Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 11, 2007 11:56 am Would appreciate advice from anyone as to how much patience we should give our builder in this situation:
Frame was delivered almost 3 weeks ago. Most of it was erected 2 weeks ago but still incomplete. Spoke to our supervisor last Monday as nothing has happened for a week and he said that he had a crane booked for the next morning for the Trusses to go on. We went by the house the next night and saw nothing more had been done, trusses still ****** on someone else's block of land. Tried to call supervisor 2 days later (last Thu) and got voicemail and no call back. Then went by the block last Friday and again saw no progress. Tried to call him again and got voicemail again. We then SMS'd him Fri night asking him what's going on as he said that he likes SMS as a contact method. Again no reply. Went by the block on Sat and again found no progress while about 5-6 other houses at frame stage all had chippies working hard on them. Tried to call supervisor again yesterday and got no response. I then emailed our customer service rep and she gave me the mobile no. for the Building Manager. She also said that she had emailed the construction dept advising that we had been trying to get in touch with the supervisor. I called the Building Manager yesterday afternoon and he said he would chase up our Supervisor and I would get a call back by this morning. It is now 12pm and I have again tried our Supervisor and Building Manager and I only get voicemail. What to do? Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 2Sep 11, 2007 12:15 pm Welcome to the world of building companies.
Do what I did. If they dont return phonecalls, go to their head office when it is busy on a weekend, and make a lot of noise in front of potential customers. It soon gets their attention.Worked a treat for me. Adrian B Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 3Sep 11, 2007 12:22 pm Hey Ricci, not good news. Who are you building with?
I would elevate the situation and tell them that the communication from your supervisor has been pathetic or non-existant and you want something done about it-immediately. If you have not heard back from them as promised this morning, call them back and keep calling. Be tough and don't give them the chance to avoid you. ultimately you could be right in their faces, go and visit their head office and request/demand answers if you are game enough. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 4Sep 11, 2007 12:35 pm Adrian B Welcome to the world of building companies. Do what I did. If they dont return phonecalls, go to their head office when it is busy on a weekend, and make a lot of noise in front of potential customers. It soon gets their attention.Worked a treat for me. An effective tactic. I'd do this. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 5Sep 11, 2007 1:35 pm Building manager called me about 30mins ago and asked if the supervisor had rung me as yet. I said no and he said that he had spoken to him this morning and that he would ring him up again and ask him to call me.
About 10mins later our supervisor called and said that he was just getting back to me regarding the messages I had left and that he had a voicemail message from his manager to call me and he hadn't spoken to him as yet. He then asked me what the issue was and I told him that nothing had happened for 2 weeks and our frame is half finished and asked him what the deal is. He prentended he didn't know the status and said that he thinks the rain stuffed around the carpenters and they went off to do another job which they were commited to finishing. Then when I asked him what is going to happen now, he said that he is driving over to our site now to see the status and "the carpenters could be there" for all he knows but he doesn't want to promise until he sees for himself where they are up to. I told him we only live around the corner and that we go past every night and that I hope the frame is finished this week and he said "yeah hopefully". I felt like he was feeding me a bit of bull$hit but I let him sell it to me this time as he has been a good supervisor until this incident. - was I too nice? Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 6Sep 11, 2007 1:41 pm Hey if you live around the corner, i would have suggested to him that you meet him on site (as he was coming over to check it out anyway) and deal with it face to face. It's easy to lie over the phone..... But that's me, not scared of a confrontation......
Keep on top of them... Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 7Sep 11, 2007 1:46 pm **Phoenix** Hey if you live around the corner, i would have suggested to him that you meet him on site (as he was coming over to check it out anyway) and deal with it face to face. It's easy to lie over the phone..... But that's me, not scared of a confrontation...... Keep on top of them... I would agree with this, it helps when you seem them and they see you. Adrian B Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 8Sep 11, 2007 2:11 pm Yeah hindsight is a wonderful thing...plus he gave me the impression that he is going over there now and there is no way I can get out of work at the moment...but I agree, I think I will push for a face to face if nothing has changed when I go past tonight.
Thanks heaps for all the advice. Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 11Sep 11, 2007 5:06 pm Hi ricci,
We are roughly in the same stage as you. After our ground floor frames been setup, we also waited for a few weeks and hopefully this week we will have a crane to setup the 1st floor frames... To be fair for the builders, my understanding is each of the supervisor normally have about 20 sites to supervise at the same time. But there's only a limited number of teams/contractors they can assign tasks to. Whenever it rains, no one can do any work and when it's good weather again, they then need to work out which sites are behind schedule and need to get the work done first. As the customer, we all like to visit our site everyday. And when it's good weather with no one working on site, you will definitely be a bit upset... If the supervisor/builder can be honest and provide some proper update I think we should be reasonable and just accept that. In your case, I think you need to play a few tricks to get better attention... But if they keep ignoring you then it's definitely not acceptable!! Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 12Sep 11, 2007 9:34 pm I think a lot of these issues could be easily avoided with consistent or any communication from the building company. If they are planning work schedules for their contractor teams why cant they communicate some of this to their customers. The more informed people are the happier they would be. You may actually be ahead of schedule but if you knew that, you would be happy rather then annoyed when no work has been done. Under commit, and then over achieve the customers expectation and they will be happy happy happy.
The issue about no work being done for 2 weeks - IMO this is not a problem and I dont expect work to be done everyweek on our house as long as they are finished within the agreed time frame then no problems. Your frame on someone elses block - Not acceptable but seems to be the norm in the building trade Supervisor and returning your call - It is totally ridiculous that the supervisor did not return your calls and this is where I would be expressing in no uncertain terms my disquist and his total disrespect of you as a client. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 13Sep 13, 2007 9:13 am Hi,
I completely agree with all of you. All I want is some clear communication as to what is going on. If they were communicating effectively with me then I wouldn't feel like I need to call him everyday. I don't expect someone to be working on the house everyday, but if the supervisor could tell me that he can't get any trades to our site for say 1 week, 2 weeks then we wouldn't have to waste our time going by there everynight. Rather than be in the present situation whereby we have no idea as to what's going on. Also, I rang the supervisor again yesterday morning at 9am to ask about a couple of items that he was supposed to get back to me about and I got his voicemail and left a message. I rang him again this morning and left another message so he is yet to get back to me. - Not good. Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 14Sep 13, 2007 2:20 pm Have been trying and trying to call the supervisor and keep getting his voicemail. So now i have sent him an SMS saying the following:
"Hi *****, have been trying to get in touch with you since yesterday. Just want to let you know that I am not in the habit of ringing you or your boss everyday; however because we don't feel like you are communicating clearly and letting us know what is going on I have to keep ringing. I don't expect someone to be working on the house everyday, however if something comes up and as a result no one is going to be working on the site for 2 weeks, I would just like to be told. Please call or SMS me to let me know what is happening with the carpenters. You can call me up until 10pm. Thanks..." Note that he said to me in our initial meeting that if i can't get in touch with him, that I should SMS him. So I am giving him yet another chance to rectify the situation through his preffered contact method. What does anyone think? Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 15Sep 13, 2007 2:35 pm I would also have sent the text to his manager. Then if you haven't heard by 4-5.00pm today, i'd call the manager today or first thing tomorrow and ask to meet him (the mgr) personally to discuss the situation and to work out a solution that you are happy with.
Sorry, but it is not good enough. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 16Sep 13, 2007 10:45 pm Just went by the site to confirm my suspiscion that nothing has been done yet and I was proven right. My blood is boiling now and they will be getting a letter to the boss from me tomorrow to get their act together and explain why my calls are being ignored and WHY in 3 weeks only 1 day of work has been done.
Maybe I should ask them if they like watching A Current Affair Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 17Sep 13, 2007 11:13 pm It really is not good enough. There lack of communication is insulting and disrespectful. I thought M****** has been hanging around the forum reading posts ect, its obviously not helping them. Maybe it time to start blogging your issues. Hopefully when you get through this issue it will be smooth sailing for you and you will get to enjoy the experience of building your new home. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 18Sep 14, 2007 9:41 am Spoke to the Building Manager just now and he was very supportive and said that he is going to personally find out which carpenters are supposed to be working on our house and that he will call them himself to find out what is going on . He has promised me a call back this afternoon.
Also didn't sound like he was too happy at all with the story our supervisor has fed us, so hopefully he will get a talking to as well. Building for the 1st time with M3tricon Site Start was 19th July 07. It's been 2 weeks to Handover for the past 8 weeks. Go figure. Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 19Sep 14, 2007 10:16 am Great! Let us know what happens this arvo!!!! Re: Advice Needed - What would you do? 20Sep 16, 2007 11:22 pm The Building Manager never called back as promised. Went past the site on Sat and no change. I got furious and rang both my supervisor and the manager and left pretty heated messages on their phones advising that they are leaving me no choice but to take these issues higher up the chain.
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