advice is to be nice to everyone and co-operative. When they want information from you, provide it promptly. Be honest. Make it clear that this project is special to you and you want to be actively involved in the project but give permission for people to comment if you are overbearing. A weekly site meeting is not asking too much. They should be up there several times a week. But be prepared to assist by working around their schedule as well. Provide a contact number so they feel free to call you readily with questions and clarifications (if you will accept this) - especially about cost variations. Say you would like to be engaged at critical junctures e.g. framing, roofing, 1st fix etc to 'give help' or 'offer assistance'. Get some indication from them when these things are likely to happen to get a cadence for the build. Get informed both about the process and terminology. The Australian House Building Manual by Staines is a good start. Not only will it help you identify problems early but indicates to them that you are not ignorant. At the same time, be prepared to accept minor errors in good humour, concede some things (as long as they know they have won a favour from your because you have) and acknowledge human mistakes and unforseeable things do happen. Don't say 'you forgot to fix straighten stud' but 'looks like you ran out of time last week to fix that stud'. A good builder is not judged by the mistakes he makes but by the way he deals with them when they (inevitably) happen. Always presume good intention but be firm when you feel something needs to happen. At the end of the day, if you can show your behaviour has been exemplary, your records are contemporaneous and have more people are on your side then when problems occur then you have more to support you. If you are building with a large company, don't be afraid to make your concerns known to the company head. Hopefully it won't come to having building inspectors, arbiters and lawyers involved but you will always need to consider this as a last resort. Lastly, I have not ever spoken to someone where there wasn't at least one problem along the way. It is stressful but try to keep you head even it seems hard. Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 3Nov 04, 2008 6:30 pm Thanks for these words - you have realistically outlined what to do and how to position myself during construction
BTW my plans are still with the developer and even yet to hit council - but I am thinking beyond this point. Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 4Nov 05, 2008 11:09 am Even during construction you might find problems with our CSO, good example for us, our PCI is this friday, so we were told by our SS, rang to confirm it was still going through on Monday so we could arrange time off work, couldnt get through to our SS, so we rang our CSO, she told us 13th! needless to say btn then and this morning little annoyed and worried it wasn't going to happen this week. Called our SS today, he confirmed it is this week.
From that l think shows that your SS knows a bit more then our CSO, l guess that is one example, im sure there are ppl out there who have had the opposite experience, through out for us, l always found out SS knew more then our CSO, without sounding too rude, really the CSO is an Admin person and your SS usually has building knowledge. As to how to deal with them, just be polite, l found that got us far! Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 5Jun 18, 2009 12:45 am I was just trying to find out a bit of info on site supervisors and saw this thread, I am interested to hear other peoples experiences in how efficient their SS has been. We received a letter from our builder some time ago stating we were NOT to contact our SS until the frame was up, our frame was completed last week and we had an issue so on Monday I rang his number several times and the phone rang out (can't understand why he doesn't have voicemail) then I sent him an SMS, next morning NOTHING so I rang many times again this time got the "this phone is switched off or out of range" message, I ended up ringing the office and they said they would pass on a message to him, I STILL haven't heard anything from him. Is this out of the ordinary or is it a common thing ? Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 6Jun 18, 2009 9:48 am vid , I STILL haven't heard anything from him. Is this out of the ordinary or is it a common thing ? From my limited experience there is nothing ordinary or common about the building industry. I have heard of companies which strictly forbid the client to visit the site without express permission by the SS. My SS allowed me to freely roam around and review the details even when he wasn't there. At the end of the day you are the paying customer and that is your only leverage to get you want. You know the saying 'Money talks and....'. You just need to play that hand subtly - like calling them and mentioning 'before you move on the next and when I pay the next installment, I wouldn't mind having a look around to check that things are as we envisaged'. They might respond something with 'you don't need to because nothing much is going to happen or it's just a routine phase of the construction or we are just following the plan as you specified'. Say something along the lines of 'you are probably right but it would contribute to my peace of mind that we are all on the same page or we want to just check if there is a minor alteration that is required that is best done at this point'. Nothing stops you stalling on a payment if you feel that things are not proceeding as you planned. Just document every message you left, discussion you had and response (or lack thereof) that you received if things ever get ugly. Our SS often would often prompt us to visit at specified times e.g. extra noggings in the frame for rails or pictures, window locations, the electrical plan and location of GPOs and switches, verifying the mouldings we selected, tap fittings and 1st fix plumbing details. Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 7Jun 18, 2009 10:08 am vid I was just trying to find out a bit of info on site supervisors and saw this thread, I am interested to hear other peoples experiences in how efficient their SS has been. We received a letter from our builder some time ago stating we were NOT to contact our SS until the frame was up, our frame was completed last week and we had an issue so on Monday I rang his number several times and the phone rang out (can't understand why he doesn't have voicemail) then I sent him an SMS, next morning NOTHING so I rang many times again this time got the "this phone is switched off or out of range" message, I ended up ringing the office and they said they would pass on a message to him, I STILL haven't heard anything from him. Is this out of the ordinary or is it a common thing ? Your lucky you even have your SS's number... they wont give us ours we have to ontact our CSO who contacts our SS and gets him to ring us back.... Its such circle work! but when we did have an issue I had a phone call back from our SS within the hour! 2nd build here we come in Whittlesea! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=92617 1st Build - Henley - Cooper in Doreen! (2009) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17354 Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 8Jun 18, 2009 10:16 am dymonite69 vid , I STILL haven't heard anything from him. Is this out of the ordinary or is it a common thing ? From my limited experience there is nothing ordinary or common about the building industry. I have heard of companies which strictly forbid the client to visit the site without express permission by the SS. My SS allowed me to freely roam around and review the details even when he wasn't there. At the end of the day you are the paying customer and that is your only leverage to get you want. You know the saying 'Money talks and....'. You just need to play that hand subtly - like calling them and mentioning 'before you move on the next and when I pay the next installment, I wouldn't mind having a look around to check that things are as we envisaged'. They might respond something with 'you don't need to because nothing much is going to happen or it's just a routine phase of the construction or we are just following the plan as you specified'. Say something along the lines of 'you are probably right but it would contribute to my peace of mind that we are all on the same page or we want to just check if there is a minor alteration that is required that is best done at this point'. Nothing stops you stalling on a payment if you feel that things are not proceeding as you planned. Just document every message you left, discussion you had and response (or lack thereof) that you received if things ever get ugly. Our SS often would often prompt us to visit at specified times e.g. extra noggings in the frame for rails or pictures, window locations, the electrical plan and location of GPOs and switches, verifying the mouldings we selected, tap fittings and 1st fix plumbing details. Thanks for your feedback Dymonite, We are renting the house next door and I work from home much of the time so I see just about everything that happens and almost everyone that turns up, I've spoken to most of the tradies, offered them coffee etc, at the end of the day when the trenching guys were finished I gave them some beers, I've even got some nice "take away cups" to give fellas if they want a REAL coffee, got all the ingredients for my "family famous" banana/choc muffins in the cupboard, these are the sort of things I'll most likely do for tradies that will be on site for quite a while and when a premium job is important, like painting etc, anyway enough ramblings I have gone off the track! I have spoken to the office and told them we won't be paying the current invoice until this issue is sorted and they have made a note, I've diarised everything and have chronicled every step with photos. Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 9Jun 18, 2009 11:27 am we don't have a cso.. I can't even remember what that stands for?? We just deal directly with our SS.. I have his mobile number and alot of times I just SMS him and he gives me updates back via SMS. He has been fantastic all the way through so far. Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 10Jun 18, 2009 12:42 pm CiNnY Your lucky you even have your SS's number... they wont give us ours we have to ontact our CSO who contacts our SS and gets him to ring us back.... Its such circle work! but when we did have an issue I had a phone call back from our SS within the hour! When he rings you back does he ring from his mobile? if he does and he is ringing your landline get caller number display so you can get his number, or maybe he blocks it! wakeboardandy we don't have a cso.. I can't even remember what that stands for?? We just deal directly with our SS.. I have his mobile number and alot of times I just SMS him and he gives me updates back via SMS. He has been fantastic all the way through so far. I get confused with all the acronyms on this site, but I assume cso is Customer Service Officer Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 11Jun 18, 2009 6:49 pm vid CiNnY Your lucky you even have your SS's number... they wont give us ours we have to ontact our CSO who contacts our SS and gets him to ring us back.... Its such circle work! but when we did have an issue I had a phone call back from our SS within the hour! When he rings you back does he ring from his mobile? if he does and he is ringing your landline get caller number display so you can get his number, or maybe he blocks it! wakeboardandy we don't have a cso.. I can't even remember what that stands for?? We just deal directly with our SS.. I have his mobile number and alot of times I just SMS him and he gives me updates back via SMS. He has been fantastic all the way through so far. I get confused with all the acronyms on this site, but I assume cso is Customer Service Officer He rings off private!!! 2nd build here we come in Whittlesea! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=92617 1st Build - Henley - Cooper in Doreen! (2009) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17354 Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 12Jun 19, 2009 3:01 pm my SS was getting a bit anal about independant inspection when we first met onsite. he started rambling on about the 22 houses he's building, delays to mine if i continously called him onsite, etc, etc. he seemed very abrupt, rude. so today i called my Inspector and told him that my SS is not cooperative and would rather he organises a date with the SS for inspection. the inspector called, arranged and called me that the SS is ok with it but needs to prepare the site more - and will let me know when the job was ready for inspection. I felt so much better after that. just before the II gave me a call back, the SS called for his regular update and he sounded so much friendlier than what he was. I was able to tell him some of the issues I've noticed onsite and he said that he'll look into it. So my recommendation to those who are facing a hard time with the SS - let the II sort them out. they are both from the same industry and they can reason things out. if you argue too m uch wiht the SS you are likely to damage the relationship further and risk the SS going off-side. still - i am far off from the confort zone , but feel a better than what i did couple of days ago Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 13Jun 19, 2009 6:24 pm Yes after pre-start we were introduced to the office lady (never really figured out what she does until now! I think preparing the invoices etc and handling any complaints). Apart from that we haven't really dealt with her much and I guess like other people we have preferred to deal with our CS (SS? well construction supervisor) directly. LOL I send him text messages with updates, he's never replied (don't think he knows how) but I know he gets them. We were also told that the construction supervisor didn't come into the equation until the earthworks were done (maybe even not until the slab was down). So we initially dealt with the building manager, but considering earthworks were done by CS's brothers we actually got to deal with him from early on anyway as we had trouble finding people that would do the earthworks here! It depends on what your contract says, ours says that all the leftovers are the builders property (bricks etc etc), so we made sure to check with the CS for any leftovers we wanted to take, and for larger things (whole pallets of pavers) we negotiate a price with him (payable to the building company). Of course anything in the skip bin was fair game we got quite a bit of wood offcuts!! Actually probably saved him having to empty the bin at least once! Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 14Jun 20, 2009 10:54 pm Our site supervisor has been great so far. He has never actually contacted us to discuss progress, we didn't even get told that they had started, we just happened to drive past and find we had a slab, but as long as he keeps things moving at the pace he has so far we are happy. We didn't get given his mobile number from the builder but when we need to speak to him we call the office and they get him to call us back. He has generally called back that day or early the next day. They made a couple of mistakes with the positioning of internal walls (put one where they shouldn't have and then didn't put one where they needed to) but once we pointed that our our SS got the carpenters back on site and fixed within a day. Our CSO on the other hand has been absolutley useless!!!! She never answers her phone, she lets it go to voicemail and then if instead of leaving a message you go back to the receptionist, she always says yes she is in and she makes her answer the call. If we leave a message she never returns it and when you eventually get her she always says "I was just about to call you, I've been really busy". I think this has been a pretty common theme across the builders judging from the comments you see on here from people using all different builders. You would think that the builders would recognise that the should actually employ people in CSO roles that actually have some idea what customer service actually is! Our custom build with Rossdale http://hazehome.blogspot.com/ https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17630 Re: Working with a Site Supervisor 15Jun 20, 2009 11:18 pm I started reading this forum last year, and a person mentioned her SS was really good. He is with the same company that we are building with, so I have requested him to be our SS. He told our Sales Consultant that he was happy to do it. So hopefully the fact that we have asked for him will make him pay a little more attention to our job. Hopefully. We recently had our carpets cleaned by Jims Cleaning, we where talking to the lady about building etc, and mentioned that we had asked for this SS. She also said he was excellent, they do the final cleans for the builder we are building with, and she said that he even once found a sticker on the underside of a kitchen bench inside the cupboard that they had missed. So we are hoping he still has this eye for detail when it comes to our build! I had a similar issue with my fridge not too long ago. It wasn't the same model, but the symptoms were pretty much the same: the compressor would start and then stop… 3 7536 Okay sorry silly me, my wife has solves the mystery for me. It’s because the labels on the ports are all wrongly positioned by the builder hence it confuses me. 2 1380 I am not sure whether Perth has its own way of doing things in regards to this. Most of Perth has class A (sandy soil), except for some areas near rivers or hills. 2 13098 |