Advice - Builder Delays - is there anything that can be done

thompson · Nov 16, 2006 8:13 pm

Hi all,

Currently building and experiecing delay after delay- this time its that the supplys will not be available for another 2 weeks from interstate. I feel like this will happen constanly and the work will drag on, now my question. Is there anything , from the client perspective that I can really do to overcome these? are these in fact real delays or should I be pushing them harder to get their act together? Its frustrating, its like you have to take whatever they give !

double07 · Nov 17, 2006 10:29 am

What we've found with our builder is that they have "windows" on time available to work on our house. So originally when we started a few months back the builder said we'd be finished by Christmas. But we took a bit of time choosing our bricks and roof colour so now it seems we missed our 'window' and only today the roof is going on after starting mid August. Things are back on track and the windows/bi-folds are to go in next week and the bricking starts the week after.

So my advice is make sure you've made ALL selections well in advance and perhaps talk to the builder and say "we'd really like to be in by xxxx date, is there anything we can do to help speed things up" and see what they say.

But at the end of the day, if there's no materials available then (depending where you are in the project) they can't really do much?

Michelle · Nov 17, 2006 5:26 pm

Who are you building with, a private builder or one of the specky mobs?

(Its frustrating, its like you have to take whatever they give !)

Who’s paying the bills!!!! Put your foot down! I have said this before on the forum….
Be in their face every day! As far as I’m concerned, EVERYTHING should have been ordered ahead of time….its not like they don’t know what you’re having. Therefore it should all be organize ahead of time. That’s what a GOOD builder would do.

Right guys???????

Anyway stick to your guns, tell them if they want progress payments on time, they better GET on time themselves.

Good luck with it, but don’t forget who’s house it is.

bunoluvas · Dec 06, 2006 3:34 pm

It also depends on what materials are being delayed. If it's something that can be bought by anyone off the street then you could ring around to check on availability. We got told that a particular cabinet colour (which happened to be our main selection throughout) wasn't available and had to rechoose. Not an easy task 15 months after we'd made the selection and designed all out colours, tiles etc around it. We called the manufacturere and true enough the builder wasn't telling porkies.

If the delay is for something like a basin then you could ring around. Upon finding one you could pass the information along... they won't always use that advise but from our experience they have.