North Shore Newhaven (Sydney)

Oh really. I would've done the same. That's good pick up
It makes you wonder what the benefits are having thinner panels??
Glad to hear Metricon allowed the change without any hassles

Woohoo!! Congrats on the slab!! We haven't had the time to check out our slab yet. I'm really impressed at how you managed to pick up all those issues and details with the slab. I wouldn't have a clue as to what to look out for (unless there is a really obvious defect)

A good way is to have a look online at sample building inspector reports for slab checks. This will give you an idea of some key areas to look for.

Great idea! Will do, thanks!

Hi nomnomnom, just looked at your blog and building thread, your floor plan looks awesome and you got heaps stunning upgrades!!:)

We are building on a 4 meters drop sloppy block which the site work costs us $45k (fixed in SA), if turn out M hits rocks, they have to bear it. We haven't split level as your home, we have just dropped down the garage for 600mm and turned out we have 2 tiers of retaining walls at 2.1m high at the rear.

When will you frame start, ours has just started today, we are almost at the same stage.
Can't wait to see your colours and design.

Hi Tungfai,

Thanks for reading and sharing the journey with us. It can be such a rollercoaster!

I would have liked more upgrades but the budget can only stretch so far. If there is one lesson I can share is it really pays to do our homework and come on forums like this so that you are prepared. I was really unprepared for the electrical appointment particularly on how and what LEDs to install and as a consequence I have agreed an electrical install that will see me having an inappropriate lighting in some areas. When you pay the sort of $$ that you do when buying through Studio M, they really ought to do better. I will write up a details post on that in my blog soon.

Good luck with your build though! wow, 2 meter high retaining walls is huge. are you going to have to put railings in those?

I've been told frames will be delivered on Monday. Hopefully they can get cracking on that soon. My SM won't even say when he's aiming to have the entire frame up by.

As for Colours that's also a much promised blog I need to write up. I've been holding back as we haven't finalised our tiles yet which we will do next week. Our colours are more or less along the whites and greys with timber flooring. And we still have yet to choose a carpet as we decided we'd do it after handover.

Cheers Nom

Weekly site update...

Tuesday - slab was inspected by Tyrell's. They gave me a quick call after and said no structural issues but slab isn't flat (ie >4mm over a 2m distance), very rough finish and missing rebates for front porch.

Wednesday - sewer installed. I check the site that evening to make sure the site is cleared of scrapings and boulders left up the rear by their contractors (as promised by my Site manager for the second time) and it isn't. In fact there is more crap there as the sewer guys have left their junk too. Very sloppy and is obstructing access for us to build the rain garden.

Thursday - I attend site at 7am to meet my stormwater plumber. M has allowed me to use my own plumber to do the rain garden and stormwater connection. Whilst digging the trench for the pipes we come across the tree root, I ask the excavator man to see what he can do to rip it out. He changes tools and after about 6 goes and everyone standing around watching the stump cracks and out comes half a tree root stump. Smiles all round especially from me ($300 saved by not needing an arborist yay). I lean in and have a look.... there are lots of larvae in it which must be borers or termites. We get the other half out and continue on. Thank god we got it out! Roots get thrown at the top of the block and kookaburras swoop in for free termite brekky.



About 11am my site manager shows up.

I wave and say hi to him. He looks unhappy. He has a look around, and has a word to my plumber asking him to sweep the slab after. He then tells me if he catches me on site again he's putting a stop on my build.

Wow! Firstly if they give me access and allow my own contractors, surely i'm entitled to supervise them.

Secondly, the pork chop couldn't even arrange for the gate to be unlocked for my contractor to get access nor could he arrange for the site debris from
their contractors to be cleared as he promised. This means my plumber is under pressure to dig through more dirt to do the job. What a nerve. I am wearing a bright red shirt and steel cap boots too so no OH&S issues there.

Friday - Slab report by inspector confirms there are numerous defects. I send to my SM and request a site meeting to discuss. No answer at all today. I've also emailed him asking when will all the site scrapings and rock be taken. He replies that he spoke to my plumber and said they should move all the stuff from the rear to the front and he will remove it. WTF?!! How unprofessional can you be? Asking my trade to clean up after his crews mess left behind. I reply and tell him no dice, get your boys back to finish their job. I am with holding payment of the slab invoice until this is done. No way am I paying for a defective slab and crap left in my yard to deal with as part of my landscaping.

I get to site mid afternoon to see how the job is progressing. Apparently we have hit some hard sandstone and the excavator has got the rock breaker on to chip it out. There is 10m of the stuff to get through. Thankgod I have my own tradesman doing this because it will only cost me $450 extra. Metricon have a provisional
sum of $15k but have not hit rock anywhere as part of their works. I know this because there is no mistaking what rock debris looks like and it is confined to one corner.

I knew building on a slope would be a challenge and this is at the edge there. I just can't understand why my SM is being so grizzly when I'm trying to work with him. I would like to think we're on the same team but clearly he has other ideas and it would seem he doesn't want to hear about issues.

I am going to keep a spreadsheet now of all issues. This will establish a timeline of events and issues.

I really admire your resilience. I don't know what I'd do if I encountered all these issues. Probably just wanna bury my head in the sand. I would feel offended by the SM's attitude too if I were you. I hope the relationship improves for the sake of your build.

Thanks Beac. I guess it's all part of the highs and lows of building.

Thanks for your support on the SM issue too. I'm trying hard to build the bridge with him, make a few jokes even and I can't seem to get anywhere.

In hindsight and from reading many of the posts on here, I really think I should have Owner Built the home. It would have meant more control, less stress and faster work.

What has become clear to me is that the SM has so many houses to look after, how can they possibly pay the same care and attention to our homes that we would expect?

To them it's just another house, to us, it's our home and a few hundred thousand dollars of our hard earned cash.

The issue here is that they will pay a fixed price to their trades but still charge us top dollar for the job. The difference is spent on corporate overhead and fancy marketing I imagine and hopefully they can make $100-$150k a house.

Yes I would pay more for materials as an owner builder but I would be making sure my trades do the job properly and that they don't get paid until it's done per contract and building code. This would limit the amount of reworks and I reckon I would have saved $100k on the build.

Had a look at the site today and we've had frames delivered, yay!



But..... my SM told me he got the excavators to clean up all the site scrapings and boulders at the rear and guess what?

No Bueno.... the lazy bunch thought by smoothing out the pile of scrapings and boulders , no one would notice. I mean honestly WTF?!? These are heavy rocks that will take some heavy effort to wheelbarrow and remove. Since M have charged me $17k for the rear drop edge beam (including spoil removal), I just don't understand why they think no one will notice.



And I noticed they've severely damaged a pipe too .. urgh....



Anyone had this issue and how do they fix it?


Good news though, had final tile appointment with Di Lorenzo and have chosen the following

Ensuite - floor tile will be in a 600x 600 though



Powder, main bathroom and laundry floor



Matt wall tile - main and powder

(the feature stone will be going in the ensuite niche though
just to be confusing)

Congrats on the tiles they look good. As far as the pipe don't worry they slide a pipe into it. We had the same when they do the plumbing you won't notice anything.

Awesome, thanks Nev for clarifying. Wasn't sure if it was something to be worried about.

your colour selection looks so great..sounds a lot of upgrades. We love having mosaic tile for shower niche but it costs soo much so we finally just went with standard inclusion tile but with another colour...Yours look grand n elegant.

Nev is right, don't worry about the pipe, you wont notice it after they have done it. One of our pipe has the same ossue but not as bad as your... but dunt worry. If yes, M supposes to fix it for u

TF

Thanks Tungfai. I've found colours to be the hardest thing actually but we've settled on a white and grey theme so hopefully we pull it off right.

Agree about the mosaic tile. Originally we didn't chose it but when I went to Di Lorenzo in Willoughby, the sales lady there suggested I strongly consider it in the niche as it helps break it up and add a bit more variation, especially where we're just having white walls. The niche in our ensuite is wide , nearly 1.4m so wanted to make sure it looks nice. Fingers crossed it works.

Here we're the other mosaic choices we were considering...

No progress this week.

Having not heard from the Construction Manager or the Site manager, I escalated to the Construction Director on Monday.

I will say the lady in Accounts in Victoria is helpful. I told her I'm unable to pay until I have the courtesy of a response. She was very understanding.

CD promised me a response by Tuesday.

Finally got a call from the CM on Wednesday at 3pm. Outlined a number of measures they would take to fix the slab most importantly of which would be to grind down those areas outside tolerance (20mm in some areas) and to use a levelling compound to ensure a flat slab for me to lay my floor on.

Debate then ensued with the CM about the boulders left at the rear. He assured me his team did clean it up.

Let's just defer again to the 3rd umpire for a photo of what's been left there...



Hmm, when you charge someone $17k for a rear drop edge beam and include spoil removal.... I don't really expect to see this.

CM tried to tell me I can use all the rock as a landscaping feature in the rear. I said probably but bushrock is not in the DA approved plan so can't do it and don't want to risk a rejection from the certifier and have cost blow outs just to get the final occupation certificate.

I told him let's meet on site and cherry pick the big ones for M to remove. He agreed to that and said he'd consult with his site clean team and get back to me...... still waiting to hear.

Thought I'd test him out and ask for a minor structural variation too. It's always bugged me that the upstairs WC doesn't have a small basin to wash hands in. So have managed to find a mini basin and tap I can install post handover. Problem is I need an extra 60mm clearance to fit it and was hoping to reduce the linen by that amount and increase the wc from 900 to 1000. I could get a cavity slider but I prefer a door on a WC.

Anyway, CM was quick to say admin fee of $1500 would apply and why don't I just put a bottle of alcohol gel in there instead! Wow. I had to laugh at that even though he was dead serious.

What does everyone think?

1) Forget about the mini vanity?
2) Re a cavity slider - are they ok for a WC?


The mini vanity


Plan of what i'm talking about

Wow he answers back a bit by the sounds!! They'd better take all that mess away when they were paid to do so!!

As for the WC, if it's something you really, really want then bite the bullet and pay the variation fee, I've just paid to make a change to my stairs I'd missed. If you think you can deal with just walking out and into bathroom to wash hands as its so close anyway then just leave it. Personal choice really I think

We're the same. Till today I've got some regret about not having a sink in my WC and we have to walk across the hallway to wash our hands. I didn't try asking SM though because we've said from the start we refuse to pay the $1500. I don't think they'd allow us to use the void area for plumbing for a sink so there's no room anyway



I think if you can fit the mini vanity by having a cavity slider it's a good compromise.

My auntie had the same problem. She went with cavity slider.

Hi All

Thanks for letting me know your thoughts and also your kind words of encouragement too in dealing with the CM.

Glad to see this is an inherent design limitation on a lot of Metricon Homes and I'm not the only one losing sleep over it.

Having spoken to the wife, she's ruled we're not paying the $1.5k fee so i guess that's it. She said she grew up in a house without a basin and it was fine.

Tell you all what... I will go to Costco and see if I can negotiate a bulk purchase of Alcohol gel for us all who didn't go with the sink.

I almost think it's deliberate, you know sort of like how they never include an internal door from the house to the garage and so you have no option but to pay the $450 for a door or how they give you stained timber treads for the last two stairs and you only find out during your Studio M that it excludes the risers and so they squeeze a lil bit more cash out of you.

Hi, you can get a loo that has the sink on top of the cistern. I guess you would still need access from the side but worth a look.