Like your logic here. Yes if you trust the builder enough it's well and good. the problem is tradies and not the builders themselves. Tradies can be slack. Best of luck..
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: How often do you visit your site? 622Jun 14, 2018 12:14 pm I agree with you that it is the tradies you need to watch as in the end they are the ones who will likely make a mega-blunder and not the supervisor (that was the case 20 years ago). When I went with this builder I made certain that they did not use "random" tradies and that instead they were all long term ones that they used over and over again. I also made sure that the ones they used were contracted only to this company, or at the very least were on a permanent (for practical purposes) contract to the company. Their tradies even have to wear the very distinctive company uniform - that might sound exceptionally trivial but with that uniform comes an extra degree of responsibility in my opinion because they are there personally flying the company flag. I feel much happier about that than a builder simply finding a random tradie here and there for each section of the job. Re: How often do you visit your site? 623Jul 04, 2018 2:43 pm We visit the site every day or two. It's worth asking your supervisor when various tradies will be scheduled to be there. I agree with the comment above that it's more likely the tradies that will make a blunder. We visited last weekend and saw that the tiler had completely misunderstood our request about feature tiling in the ensuite. They'd put a single strip of floor tile on the wall, rather than tiling the entire wall with the floor tile. It had to be redone. They also didn't align our tiles along the bottom of the vanity properly, so it looked a real mess. We took lots of pics and were able to have it fixed the next day. I can't imagine how much of a pain it would have been to have fixed if we hadn't have known. Even though the supervisor visits the block and takes pics for us each week, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have known it was wrong until we'd seen a pic of it on the online portal. I have felt a bit 'picky' at times when I have reported stuff to the supervisor that wasn't correct or seemed odd, but at the end of the day, I'm paying for it and I think it's alright to point this stuff out so long as you're not impeding the progress of the build or getting the in the way of the tradies. Re: How often do you visit your site? 624Jul 30, 2018 4:30 pm Just about every day! I am living around the corner and pass on my way to/from work Re: How often do you visit your site? 626Aug 22, 2018 1:36 pm I don't really see the comparison between building a car and house. A car factory has strict process and quality control. A friend of mine took the approach that he didn't want to see the house until it was finished, and he put all his faith in the builder. He regrets it every day. My site supervisor is looking after 18 builds, just about all all of them quite far away from me. He also lives far away. Simple mathematics indicates that he will not be spending a lot of time on my site. I am there just about every day keeping an eye on things Talking to him I almost got the feeling he is glad I engaged Darbecca, as they will do part of his job for him ..... Re: How often do you visit your site? 627Aug 22, 2018 6:53 pm I was similar to your friend. I expected basic quality standards would be followed. During frame stage I lost confidence so used an experienced building consultant David Seville and went back to check big things he had identified were fixed and had he SS send photos of some other fixed items. A few items I didn’t go back and check. I thought were standard easy fixes as had been assured they were by the SS eg self leveller used by flooring companies. I didn’t check and do regret it. Having some of these items fixed later caused damage and one area wasn’t even fixed properly....much later the senior building manager used a straight edge and not a spirit level on floorboards on slab. Guide of standard and tolerances shows how floor levels should be checked and when to use straight edge vs sprit level. My SS had 10 sites. Duplexes were considered 1 site, so 12 homes. Even 10 did not assure that he visited and checked very much at my home. He had tried to dissuade me from using an inspector stating that the building surveyor checked everything so I could have inspections but it was waste of $. Site supervisors are busy and also for many training is limited. Next time I would live very nearby and visit several times per week. Re: How often do you visit your site? 628Aug 24, 2018 11:33 am I arrived on site yesterday for an inspection with Darbecca. I was a bit early and site supervisor was leaving as I arrived - I expressed surprise that he wasn't staying - "I don't need to, it's all good and they won't find any defects" Some of the defects were so obvious I picked them up myself. Re: How often do you visit your site? 629Aug 28, 2018 10:43 am Everyday, it is on my way to do my daily activities! Re: How often do you visit your site? 630Sep 23, 2018 10:42 am We live 10 minutes from our block of land, so we visit at least once sometimes twice a week. It's 2.5acres with an amazingly stunning view so we often just sit on the block, kick the soccer ball around and just generally escape from our current suburban life if that makes sense. Re: How often do you visit your site? 633Dec 16, 2018 9:50 pm guys we live quite far away from the site so we hardly visit have only met the SS once . Went yesterday to find out that gates were unlocked and wide open . Had a feeling someone must be working inside so went in and called out - no reply . But to my shock our whole house was flooded.what a disaster . Not sure what to do now. this is btw Metricon build in sydney . Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: How often do you visit your site? 635Dec 17, 2018 8:35 am steel Holy brutal. What are you going to do? I couldn't sleep kept thinking about it . I have written to them but no response yet . Even if they dry it out , the walls will become mouldy. I am just shocked that how come they didn't secure the place , made sure that there is no inlet of rain water. I need suggestions. Re: How often do you visit your site? 637Dec 17, 2018 7:02 pm steel I have no suggestions but whatever is afoul is on them and they will have to fix it. I'd get it assessed by someone for damage. well they have said they will replace the doors and dry out the floor. I have asked them to get the stairs assessed by the supplier / manufacturer . There is a race against time as they wont be working past this friday so all this to be done in the next three days. Whew ! Re: How often do you visit your site? 638Jan 23, 2019 3:36 pm We went most weekends (we lived 40kms away). Can't recommend it enough. I even took a slab down for the brickies once, turns out they were muslim and didn't drink...oops We kept on going through site managers (they were all leaving the company), went through 4 in total. I wanted to keep control of the situation, because in some cases there was obviously no "Hand over", and we found out our site manager was overseeing 14 homes. We took lots of photos. It was tough when little progress had been made, and we weren't afraid to say so (given our build went 6 months over) but we were paying the bills, and it was OUR house. Once it got to lock up stage, we noticed that the upstairs french doors to the balcony, were not closing properly, so instead of saying something, we used it as our access. Took a ladder with us, and climbed up the front balcony. Towards the end, the site manager had a pretty good idea, because he'd arrive on Monday and there was loads of yellow tape on the "defects". Don't be afraid to go, you will find things and you'll have to say something, and they will know you went down. It's just how it goes. We've got a house we are really happy with, so it worked!!! Re: How often do you visit your site? 639Feb 10, 2019 11:37 pm Every 2nd to 3rd day. Don't let anything go. If you go and you see something wrong - email them straight away. At least this gives you evidence for later if you need it. We even got the "Stay Away" 3 weeks out from PCI and still went out. Was fantastically embarrassing when the builders left stuff open and we had to ring them and say - well we aren't allowed on our land but you've left everything open and then asked if we could shut it!!!! Re: How often do you visit your site? 640Feb 11, 2019 8:53 am Agree completely, I regularly point out things as I see them. My SS has grumbled a little bit but I have explained to him the benefits to both of us - I would rather point out things now so that they can be fixed while the trades are there, rather than presenting a list at the end. There have been several examples where things have been easy to fix, but would be much harder at the end. 9 25303 In Victoria you cannot put a caveat on arising from a domestic building contract. 65 112912 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 40815 |