Page 1 of 8
I've only just begun a new blog to document our awful, AWFUL building experience. A bit late really, since we're allegedly 10 days from handover now, but I'm sure I'll want to post endless photos of landscaping, light fittings and letterboxes, and my fitness blog readers mostly don't want to read that stuff.
So I'll do my best to get photos (maybe even a slideshow) up and explain the long and painful story over the next week or two. Meanwhile, here's a very brief summary:
Bought land on a Stockland estate in April 07, which was supposed to settle in late August. Sold our home of 21 years in June and settled in September, moving into a rental on the same estate where we're building. Signed with PD to build a Bridgeport 35 the minute the ink dried on our sale contract for the old place and we had a relatively smooth tender, colour selection and contract process - a few annoyances, but nothing too major.
Land eventually settled in late November. Our developer approval went through in less than a week, but the building permit was held up, thanks to the water authority being entirely incompetent, and construction was eventually able to start the last week of February this year. Phew - we thought we were on the home stretch - WRONG!
PD's 20 week guarantee should have seen us in our home in July. The contract allowed 167 days, so that took us to August (never could figure that 167 days thing out...). We're still waiting.
We've had problems, some really serious, with the quality of:
- the slab
- the frame
- the wall wrap
- the brickwork
- the roof tiling
- the plaster
Plus all the "usual" stuff like doors that open the wrong way, wrong glazing in our front door, wrong cupboard doors in the kitchen, blah, blah. THOSE things we expected and can deal with. But a house that doesn't even meet basic quality control standards?
Anyway, we're now almost at the end and we hope that by the end of next week we'll have the keys in our hot little hands. We'll see....
My very sparse blog is here:
http://keksmovingonup.blogspot.com/
Not much to see yet, but I'll do my best to add more later in the week. I'll be a bit busy the next few days, so it might be the weekend before I get to it. I've been meaning to create a slide show since Day 1, but somehow lost all enthusiasm for it somewhere along the way. Maybe about the time (just after we paid the base stage progress payment) that a piece of our slab cracked and fell off...
If you're desperate for more info, you can trawl through my main blog - there are some house photos and a few rants there amongst the other 'stuff'.
http://keksbflthing.blogspot.com Otherwise, you'll just have to be patient.
Oh - and excuse me if I'm a bit vague about exactly where I live. I know some people here are very open about which estate, even which street they live in. When you post up photos of yourself on the net in bikinis and high heels, you tend to attract weirdos. There are a LOT of total strangers these days who all want to be my Facebook friend...
Public forums are easy pickings for scum looking for email addresses to spam, let alone more personal details.
In case you're wondering what it is I DO in a bikini and high heels; no I'm not an exotic dancer (ha! at my age, that'd be a laugh!) - I'm a natural bodybuilder. Yeah, yeah, I know - even weirder, huh?
*ahem* Back to the house stuff...
hey Kek...
Sorry to hear that....good luck next week!!
On natural bodybuilding do you know this lady:
On the right?
Marie Savianne
Not personally, Matt - but I know the name and she is AWESOME. Me, I'm a rank beginner....
She was the secretary in our office for a while!
She was a 'good sort' for an 'genXer' and she never took any crap!
A great person too...
Here's Marie at her best (in the middle):
Geez, now I feel inferior. LOL.
Welcome Kek!
Gosh I am so sorry to hear about all your problems with PD, that is awful!
I did take a peek at your blog and your colour selections are gorgeous! Love your bathroom pics!
Good luck with the body-building, your before and after shots are also amazing, well done
Im sorry to hear about your build. The birdeport is actually our favourite house so Im going to be studying your blogs intensively
Hey kek, just read through your blog. Regarding the 10-15mm gap you mentioned under the timber windows when the caulking guy came round, I'm under the impression that there's meant to be a gap (of sorts) under timber windows to allow them to settle as the timber shrinks.
I'm not positive, but it might be worth investigating.
Good luck with the remainder of your build!
<b>ETA: </b>If you're now 18 weeks behind your original build timetable, are you receiving liquidated damages from PD?
--Mike
Thanks for the welcome everyone.
Cynarion, I'm sure you're right about a small gap, but this is a BIG gap, with cut/broken edges of bricks clearly visible. The solution offered: some nice hardwood quad strips have been nailed in place and the painter is staining them to match our windows. We're happy with that - it looks pretty good and won't be at all noticeable.
They do seem to be pushing to get a lot done this week, but our PCI is tomorrow arvo and we expect there to be a lot of things still to be rectified.
Bam, I still love the house. I looked at so many display homes, and found quite a few I liked, but the second I walked in the front door of the Bridgeport, it just felt right. When I discovered it had exactly the right number of bedrooms, study, rumpus and the nicest al fresco area ever (OK, apart from the Brookvale....), I knew it was the one. My husband barely got a say in it. If he'd hated it, we really might be divorced.
And yes, PD will be coughing up rent compo - unfortunately it's too little, too late. Not getting the cash till after handover sucks, and seriously - WHERE in Melbourne can you rent a home for $250 a week? We've been bleeding cash for months. I suppose I can't really complain about the amount set in the contract - after all, we accepted the terms. But the 20 week guarantee was a big factor in choosing our builder, and we honestly never believed that construction would run longer than that. Are we suckers, or what?
Moving on..... I'm making an effort to look for the positves now; I know there
are some.
Just posted some more pics and colour scheme info for anyone who cares over on my blog.
http://keksmovingonup.blogspot.com/
Hi, kek...im sorry to hear about what has happened to your new house...hey guess what? we're also building the bridgeport but the smaller one 30sqrs and i think you said you're building in stockland..same here...in mernda im not sure where you're building..you dont have to answer if you dont wanna. Fortunately so far there has been no major problems like your house....and our house is nearing handover in 2 weeks but its hard to believe why all this happened to your house. Well it doesn't mean our house is 100% ok! our timber bi-fold doors for the alfresco is badly damaged that you cannot close it properlyl...not sure what my mother is going do about that....and there's so many damages(dents and other craps) on the wall but i guess that'll be fixed...and the most annoying thing is they keep calling us to ask 'oh we don't have this item at the moment would you like to choose one very similar instead?'
and many more issues that my mum knows better. But I still love the house! and PD needs to be careful...they have a good reputation I hope they won't ruine it!
I will follow your blog...and I saw one of ur picture..it looked just like ours...well this is ours below and for a sec I thought yours was our house
:
And I started my blog this week only and the house is almost done...
http://bridgeport30-merndavillages.blogspot.com/
Just had a look at your blog.
Love the laundry spout Kek. I'm also having mine mounted on the wall like that. No build up of gunge!
And great to see real individuality in colours!!!!
Jo
Jo, I'm definitely individual when it comes to colours!
I had a lot of help though - I have a friend who's a colour consultant/interior design guru, and she steered me a loooong way from the bland side.
Sacha, our houses
are very similar - the bifold doors are one of our favourite features. They ought to be, at the amount they cost!
I'm building not far from you.... going to check out your blog in a tick.
PCI this afternoon..... I'm crossing my fingers.
I called by on my way home yesterday, to find 3 doors unlocked and the garage door wide open, with our water tank sitting there in full view. Great security.
The electrician had been back to fix a couple of things he got wrong. The main one was the dining room lights - 2 downlights, with a batten in the centre for a future feature pendant, to be centred over the table. He'd placed them so far to one side, there'd be no room to walk around the dining table, let alone sit on that side.
So they had been moved to the correct position, but had somehow been transformed into 3 downlights. Where did my batten go?
A late call to the construction manager and a voicemail message, and let's hope that's fixed today. Looks like that ceiling is getting painted AGAIN - it was just done yesterday for the 5th time....
Not much work likely to get done today, I'll be busy making lists in preparation for our inspection.
Nice house Kek, sorry to here about the delays and troubles. When do you think they might be finished.
Good luck with PCI, kek.
I'm sure you'll let us all know how you go.
Jo
Looks like that ceiling is getting painted AGAIN - it was just done yesterday for the 5th time....
Maybe you should do some precision measurements--with that many coats of paint surely your ceilings aren't as high as originally specified in the contract...
Good luck with the inspection!
--Mike
Ouch..lets just hope everything goes smooth from today.
Our PCI went well. There are still a lot of outstanding items, but most are minor - small paint/plaster damage, a couple of crooked door handles, door seals damaged on our bifolds, stuff like that. And of the not-so-minor stuff, there's nothing new - it's all been previously raised and undertakings have been given to fix everything. Materials have been ordered and trades booked, so we're hopeful of completing handover next Friday.
Our major issues are:
1. A thorough roof service needs to be carried out. There are cracked tiles, tiles not seated right and some mis-matched cement. Oh, and two missing tiles at the front, where tiles meet steel deck behind a parapet wall. The gaps were "temporarily" covered by lead flashing around 7 or 8 months ago.....
2. Site clean. We were promised that large amounts of broken brick, small rocks and other rubble would be removed from the narrow side of the house. We were also promised that spilled concrete would be removed (not keen to start landscaping if we have to dig out big chunks of concrete that shouldn't be there). The guy came this morning, took away some rubbish and spread soil around the house - OVER the concrete and rubble. I don't think so....
3. Some of the mortar is a bit crumbly (we think the brick cleaner got a bit over-enthusiastic) and in places our flush mortar isn't at all flush. Tradies are booked to tidy this up.
4. A couple of sections of fascia need replacing - long story, but this is the 4th or 5th go they've had at this. The supervisor from the company that supplies the fascia turned up while we were there and they've agreed to fix it. Again.
I think that's it, apart from the other 40 or 50 minor bits and pieces. The house is covered in red dots now...
The fence should be going up over the next week (developer does that), I have power and gas organised, floorboard and carpet layers are booked in, the concreter should be coming to give us a quote on our driveway tomorrow, and I just need to do something FAST about our blinds now. That's tomorrow's job. We've asked PD to hold off on installing our appliances till the floorboards are in - that'll save moving the free-standing stove and dishwasher around.
I'm beginning to believe we might actually be moved in before Christmas. ETA is the 12th of December. All I want now is the keys and a big fat cheque for the rent compo.