Hi Everyone... Fixing stage complete

Colleen · Feb 20, 2008 9:53 am

Hi Ahuang, thanks for responding. I spoke to my brother in law on the weekend (he's a builder so I should've thought of asking him first :lol:

) and he told me that it's fairly normal - some builders do this and others don't. He said basically the pipes are just to mark where the stormwater drain is so that no one runs over it :roll:

And he said when I move in he'll come down on the first weekend and help me out with a few things like cutting down these pipes.

But I spoke to my dad last night and the same brother in law had told him that by law the builders have to cut any pipes that connect to the stormwater drain to below slab height as otherwise the house will be flooded before the water finds its way into the stormwater. My BIL told my dad that the builder is just playing a joke on me by telling me the pipes won't be cut down because they have to be cut down before handover... so I am confused but at least my BIL will be coming to cut mine down to a safe height asap.

I think my BIL is playing the "don't upset the builder" game as to him it's not a big issue - he can rectify it later for me. Whereas I'm of the opinion that I'm paying for a job to be done and I shouldn't have to ask for favours (which I hate to do) to get things fixed by other people when it's the builders responsibility.

I am planning on getting Kevin out to inspect the house pre-handover so I'll rely on him to tell me if the builders are just taking short cuts.

Build_build · Feb 20, 2008 1:02 pm

Colleen

Hi Build_build, I don't have a fence adjacent to my side garage wall as it is a "shared driveway" - the house next door will have it's driveway right beside mine. That is the only fence that was not already erected when I built the block and I've been told that because it's a shared driveway, there can't be a fence.

The garage does butt up against the back fence though and there was never any mention of taking down the fence. I would've had an issue with that as the people behind me have a dog so I don't think they'd appreciate taking down the fence.

If you don't already have neighbours who will be inconvenienced by having the fence removed, I'd suggest letting them do it but with the clear understanding that they are to cover the costs, if any, in getting it erected again. If they say that your garage wall can act as a fence consider whether you want that wall to be available to your neighbours for whatever purpose they like... i.e. where I currently live, our neighbour has a garage in his backyard that forms part of our fenceline. We could (but never have) build, for example, a pergola using his wall as something to brace it against. We could've stacked all sorts of junk against it which might put pressure on the wall. Also while he's quite happy with his brick selection, I don't particularly like it and I've had to look at it every day since that garage was built - your neighbours who already have a fence might feel the same way about your bricks lol.

That's exactly my concern if i have to remove the fence.....anyway let see what i can negotiate with the builder. Thanks Colleen!!

Colleen · Mar 28, 2008 8:12 pm

This month there hasn't been much progress on my house. At my pre-plaster inspection, the site supervisor initially predicted that handover would be this week. Given that the carpenter took 3 weeks to turn up to do the door frames, architraves and skirting boards, everything has now been delayed. I am pleased to report that as of today, the carpenter's job has been done

.

This morning I received a phone call from a man introducing himself as my 3rd site supervisor. The first one was a man I never spoke to, the second one was the one who told me the house would be finished this week. This new guy has come on board this week and I'm already happy with him as his arrival on the scene has mysteriously coincided with the arrival of the carpenter! I asked him about the carpenter and whether he was coming back to finish his job (he did half of it on Tuesday and I was worried he would take another 3 weeks to finish the rest) and I was informed that the carpenter would be finished at 12 today and the painter would be coming in at 12.01.

Before I left work this afternoon I received confirmation that the carpenter had indeed finished his work. The confirmation came in the form of the "fixing" stage invoice. I stopped by the block/house on the way home and he has indeed done his part. Except the standard definition of "fixing" stage also includes sinks and shelving being installed but my builder doesn't do those until handover.

It is now expected that by the end of next week all the painting will be finished. The following week the tiling will be done and then they'll do the last little bits like putting the taps and door handles in. So he expects in about 2.5-3 weeks we'll be having a pre-handover inspection. I am looking forward to seeing the paint go on the walls so I can see if the colours look the way I'm hoping they will... even if it is too late to do anything about it now :lol:

No photos to show as I can only look through the extremely dirty windows now and every time I try to take photos through them all I get is a whole lot of reflection.

Yak_Chat · Mar 28, 2008 8:16 pm

Woo Hoo.

time to start getting the house warming party plans together !!!
Steve

Mrs B · Mar 28, 2008 9:16 pm

Good on you Colleen :z:

You must be so excited, not long now, my house seems to take forever so I always enjoy other peoples progress.

Mrs B

Colleen · Mar 30, 2008 3:00 pm

Yak_Chat - no house warming party... I've had enough of being the hostess and getting stuck with the cleaning :roll:

Mrs B - my builders seem to have periods when its full steam ahead and then all of a sudden everything just stops for a few weeks (it seems to be the bits where the carpenter has to do something lol).

Yesterday the painter was there. I went to have a look at what he'd done today and found that the first coat is done. The walls look like they are in the final colour, so I don't think it is an undercoat. There are only 2 walls that look nowhere near the final colour - the feature walls. I need to call the SS tomorrow and remind him that I am having 2 feature walls as it looks like they are being painted the same colour as all the other walls. Otherwise, it looks good

Kryten · Mar 30, 2008 4:18 pm

I'm excited for you Colleen. It won't be long for you now.

I'm also with you on the house warming party. I'm not a huge party person, and every single one of my friends and family is pushing for me to have one. I haven't even got a slab yet and they're planning :roll:

Colleen · Apr 01, 2008 8:31 pm

The painter forgot to lock the back door tonight so I took the opportunity to have a look around.

This is the main bedroom, from the doorway
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Kitchen
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Very dusty kitchen counter
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Bedroom 2
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Bedroom 3/My study
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The bedrooms look quite small in those photos but it was because I couldn't get far enough back without walking into (possibly wet) walls. The rest of the pictures I took are a little too dark, which is unfortunate. It was really exciting being able to finally have a walk around in my house, and to see what was under the bubble wrap they've got over my counter tops.

It came at a good time as I had a bit of an argument with Furniture Galore today - they want to deliver my furniture 5 weeks earlier than agreed, and if I don't accept delivery they'll sell the furniture to someone else. It means I'm going to have to squeeze the furniture in here. I'm astonished by the different service levels at these furniture stores. I ordered the bulk of my furniture from Easy Living (now Everyday Living). They called last week to organise delivery and I told them the house wasn't finished yet, the sales lady said "no worries, just call us when you are ready". Furniture Galore... I had heard they were bad for refusing to store items so I deliberately told them when I ordered that I needed it later than I thought I would, as I thought it was better to wait than have to organise early delivery, but it doesn't matter - they place the order immediately and it doesn't matter what the agreement was. Not impressed. I definitely wasn't impressed with their customer service staff either who couldn't seem to understand why it would be an issue to deliver furniture 5 weeks early to an unfinished house :evil:

So being able to have a walk through the house perked me up a bit, as the whole furniture thing stressed me out.

Kryten · Apr 01, 2008 8:35 pm

I was planning on getting some stuff from Furniture Galore - methinks after reading that I'll either go elsewhere or order it the week before I move.

The house is looking great. I hope you get the furniture issued sorted out.

bec · Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm

it looks great!

so with you re furniture stores,most are great
one (wont name) very expensive top of range stuff! and wont store at all
actually will charge you to store which Ive never heard of before

Paula · Apr 01, 2008 8:43 pm

Quote:

It came at a good time as I had a bit of an argument with Furniture Galore today - they want to deliver my furniture 5 weeks earlier than agreed, and if I don't accept delivery they'll sell the furniture to someone else.

Thats terrible, I would tell them to stick it :twisted:

Quote:

one (wont name) very expensive top of range stuff! and wont store at all
actually will charge you to store which Ive never heard of before

Thats just as bad!!

Quote:

I ordered the bulk of my furniture from Easy Living (now Everyday Living). They called last week to organise delivery and I told them the house wasn't finished yet, the sales lady said "no worries, just call us when you are ready".

They have just possibly got some sales from that post - good on them.

Colleen · Apr 01, 2008 8:54 pm

Kryten

I hope you get the furniture issued sorted out.

The furniture issue is sorted out.. I guess.. they're delivering it to the house I'm currently in (that is already fully furnished) on Saturday morning. The bit that isn't sorted out is - where am I going to put it?!? Luckily it's just a 3 seater sofa, 2 seater sofa, queen size bed and mattress. If it was the stuff I ordered from the Easy Living I would definitely not be able to store it.

I'd definitely recommend the Easy Living store (which I think became Everyday Living). Rather than have their shop set up with all buffets in one spot, and all entertainment units in another spot, they set it up with ranges together. So if you found a dining table you liked, you could straight away see whether they had a buffet in the same wood and design. That really appealed to me. The staff were really helpful, friendly and the furniture, I think, looks nice but was not overly expensive. And they'll store it until you're ready for it

melanie02 · Apr 01, 2008 9:38 pm

Everyday Living is one of my favourite shops and I,ll certainly be buying quite a bit of my furniture from them and as Colleen pointed out, it,s nice the way they set everything out

Good luck with everything Colleen and I hope you manage to store everything ok :shock:

Cheers Mel

Colleen · Apr 02, 2008 12:31 pm

On a different note.... I posted in another thread some time ago that my porch was supposed to be coloured concrete. The driveway will be coloured concrete (bluestone) and the porch was supposed to be the same but when they poured the slab, they forgot/didn't realise that and I got a plain concrete porch.

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(old photo for purposes of illustration)

I called the new site supervisor this morning to ask him if he was aware of the problem. He said he was but he wasn't happy about the way it was going to be fixed. According to him, in order to fix it they will have to add a new layer of coloured concrete on the top with a thickness of at least 3 inches. He said this would bring it up level with the front door and it would create a flooding risk so he doesn't want to do it and is thinking about a different way to fix it. I told him I definitely don't want it painted (as I don't want to have to repaint it all the time) and he said no way would he even consider that. He has suggested, provided he gets approval from his bosses, that we tile it instead in a nice outdoor/entry tile. He thinks that would be a lot nicer than coloured concrete anyway (which I think he might be right about) but I'm not sure now what sort of tile to ask for. He suggested maybe a terracotta.

I would love some suggestions - I think I will have to choose a tile this weekend if this idea gets the green light from head office as the tilers are due to work on my house next week. I'm not sure whether to go with a colour that matches the bricks or not. I've had a quick look for a tile website that actually has a gallery of tiles but I can't find one.

claire11 · Aug 25, 2012 12:33 pm

Hi Colleen,

what brick colour is this love it

Colleen

I'm building a single storey through Zuccala Homes. Just a small 3 bedroom home as it will just be me and my dog living in it. I purchased an "irregular" block at the end of a court. It's very long but not very deep (hard to explain) but it's twice the size of the other blocks that I was shown in my price range and it doesn't have any easements. To give you an idea of the irregularity, this is my block from what will be my back fence but in terms of where the driveway sits, is actually my side fence:

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(that old blue car in the distance is my car parked in the driveway).

This is the slab from the opposite end of the block, I was standing in my garage when I took this photo:

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And this is some of the bricks (front entry on right, garage on the left):

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff65/colleenmo/000_0365a.jpg

Oh, and this is my housemate :lol:

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff65/colleenmo/000_0308shrunk.jpg