BUILDING update

I don't usually use foul language but WTF

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through... Really enough is enough.
I applaud you for not ripping straight into them Even though they deserve it!

May the sun keep shining and fingers crossed for you all.

Oh dear DeeElle! What a silly builder and plumber! You are amazing to remain so 'together'. I hope they fix this up. Perhaps you should get an independant inspector before paying the final payment. Some inspectors only need 24 to 48 hrs to book.

Good luck.

holy.....**** you poor thing, stay calm, keep 'em trembling.

I'm with petal in the mental instution!!


OMFG is all I can think

You're a much calmer person than me! I would have gone ballistic.

I hope they will offer new flooring if yours is not salvageable. That would be the very least I'd expect.

And it sounds like you definitely need an independent inspector, in a hurry.

Hope things get better.

Judie

Thanks everyone. My DH laughed we he read one of the posts about me having a rational personality. He reckons I've been particularly unpleasant the last few days (he can talk ). I thought I've been pretty controlled but I have felt fairly enraged at times. Time to go get my hair cut I think . Something drastic!

I'll post a pic for you soon just so you can see how bad it got today. We had 14 x 1.5m deep trenches across our front yard and huge piles of dirt and rubble on our new paving. We called our landscaper to come and quote for repairs and he came at a bad time and was horrified. He is a fairly terse fellow at the best of times but he was downright cranky. Hope he comes back to fix it up and thank god we didn't go ahead with the exposed aggregate driveway.

Trades were coming over from other sites to gawk at the spectacle and on an interesting note the SA Water Inspector arrived and gave the plumber a hard time. He didn't look impressed at all. Builder hasn't rang us to discuss anything so don't know if they will get a penalty from SA Water or not ... doubt it.

The gas fitters turned up and found that they had to pull up the side pavers as well coz the gas inlet didn't marry up with the meter box . The first fix gas piping was about 4 metres north of where it should have been.

Then the gas fitters tried to install our Miele cook top and found the cabinet makers hadn't made the hole big enough. So the SS got out a powersaw and cut it back but it still wasn't big enough so they shoved and shoved until they popped the granite benchtop. Our benchtop guy rang us to empathise with our plight only to realise we had far worse things to deal with and the benchtop ... in all reality its small fry compared to the plumbing dramas.

By this stage (4 pm) we were pretty shell shocked but in reasonable humour. Our SS kept reminding us that there is nothing that can't be fixed! Well I guess he would know coz he has had to fix an awful lot of crap on our build .

Now we are working out how much we need to charge the builder for the repair to the 7K paving.

At 10pm tonight it doesn't look so bad except we've lost about 6 x 1.5 metres of paving across our entire driveway and another day cleaning up after trades. The plumber piled the dirt back into the trenches and compacted it so lets hope it can be re-paved fairly easily. I am curious as we've been left with a fairly large pile of dirt that wasn't there before. Hope the driveway doesn't sink after its been paved for the second time??? .

Only thing left now is some last fix electrical, fixing of the aircon, painters tomorrow (lets hope they turn up) and the renderer who is going to fix the damage to the balcony.

DH reckons there is not much else that could go wrong, except the termites could eat the house . I'd like to say that we have a bad case of the 'jinx' but I think it can be more realistically put down to poor project management.

As to my current mood ... it fluctuates between cranky, furious and lots of inappropriate humour and laughter. I am no doubt losing the plot but thankfully DH is in the same frame of mind .

Hi Dy

I am absolutely speechless

The gas meter thing would have been the last straw for me...that and the wading in my own s...

Wise idea to go and have that hair cut and while you are there, but a few nice things for your house, at least it will make you feel better for a few minutes

I'm so sorry this has happened, just get through it then reflect on what just happened.

Mrs B

omg this is terrible

I hope it's all sorted for you soon. I agree, go get a hair cut, a facial and go shopping. Well that's what I'd need!

This is all reinforcing to me that I should wait as long as possible before doing things like driveway, fencing, paving etc - I'll be wanting to be sure that our builders have done their job properly first before we start doing anything else. I'd been keen to try and save a bit of time by trying to get some stuff done before handover, but I can see that this might not be the best strategy anymore.

Good luck with getting this sorted out - incredible that it could go so badly wrong in so many different ways. Are you 100% certain that they've provided conduit for your phone line, so that you won't have to rip up your front yard again?