Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 06, 2010 3:43 pm Hi, were building the cosgrove 261 with dennis homes and finally we have come to building stage. We have our first appointment with our site supervisor on thursday the 20th may, does anyone have any ideas or tips on what to ask him and also what to look out for during the whole building process. This is our first time building and were worried about how our house will end up being built, any comments welcome. Thankyou. Re: WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR DURING BUILDING STAGE? 2May 06, 2010 4:13 pm You need to establish some ground rules with the site supervisor. Firstly it is your right to check on the workmanship as the work progresses, so establish meeting times and obtain permission to enter the site (which becomes the possession of the builder during construction). Critical inspections are; Setout - check all hurdles are correct and to the dimensions shown on plan. Re-establish the string lines by starting at one hurdle and working around the proposed house edge. Measure edge to edge and diagonally for square (Use Pythagoras's theorem 3:4:5 rule to get square, if you measure one side along the string line as 3 metres, and the opposite side at right angles as 4 metres, then the distance between the diagonal from the end of the 3 metre to the end of the 4 metre strings should be exactly or as near to 5 metres as possible. More than 15mm difference over the 5 metres is unacceptable and will make straithening the frame later very difficult, or you could end up with out of square rooms, which you will notice with regular tile finishes, and patterned carpet, running non parallel. -Formwork and excavations. If you understand the engineers drawings and the architectural drawings you should have no trouble, otherwise get someone who does. If the builder has made a mistake, taken shortcuts or is just sloppy with this critical stage, it's too late once you move in to tell him to tear walls down and rebuild them again. Believe me, it's happened, and not that infrequently. You'll find some posts on this site detailing frames that overhang the slab by up to 40mm, that's nearly half the plate width. I've just scratched the surface here and I'm afraid I have to stop there, but I would suggest you buy a "How to build your own home" type book and study it carefully Joe Can you give advice on how to get missing certificates needed for a form 21? Our bank requires us to provide one but we are missing 4 building certificates from our first… 3 71816 i would suggest nothing is unreasonable for PCI. we did all sorts, including checking the hot water, checking all the GPO's had power, testing that the showers were… 9 98681 Just to makea point about this, an approach that some people have found sucessful in negotiating these rises down, Is to provide some workings to the builder, specifying… 4 81718 |