Browse Forums Building A New House Re: How often do you visit your site? 321Jan 02, 2013 8:53 pm Nah, personally speaking, I wouldn't like it at all. We experienced a very nosey neighbour whilst building, we didn't like it at all. Your private property is just that ....private....if you happen to see the owners onsite, ask permission to go on the site, I'm sure people are very happy to accomodate given you go through the proper channel Re: How often do you visit your site? 322Jan 02, 2013 8:55 pm I wouldn't like someone walking around the place. If we were there though and someone asked to look around I would let them Re: How often do you visit your site? 323Jan 02, 2013 9:29 pm Thanks guys! Not sure about the etiquette there. Hopefully will catch them at the site soon and get an inside tour! Noticed a window was opened and shut that for them - it would worry me if there was a window opened at lockup stage. Building 'The Quattro Plus' with Commodore Homes, Harrisdale. Read about our crazy adventures here! http://amazeballhouse.blogspot.com.au viewtopic.php?f=31&t=62227 Re: How often do you visit your site? 324Jan 03, 2013 9:17 am krustywan How do people feel about strangers visiting your site? There's a new build on down the road which I'm keen on having a little squiz at. My (visiting-and-rather-enthusiastic) mother maintains we can have a good sticky beak and actually walk around the property. Isn't this a little invasive?! Or would you welcome it and view it as like-minded / bitten-by-the-house-bug type of people getting some inspiration?!!! Frankly I don't see what you're going to discover before lock-up stage that someone couldn't from looking at plans online. From just driving past once you know who the builder is you can usually find the floor plan. If you're talking about nosing around during lock-up though, well, that's bordering on breaking and entering Building a Delta 21 at Craigieburn - http://homeofzero.blogspot.com.au/ Deposit: 26/02. Contract: 22/05. Settlement: 29/05. Site start: 18/10. Re: How often do you visit your site? 325Jan 08, 2013 5:36 pm The Home Building Contract Act 1991, Part 4- General, Clause 26 states a builder cannot prohibit the owner from inspecting building work as it proceeds. However, the builder may restrict inspections to the builders normal working hours and may also preclude inspections that would unreasonably impede or interfere with the building work. A number of owners inspect their build after working hours, but should be aware of the danger that exists on building sites and insurance issues that may arise should an accident occur. Good luck with your build, its an exciting process. Re: How often do you visit your site? 326Jan 08, 2013 6:13 pm Builder is in charge of site security and should keep temporary fencing in good order and have the gates at least wired shut at the end of working day to prevent unauthorised entry. If then someone unwires the gate to gain unauthorised entry then I will agree with akashra it is bordering on breaking and entering. People should be aware of site risks and liabilities, it's builder's responsibility to provide safe work site and public safety but if someone gets hurt whilst on site without permission it will probably get builder off the hook. Aside from safety issues, people on site without authority are a risk to building work because damage intentional or not can occur. The best policy is to have regular site visits at agreed days and times where progress and issues can be discussed, that's how it's done on commercial jobs and it works well. Foremost Building Expert in Australia,assisting with building problems/disputes, building stage inspections,pre-contract review advice for peace of mind 200 blogs http://www.buildingexpert.net.au/blog Re: How often do you visit your site? 328Jan 15, 2013 4:04 am I go once a week (Saturday) or whenever I am told a major update has taken place. My Build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=62282 Slab: 22/01/13 Brickwork: 13/02/13 Roof: 13/03/13 Lockup: 05/04/13 Handover: 30/05/13 Re: How often do you visit your site? 329Jan 16, 2013 2:18 am building-expert The best policy is to have regular site visits at agreed days and times where progress and issues can be discussed, that's how it's done on commercial jobs and it works well. This is a load of crap and is up with the fairies if you adhere to this bit of advice. If you simply only have agreed days for your site visit be prepared to find mistakes that can only fixed as a patch method. You will see potential problems that can not be rectified right away and you will end up with a fix that is less than ideal. I'll give you a few examples that I have encountered that would ahve been a patch fix: 1. I had 4 studs beams split in half that I found due to my daily visit to the site, I raised this with my site supervisor and his response was 'oh they are not structural walls so that is not a big deal and unnecessary'. after much toing and froing he reluctantly said that he'll get the carpenter to nail another stud next to the broken one the length of the split... I was like what the... and this is supposedly the norm. - screw that I ended up ripping the 4 studs out and replacing them myself. 2. brickwork was not up to scratch where I saw pieces of brick around 3cm or so in length put in and another piece of brick put in to simply save a brick, I also saw holes in the wall on one wall so after the lack of effort by my site supervisor to rectify my previous problem I simply ripped out the bricks that were 3cm in length and the knocked out the bricks to the point where the wall with gaps had to be bricked again. Not many people would do what I have done but the lesson out of all of this is stand your ground and demand a quality build and if you don't get it through normal expected avenues don't be afraid and bullied by your builder. This is the tactic they employ with people thinking they can bully the owner who is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars as if the owner is their lackey. Not on my land. My advice is don't listen to the above post about organising times just go onsite at like 5pm and do a thorough regular inspection of the days work, it has got me the quality build that I have. Edit: find out the combination lock (usually they use a combination lock rather than key due to the number of tradies) at the start of your build, otherwise just carry a spanner and undo some fence clamps. Re: How often do you visit your site? 330Jan 19, 2013 8:38 pm It's hard to resist at the moment. Recently I've been heading up there every few days just to see what they get up to. I know I'll get bored eventually.. Kenny & Kayla - Adelaide Follow our build on Instagram First build 2013 - Finished and sold Second build 2018 - Underway Re: How often do you visit your site? 331Jan 19, 2013 10:33 pm kaykens It's hard to resist at the moment. Recently I've been heading up there every few days just to see what they get up to. I know I'll get bored eventually.. Go up there as often as you can, I visited my site every day (lucky that I was only 2 minutes drive away about 1km drive). I saw every stage of the build and oversaw all aspects of what went in. I saw numerous issues that I rectified straight away by ether dealing directly with the tradie or myself. I went over the Site supervisors head and dealt with the tradies as my site supervisor was useless and only said yes yes and did nothing. One word of advice if you have the opportunity bring out some lunch and drinks to the workers on site they will be more accommodating to address any concerns you have and will fix it up for you without you having to beg and wait. Re: How often do you visit your site? 332Feb 09, 2013 12:22 pm PHunter building-expert The best policy is to have regular site visits at agreed days and times where progress and issues can be discussed, that's how it's done on commercial jobs and it works well. This is a load of crap and is up with the fairies if you adhere to this bit of advice. If you simply only have agreed days for your site visit be prepared to find mistakes that can only fixed as a patch method. You will see potential problems that can not be rectified right away and you will end up with a fix that is less than ideal. I'll give you a few examples that I have encountered that would ahve been a patch fix: 1. I had 4 studs beams split in half that I found due to my daily visit to the site, I raised this with my site supervisor and his response was 'oh they are not structural walls so that is not a big deal and unnecessary'. after much toing and froing he reluctantly said that he'll get the carpenter to nail another stud next to the broken one the length of the split... I was like what the... and this is supposedly the norm. - screw that I ended up ripping the 4 studs out and replacing them myself. 2. brickwork was not up to scratch where I saw pieces of brick around 3cm or so in length put in and another piece of brick put in to simply save a brick, I also saw holes in the wall on one wall so after the lack of effort by my site supervisor to rectify my previous problem I simply ripped out the bricks that were 3cm in length and the knocked out the bricks to the point where the wall with gaps had to be bricked again. Not many people would do what I have done but the lesson out of all of this is stand your ground and demand a quality build and if you don't get it through normal expected avenues don't be afraid and bullied by your builder. This is the tactic they employ with people thinking they can bully the owner who is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars as if the owner is their lackey. Not on my land. My advice is don't listen to the above post about organising times just go onsite at like 5pm and do a thorough regular inspection of the days work, it has got me the quality build that I have. Edit: find out the combination lock (usually they use a combination lock rather than key due to the number of tradies) at the start of your build, otherwise just carry a spanner and undo some fence clamps. LOL... yea after reading this post. Agreed! Re: How often do you visit your site? 333Feb 09, 2013 12:57 pm PHunter building-expert The best policy is to have regular site visits at agreed days and times where progress and issues can be discussed, that's how it's done on commercial jobs and it works well. This is a load of crap and is up with the fairies if you adhere to this bit of advice. If you simply only have agreed days for your site visit be prepared to find mistakes that can only fixed as a patch method. You will see potential problems that can not be rectified right away and you will end up with a fix that is less than ideal. I'll give you a few examples that I have encountered that would ahve been a patch fix: 1. I had 4 studs beams split in half that I found due to my daily visit to the site, I raised this with my site supervisor and his response was 'oh they are not structural walls so that is not a big deal and unnecessary'. after much toing and froing he reluctantly said that he'll get the carpenter to nail another stud next to the broken one the length of the split... I was like what the... and this is supposedly the norm. - screw that I ended up ripping the 4 studs out and replacing them myself. 2. brickwork was not up to scratch where I saw pieces of brick around 3cm or so in length put in and another piece of brick put in to simply save a brick, I also saw holes in the wall on one wall so after the lack of effort by my site supervisor to rectify my previous problem I simply ripped out the bricks that were 3cm in length and the knocked out the bricks to the point where the wall with gaps had to be bricked again. Not many people would do what I have done but the lesson out of all of this is stand your ground and demand a quality build and if you don't get it through normal expected avenues don't be afraid and bullied by your builder. This is the tactic they employ with people thinking they can bully the owner who is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars as if the owner is their lackey. Not on my land. My advice is don't listen to the above post about organising times just go onsite at like 5pm and do a thorough regular inspection of the days work, it has got me the quality build that I have. Edit: find out the combination lock (usually they use a combination lock rather than key due to the number of tradies) at the start of your build, otherwise just carry a spanner and undo some fence clamps. This is the law in Victoria Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 - SECT 19 Access to building site 19. Access to building site (1) A builder must permit the building owner (or a person authorised by the building owner) to have reasonable access to the building site and to view any part of the building works. Penalty: 20 penalty units. (2) A person who is exercising a right of access granted under subsection (1) must not interfere with the carrying out of the building works. Stand back and listen to yourself. Is that the way you would like to be treated if you were the builder? I don't know what you are doing for your living but no one deserves to be treated by their customer like this. Irrespective of what we do we all deserve opportunity to do our work in peace in our good time and without someone breathing down our neck. I certainly would not do it to the contractors working for me. What you are proposing is not reasonable access and whilst I would give you reasonable access to satisfy yourself with work carried out interference with site security on my site is unacceptable. If I was your builder I would issue you with a default notice for breach of contract with intention to end the contract. Then I would do it if the default was repeated. Foremost Building Expert in Australia,assisting with building problems/disputes, building stage inspections,pre-contract review advice for peace of mind 200 blogs http://www.buildingexpert.net.au/blog Re: How often do you visit your site? 334Feb 16, 2013 5:25 pm PHunter kaykens It's hard to resist at the moment. Recently I've been heading up there every few days just to see what they get up to. I know I'll get bored eventually.. Go up there as often as you can, I visited my site every day (lucky that I was only 2 minutes drive away about 1km drive). I saw every stage of the build and oversaw all aspects of what went in. I saw numerous issues that I rectified straight away by ether dealing directly with the tradie or myself. I went over the Site supervisors head and dealt with the tradies as my site supervisor was useless and only said yes yes and did nothing. One word of advice if you have the opportunity bring out some lunch and drinks to the workers on site they will be more accommodating to address any concerns you have and will fix it up for you without you having to beg and wait. Cheers! It's definitely not wearing off yet. We are going to our site almost every day at the moment. With all the activity going on we don't want to miss anything! It's been good for the builders too because they know that we are keeping an eye on things and aren't backwards in coming forwards. Luckily enough for us we have amazing neighbours and they have been giving our builders drinks and snacks (the weather has been a bit warm in SA lately) so that has helped shine a good light for us too Kenny & Kayla - Adelaide Follow our build on Instagram First build 2013 - Finished and sold Second build 2018 - Underway Re: How often do you visit your site? 335Feb 28, 2013 9:33 pm building-expert PHunter building-expert The best policy is to have regular site visits at agreed days and times where progress and issues can be discussed, that's how it's done on commercial jobs and it works well. This is a load of crap and is up with the fairies if you adhere to this bit of advice. If you simply only have agreed days for your site visit be prepared to find mistakes that can only fixed as a patch method. You will see potential problems that can not be rectified right away and you will end up with a fix that is less than ideal. I'll give you a few examples that I have encountered that would ahve been a patch fix: 1. I had 4 studs beams split in half that I found due to my daily visit to the site, I raised this with my site supervisor and his response was 'oh they are not structural walls so that is not a big deal and unnecessary'. after much toing and froing he reluctantly said that he'll get the carpenter to nail another stud next to the broken one the length of the split... I was like what the... and this is supposedly the norm. - screw that I ended up ripping the 4 studs out and replacing them myself. 2. brickwork was not up to scratch where I saw pieces of brick around 3cm or so in length put in and another piece of brick put in to simply save a brick, I also saw holes in the wall on one wall so after the lack of effort by my site supervisor to rectify my previous problem I simply ripped out the bricks that were 3cm in length and the knocked out the bricks to the point where the wall with gaps had to be bricked again. Not many people would do what I have done but the lesson out of all of this is stand your ground and demand a quality build and if you don't get it through normal expected avenues don't be afraid and bullied by your builder. This is the tactic they employ with people thinking they can bully the owner who is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars as if the owner is their lackey. Not on my land. My advice is don't listen to the above post about organising times just go onsite at like 5pm and do a thorough regular inspection of the days work, it has got me the quality build that I have. Edit: find out the combination lock (usually they use a combination lock rather than key due to the number of tradies) at the start of your build, otherwise just carry a spanner and undo some fence clamps. This is the law in Victoria Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 - SECT 19 Access to building site 19. Access to building site (1) A builder must permit the building owner (or a person authorised by the building owner) to have reasonable access to the building site and to view any part of the building works. Penalty: 20 penalty units. (2) A person who is exercising a right of access granted under subsection (1) must not interfere with the carrying out of the building works. Stand back and listen to yourself. Is that the way you would like to be treated if you were the builder? I don't know what you are doing for your living but no one deserves to be treated by their customer like this. Irrespective of what we do we all deserve opportunity to do our work in peace in our good time and without someone breathing down our neck. I certainly would not do it to the contractors working for me. seriously if anyone actually followed your advice on this they would be, to put it simply, a dope. This idea of doing your work in peace and crap is just that. The only reason you would advocate such is you know all to well tradies like to do a quick job that is half arsed in some cases and hope that the owner will never know by not letting them see the work being done. If your not onsight pretty much every week good luck at seeing and addressing the multitude of errors that are made. By the time you see an issue its a half arsed fix that is applied again tradies at their best. Personally your only interested in the contractors working for you as you are looking after your wallet here and the tradies are your income earner. Your interests are not for the home builder but your own interests hence why it is not surprising that you would protect your tradies over the home builder. You mention someone breathing down your neck... well guess what it's what happens in the real world when your employed by someone who oversees your work on a daily basis. Obviously you have lived in your bubble to long. Quote: What you are proposing is not reasonable access and whilst I would give you reasonable access to satisfy yourself with work carried out interference with site security on my site is unacceptable. Site security please don't give me that crap, everyone knows if anyone is really interested in gaining access the temporary fences are a joke. Your again resorting to laughable excuses with anything you don't want people to do. Site security especially when dealing with the owner of the building is laughable, its just an excuse used under the sun to try and tell the owner what they should accept and be happy with it. As the owner I'm the employer paying the bills if you don't like it see you later. Quote: If I was your builder I would issue you with a default notice for breach of contract with intention to end the contract. Then I would do it if the default was repeated. If I was the owner I'd boot you off my construction site builders like you are the arrogant ones who think they can dictate to the owner what they are to accept. I would make sure from the outset that entry to the site is not a problem otherwise find yourself another hole to dig elsewhere. I've made it clear to builders I've had in the past that I will visit the site and will oversee the construction and point out any issue to the site manager that need to be addressed as soon as I see an issue, never a problem there once they know where I stand. I've even gone on site (after trades have finished) and installed / rectified / strengthened parts of the building as I saw fit, again no issue. People need to realise don't be bullied by your a builder, make it clear what you will accept and don't accept anything less, otherwise you will get a builder like the poster above who will do a job half arsed and tell you that you should be gracious for their poor workmanship after paying them a pretty penny for the privilege. Time and time again I have seen mistakes made during the building process or poor workmanship that if I had not made them aware would have been left as is. Don't accept it people go on site and visit your build at a minimum once a week, I personally go every day. Nearly every day I see an issue some minor but on some occasions major screw ups, remember your paying them the money, your employing them not the other way around. Re: How often do you visit your site? 336Mar 01, 2013 2:19 am For us we visit once a week, our site supervisor has been doing a great job and now that we are at lockup he has made a key available for us to visit when we want. Not all builders are terrible just like not all owners make awesome clients. Actually we hear stories about the horrible builders all the time. I would love to hear some stories about the terrible clients. I think that could be a great book to read! Re: How often do you visit your site? 337Mar 02, 2013 4:30 am agree peliana there are also some awful clients too and i have been told of some Re: How often do you visit your site? 338Mar 05, 2013 12:23 pm We are hopefully starting soon, the site has been scrapped and levelled. I have agreed to meet the SS and work out visiting times. I think the best plan is to visit in the morning, after he has started working and before I have. I think it is wise to follow the advice of ^building-expert, visit in the builders working hours, get the builder to correct or explain any short-comings you see, use a private building inspector to QA each stage, and informally agree any out of hours peeks. The SS is critical in getting a quality outcome, if for any reason you cant establish mutual respect, then get rid of the SS as your project will most likely not meet your expectations and you end up with a ^PHunter situation where you fix the works yourself but the fixes have put your comeback with the builder at risk. I have found with other work, that if you are seen on site often enough, show some respect, then your job maybe completed with a little more care. If you are not seen regularly then the tradies, as ^Foreman has said, will short change you as much as they can - as you should appreciate they got the gig not for the quality abilities but because they put in the cheapest quote, and may feel that they unquoted for the work. For the cost of a few coffees, or the like, the tradie won't make you pay with a poor quality outcome. If you dont show up, then you will pay with a substandard job, fixed, if found, to meet regulations at the lowest cost. You end up with a house with ongoing problems often discovered years after handover. So I recommend showing up regularly, show respect, assume mentally that all mistakes are honest, raise them with the SS, and know how many sugars the key people have in their coffee. Think of asking questions about work quality in terms of "if this were your house do think that is good enough?". Key here is that the builder knows you will look around after hours, but that should be rare, and non-instrusive. Look during their work hours (6.30/7-3:30/4), stay out of their way when they are doing heavy or complex jobs, and always be on good terms with the SS (or get a new one, as it is too risky getting someone who dislikes you to be building your home) Carter Grange Radisson Carter Grange Custom Radisson 43 with rear balcony (see CG Build for details). Re: How often do you visit your site? 339Mar 14, 2013 11:51 am We were going to our site almost daily after hours but since work has slowed, it hasn't been often. It's definitely worth having a browse as we have already picked up minor errors which would have been major issues if we waited until handover - for both us and the builders. Re: How often do you visit your site? 340Mar 17, 2013 8:42 pm I go almost everyday. Our site supervisor indicated he was happy for us to go there any time we wanted the only restrictions he gave us was no kids at all and if we wanted to bring visitors to the site he wanted to be there too because of the OH&S. Like some of the others this level of freedom has been invaluable as we found a few things that were able to be rectified quickly and promptly before the next lot of work made the fix harder. Now at lockup we still nip out each day and I try to time my visits with when tradesmen will be there so I can get inside. I can also get in when I want by arrangement with the SS. Would love to have a key but that is something that they don't do but I think the access we have has met all our needs. 9 24816 In Victoria you cannot put a caveat on arising from a domestic building contract. 65 112447 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39755 |