Finish Line approaches

Well, we thought 2 months ago, it'd only be a month to go.  Well, we were wrong.

It took a while to get around to getting the south concrete apron done - includes 2 drains like the 4 on the north side - and then get things organised to drill the extra depth holes and start the fencing.  We had to wait for the builder of the south side house to finish up with their rendering so that they could move the temp fencing off our land and the apron works could commence.  Of course, as we're learning, co-ordinating tradies is aiken to herding cats. The weather affects different tradies differently.

The fencing should hopefully finish this week, and then I've got a little bit of landscaping to do myself - get some scoria in, then stones down the side and bark at the front.

Inside, all the furniture has been delivered and I've managed to sort out the garage 95% and it'll soon be ready for the intended purpose!  A car!  Yes, just one... standard garages here in Australia aren't as wide as in South Africa, so if you have shelves or anything other than a car stored in the garage, there's just not enough space.  Not quite like the good old SA garages that had space for 2 large cars, workbenches, fridge/freezers and then all the rafter space.


The lawn is amazing.  I have to say that the landscaper chose well.  It's an amazing green, and boy does it grow.  I have to mow it every two weeks or it becomes a little jungle for the girls. Will post some photos of that too.  Strathyr's RTF is the name. 

They've started building on the site behind us, so within 6 months or so we'll hopefully have all our neighbours in - possibly the first block in our stage to be completely surrounded by completed houses. We look forward to getting to know all our neighbours better once everyone's houses are complete and we can all get on with enjoying our estate/stage without worrying about or dealing with any building issues.

UEH is busy fixing various things around the house and we're waiting to hear what Beaumont Tiles finds out about our polished porcelain tiles - several appear to have absorbed water and become 'stained'.  Which from what I've been told and read, should never happen with polished porcelain tiles.  Let's wait and see.

End in sight?

Or is that end in Site. :)

Well, we've completed the landscaping for 90% of the area of our lot; basically 3 of the 4 sides of the house are done.  All 3 are just pending the completion of the fence after the grass has had a chance to settle and take root.

The last remaining side is a different beast.  We'll be putting in a retaining wall to protect/support the concrete apron and then after the apron is in, it'll be time to drill extra depth holes - due to the lot next door cutting their site right to the boundary.  Their retaining wall is 200mm off the boundary and 600mm high, so a standard fence post depth wouldn't have a hope in hell of standing up against the wind and would just be pushed over in a few days or weeks.  That fence will also only be 1.8m from the natural lay of the land, unlike it's northern counterpart which is extra height - I think the difference between the tops of the two fences will be around a meter.  Doesn't really bother us, as we're on the high side of the fence and the owner next door is happy with us having +-1.4m of fence height against our house height.

Anyway, if all goes according to plan, in a month all the landscaping/fencing will be done.  Finally.  Hopefully never to be worried about again.

Once that is complete I promise I'll post photos of the before and after. :)

And we thought building the house was the stressful part...

Well... it wasn't.  Sure, it go a bit frustrating with the builder, but they built our house in the end, and I still smile at the little things we did differently with them.

Right now though, it's the outside of the house that I never prepared myself mentally for.  Oh sure, I planned financially, mostly...but there are always things you don't think of, and the budget got blown a while ago...

We're trying to get 2/3 of the fence done, and the whole of the front of the house... and boy is it stressful.  Also going to be around 2 months before the shutters are in...

Living each day without TV, or 'real' (i.e. FTTH) internet has proven interesting.  We basically try stream recorded programs from the likes of 7...and on the dodgy 3G tethering, it stops working all the time...

But... look to the future and in 2 months it'll all be behind us.  The pics will come...in time. :)

Soon, we might actually get some furniture for the theater room! 

Almost every pair of shoes I have has mud on them...

Trying to settle in

Well, it's been crazy.  We finally handed over our rental property today, with a tremendous amount of work by my wife to get it sorted.

We're now in the 'setting up the home' stage... which means, concrete, driveway, landscaping, fencing, windows, furniture... oh boy...

I'll post pictures once everything is sorted out... I must say, the guys from New Look Concrete are doing an amazing job of landscaping and concreting... with some additional drainage to boot.  I can't wait to see how well they'll do our front retaining wall.  A lot of hard work, but they're doing great.

We can't fence or concrete the south side of the house as it's not safe to do so yet until that house has its garage wall up.  Hoping there's enough space for their drainage and the fence on the boundary.

The north side is where NLC are doing lots of work putting in a retaining wall to help level out the ground for the fence and drainage.

Watch this space for the finished products and in about 8 weeks, the inside of the house once the plantation shutters are in.

Time Blurred.

Last Sunday morning I woke up feeling ill.  Physically ill.  I had not slept well (baby sick, so up half the night) and had woken before 06H00 concerned about the house.

We then made the decision to contact both PODS and our removalists to see if they come move the dates forward.  In the mean time, we went into overdrive and started packing the PODS in the off chance that they could.

They could.

Monday was a blur at work and at home and on Tuesday morning the PODS guy came to pick up the PODS and drop it off at the house.  Then it was a made dash back to the rental property to pack as much stuff as we possibly could for the movers that were now coming 10 days early.

Wednesday started with me finding our eldest child had left her car door open the night before (my car) and the battery was dead enough to stop the car starting... then finding out that when I had added my (second) car to my RACV portfolio, nobody had gone about asking if I wanted roadside assist on that vehicle (too).  So I took out roadside assist over the phone and waited the 90 minutes for the guy to arrive (he got there early as was there for like 2 minutes...).

We then found out that the booking alteration hadn't been 'locked in' with the removalists...and we started to...worry.  They said they were putting together a team and they'd be there about 4 hours late.  Eep.

Well... what a pleasure.  The team lead from Metro Movers was damn good.   I've moved house well over 30 times in my life... and it is not often that I've seen a guy go that little bit further in service.  Sorting out the balance of the fridge... holding the sideboard up so that my wife could fit protection to the base - after actually asking us if we wanted to put something on it to protect the wooden floors!  They put down blankets everywhere and did a good job.

So now we're in... trying to survive without taps in half the house.  We finally got a quote from UEH on Friday for the damage and stolen items, but now we have to get approval from the group insurer before UEH will do the work... so even more delays.

And then there's the fencing saga...but I'll leave that for another day.

This week has us deal with Telstra and FTTH...

Day 1... ruined.

So we did handover on Friday afternoon, and before we'd even had a chance to move a thing in, someone had relieved us of several fittings.  Fittings that had been on site for several weeks...

Anyway... police, locksmith, insurance...all been done or being processed.

I'll post some photos once everything is repaired and in...

The monetary 'loss' is irrelevant really.  But the irony of moving to Australia to avoid crime...well... I'm sure it has many people in South Africa chuckling.

Not quite...

Hmm.  Apprehension was well founded.  I have my doubts that AL Windows could have performed the below poor quality of ... work?

Herewith a set of photos taken a week apart (sorry for the layout...), during which time it was claimed an AL Windows technician had repaired ALL the windows.  

In Summary, the person that worked on some of the windows:

1) Didn't protect the glass and has sprayed the windows in several places;
2) Didn't sand down the cuts;
3) Sprayed so much paint (guessing in an attempt to fill the cuts?) that the matt finish is now gloss in those areas and the paint has run in several spots.

The Before photos:

 

  

The After photos:

 
 

 

End in sight?

Late on Friday afternoon I received a phone call from the site supervisor and he confirmed with me that:

a) AL Windows had sent a technician out to repair all the windows. 
b) The palm-sized chip out of the front patio has been repaired.
c) The last damaged kitchen panel has been replaced.
d) We can do our final inspection next Friday.

I have mixed feelings of joy and apprehension on everything being fixed.

-G

Window Frames

We were told around 2 months ago, that the scratches to all the window frames could be easily fixed.  So when our first inspection rolled around we were surprised to still see the damage.

And then... having been told that everything had been complete - 4 weeks after the inspection, I went to check on Saturday...and alas, still nothing has been done...

On a side note, the clay in Eynesbury is really soft and when wet is like glue.  Good thing I took my rain boots with me when I walked around the house.

Still no final inspection

So we're waiting and waiting.  I had really hoped we could celebrate Michelle's birthday in our new house, but alas, we heard today that it is taking UEH's kitchen contractor 5 weeks to get a single damaged panel replaced.

We've been told that it is the only thing left, that everything else has been fixed.  Everything.

I really hope so.

Have told the bank that no funds are moving anywhere just yet...

Dream home turns grey...

So.  Here is the story. 

Kitchen Lights

We wanted a pendant light over the sink.  We didn't get it.  This due to any number of possible reasons.  Suffice to say that it wasn't done, and we weren't consulted during the build.  So we have to make sure we get broad-area pendants to cover the double sink.

UEH at first point blankly said no.  They're not accommodating any changes.  They used a clause in the contract that allows them to supposedly put lighting, plugs, switches, basically anything electrical, wherever they want.  Why we spent several hours doing an electrical plan for the house, stating where we wanted lights or vents, or plugs or switches, is basically pointless.  Just tell them you want stuff in a room, and they'll put it where they think best and you have to live with it.  Like the study's light switch which teleported to the opposite wall.  I understand its due to studs, or other wires, but at no stage were we asked if maybe we'd like it on the flip/reverse side of where it is now... or told that it was moving.  It was just DONE.

Shelves

UEH put in the 600mm shelves as requested.  Just on the wrong side of every room.  They would not adjust this as it was what the plans showed, though they were just fine with moving them to the correct side - except the plans show INSIDE the cupboard, and not the true elevation... So that's their excuse/reason, UEH reads shelving designs from inside the cupboard, while other elevations include cupboard nibs - this was never pointed out to us, even though, contrary to this view, the laundry elevation shows the nibs.  As with the lights, the initial response was a blunt no.  Then we complained and considered arbitration.  So UEH came back to us.  To change it (increase the shelf width from 600mm to 800mm)... we've been quoted almost 3 times what it originally cost to put the shelves in. 3 times.  $630 vs $1700+.  Excluding admin fee.  Interestingly, it would cost around $650 for us to have the contractors come in and do it for us after handover... 


Our dream home is still OUR home...but as we had to fight tooth and nail for around a month for our bricks...then fight over the window frames and living room window...and now this.  We are left feeling that UEH is more interested in being right, and being able to say "We did it as per our reading of the plans", than actually trying to make their customers happy.

Remember my last post?  Brand.  It's all about brand.

There were some awesome people at UEH that helped us a lot, and if anybody ever poached them, they'll have true gems of staff.  I will forever be grateful for the input and feedback they gave us during the design stages.  If I could name them here, I would.  There were others that were not interested in customer satisfaction at all.  And sadly, it's that satisfaction that was waned in the last stages of our house.  People will ask us who built our house, and though we are generally happy with our house, we'll be giving our brand feedback of things people should be aware of, with any builder.

This blog stands as testament to our joy at the various stages; our frustrations with various issues, and will conclude some time after handover when the garden is done, the furniture in, and the fence up.

Though the fence will take some time and hopefully be completed by Christmas...

Hang around... the handover hasn't happened...yet...

Customer is King

I'm not sure if people have heard the true saying.  I've seen emails and heard how people say "The Customer is Always Right".  No.  The customer is not always right, that is not the correct saying.  Customers can be wrong, and often are.

Customers don't always know how to specify in your business language exactly what they want. They don't have the years of knowledge you have and they are thus, not always right.  It doesn't matter how wrong your customer is, it doesn't matter how right you are, if you treat your customers poorly, and not as a "king", your company Brand suffers.

I work in IT, and I have end users that come to me telling me in their terms what they want.  We try interpret that with detailed Business Requirements Documents done with Business Analysts.  In building, I guess that's the Tender document.

After that we draw up Functional Requirements, the equivalent of Site Plans.  This is so the business users can see how we intend to implement what they've asked, and how long.  They then sign this off, as they did with the Business Requirements.

After that, it's off to Technical Design and the developers - the people that write the code.  In much the same way, the tradies get told what to do.  The tradies don't talk to the client, nor does the site manager, only the customer-facing people do.

Inevitably, there are bugs in the programme - missing paint, damaged window frame - and there are things that don't end up being what the Business User actually wanted - they wanted the screen to do the functionality THIS way, but it wasn't documented well, or not at all.

I don't ever, tell the user they cannot have that.  What is the point?  For one, I'll probably get fired, but more importantly, there's my reputation.  I deliver top-end solutions in IT.  I have an obsession for quality and efficiency in the systems my developers create.  If we find that what we've developed doesn't actually meet what the Business User actually wanted, we meet with them, we discuss the issues, and we put a cost/time against it.  We never outrightly say no, ever.

When a company tells a client no, and does so just so that they are right, they fail their brand.  They get remembered as the company that wanted more to be right (self pride) than to do what is right by their customer (brand pride).  In the end, the brand suffers, and your cashflow suffers because in the modern world of social media and word-of-mouth-travels-the-globe-in-seconds, brand is E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

In my job,  I don't ever want to be known as the person that just says no...

First Inspection

We had our first inspection on 03/05/2013.  We spent more than 2 hours going through and around the house.  We then had our private inspector go through it as well.

The theatre was incomplete.  Feature paint was not done, nor were the audio cabling/wall plates in place.

The kitchen still has a lot of work to be done.  Several panels had scratches on them and 2 were missing.  One or two drawers didn't close after being opened without lifting the drawer above.  The pull-out bin cupboard didn't close flush.  

Almost every room had incomplete paint work.  Quite a number of corners and doors had marks on them.

The tiles in the en suite and laundry had marks in (and on) them.  One of the en suite mirrors had a chip out of it.

The WIR drawers were misaligned, i.e. not level with each other.

The cupboards in Bed 2, 3 and 4 had the shelves on the wrong side.  Sadly, the 600mm shelves actually sit 200mm inside the front nib.  Bed 3's had the wrong doors. 

Numerous window frames had scratches on them, with one actually being dented/bent.
There was no insulation in place.
The floorboards are yet to arrive (we knew this beforehand)

Even with all these issues, we still love our house and are looking forward to settling in it.  We just want things to be perfect, or as near-as.

Next, we have to arrange the base retaining walls, landscaping and driveway/walkways.

I've updated the floorplan to show the layout at least of the front garden... hard to show it in 3D of course.

Custom Rouge 04

Walk through

So Urban Edge invited us to a walk through of the in-progress house.

We had been checking up on/from the outside and really couldn't see much of what was going on inside the house.

Today we got a look.  And we're quite happy with things.  The taps are working, the lights are working.   The tiles are in, the paint is (mostly) done.

So here are some pictures of the kitchen and the bathrooms.  The mirrors are still missing in the bathrooms, and the kitchen needs a fair bit of work to go - the bottom middle panel of the overhead cupboards is wrong and is being replaced with a while panel to match the rest.  There are also a few panels that will need replacing.

The bathrooms are looking great with the so much already done.

En suite, with dual showers and individual mixers.

En suite, missing the mirrors and feature tiles.

Work in progress

Bathroom

Progress

So you have to wonder why we were told that the house was ready for pre-plaster inspection, when it took another whole week to get it there.

It's looking much better now.  Could see lots of wiring and it looks like the insulation in the walls is all going in and the theater room's sound proofing looks to be in too.  The cooling unit was in too.  So much happier now.  The correct living room window is lying in the garage ready to be installed.  

Just worried about the number of broken roof tiles we've seen.  Been told they'll all be fixed before hand over... I don't quite want to have to climb in the roof to check them - but i'll be winter, so not too hot if I have to.

From here on out, the photos won't look much different as they've finished most of the major outside items.

Frontage

Side Profile

Alfresco

Entrance

Main Bedroom

South Profile

Rear Corner

Slow progress?

In the week that passed (prior to 16/02/2013) it seems things didn't go so fast.  In fact, I could really only see that the brickwork had gone up halfway.  From what we could see of the inside, it looked like nothing much had been done - no new pipes or anything.  Might have been caused by the electricity issue.

Here's the photos.


Frontage

Side Profile 

Alfresco

Front Entrance

Main Bedroom

South Profile

Rear Corner

Inspections...

For the second time, the UEH team have gotten it wrong.  Again, even after multiple emails asking for confirmation, they were still not complete to the agreed target for the inspection (last Friday 15/02/2013)

This is disappointing.  And costly because we have to pay for re-inspections on top of the partial inspection.

So another inspection has been arranged for today (22/02/2013) and hopefully things proceed better...

UEH Commits

UEH has made a goodwill gesture and said they will cover the cost of the generator till next Monday so that construction can continue until the Smart Meter is installed.

Though I'm not Australian, I can definitely say, Good on ya UEH.  We really appreciate them helping in this regard.

Perhaps it is an apology for the mess with the window, either way, it is very nice of them to take care of that aspect.  And we won't forget it.

The Developer

No, not UrbanEdge Homes.  The developer of Eynesbury.

We titled back in December, and if you recall, it was all a bit sudden.  Well, they were given a bank cheque for our OC fees.  And they didn't hand it over to the OC, or at least, haven't yet...  Of my own volition I started investigating this with the OC.  I was told that the OC would speak to the developer to see where the cheque was.

Two days ago I received a reminder notice and a final notice for the two OC fees that were to have been paid, IN ADVANCE, in December.  Not only that, but we've been charged interest.
Poor poor form.

And then there's this... which we are very disappointed in and never thought was allowed... were went to title without electricity being available to our lot.  It only got connected to the grid at the end of January... and now we have to wait for a Smart Meter (all of us in Stage 11...) to be ordered - at best 8 days away (at the time of this post)... or pay for a generator for X days so that UEH can continue to build.

We've chosen to wait and suspend building while we wait for the meter to be installed.

Quite poor form by the Eynesbury developers.

Heading towards plastering

Weekly visit.  Looking good.  Hoping all the items in the report have or are being dealt with.  We've been assured they are.

Roof tiles are on and look sparkly (wife approves).  Our dear Homestead Tan bricks surround the house...waiting to be added.  Insulation is on and everything looks to be going well.

Frontage.

Side profile.

Front porch/entrance

South side of the house.

Back corner.

Oops...

So on Saturday (02/02/2013) we went out to see the house.

Frontage as usual. 

We saw the windows were in and the gutters were going up in front of our eyes.  Awesome!

Except...

This isn't the window we asked for!  <panic>  We went over it and over it for the last few months with UEH and though we had been given the credit for not going with the awning window back in October 2011, the final plans sent to us and the bank and agreed on and signed for had the dual awning window... But wait... what's that?!  The colour of the window frame is wrong too!  Oh dear.  All our colours - gutters, drainpipes, rendering, WOODLAND GREY!

So we went through everything... the plans showed the window... why isn't it there... And then...there...we saw it... in the colour document did not have one...but actually TWO colours listed for the window frames... our colour first, and then Merino second... how could that be... we had never looked at, or knew what Merino was...so seeing it on the colour document meant nothing to us...

So after some frantic emails to Urban Edge, we were invited to a meeting with them to discuss these two issues.

After some delicate negotiations, we have agreed to a compromise.  We stay with the Merino window frames, and UEH replace the window at their cost, with us just paying the original price for the window as they are the same size.

On Friday, New Home Inspections  (Rob) went out to look at things and found that 99% of the frame was OK, but found 2 concerning things with the slab:

There was a hole where the re-bar is exposed...

And then there's the concave living area that exceeds the maximum allowed tolerance...

We're waiting for UEH to remedy these and expect a report tomorrow (07/02/2013) from them on these two points and the few other minor issues with the frame.

In the mean time, we're going over our colour document for any other strange looking things that might be interpreted incorrectly... a long-standing candidate identified by us 14 months ago was the kitchen tap... let's hope that isn't an issue...because that involves caesar stone...

Anyway, here are the latest set of photos showing the regular angles.

Side Profile.

Alfresco.

Rear corner (including traidi-legs. :) )

Oh dear...

Inspection was done on Friday... report received today.

We also visited the house today... and oh dear...

Will update the post once things are sorted out...

Not quite an inspection...

So I arranged everything.  Had UEH tell us when we could come out for the inspection.  Took time off work to go there myself to watch, and arranged for a profession inspector to do it for me.

Fail.

I had questioned whether the frame was actually complete (see previous blog entry for photos) as we had been invoiced last Friday.  Turns out, I was right, and they failed to communicate with us that the frame was not complete.

There I was...feeling a mixture of annoyance and embaressment...standing in front of a not-so-complete frame this morning with an inspector that was bemused.

Lesson here... no matter how much you ask...until you get out there with someone who knows... you'll always be guessing.

So this Saturday's blog post should contain pictures of the actually completed frame...

26/01/2013 - Frame on its way

So our weekly visit, and here's the front profile.

It should be noted that the builder has filled up the area right around the house with loose stones.  Not sure if this is normal practice, but they've leveled it almost to the level of the rear alfresco... so that's going to be interesting.

We've been told to arrange inspection for Wednesday, so there's still quite a bit of work for them to do before then.


Here's the side profile.

And here's a nice one showing the view from the alfresco into the house - through the 3-door sliding door on the left, and the 1.8m window on the right, through which you can see the kitchen and dining area, with the large living area to the left.

And here's the rear corner one, showing the difference from the previous concrete slab.