Awards Night.

I must apologise for the lengthy delay since my last post, the combined pressures of moving house, unpacking, housewarming (cleaning up after housewarming), more unpacking, re-arranging the unpacked stuff, trying to organise the air conditioning, yelling at the air conditioning salesman, more rearranging of unpacking and buying a kitten, has taken up more time the I anticipated.

So, the house...
Well, the list of items that needed fixing from the PCI meeting has, according to my supervisor, been completed. Funnily enough, the list of items from my building inspector which was handed over to my supervisor has not been finished. Most of them are minor things but I have got 3 phone calls in the last 9 days from 2 different people asking me to sign and return the PCI forms, so I think they are in a rush to close my job off before Christmas, which I will gladly help them with... if they finish the jobs first!


And I have an announcement to make, the winner of Most Amazingly Simian Tradesperson (or TradePersons) Award goes to...

THE PLUMBER !!!


For a while the race between which trade was the most stupid/deranged/ape like/idiotic was neck and neck between the plumber and the bricklayer but the final saga that pushes the plumber over the line ahead of the bricklayer is the fact that they installed the laundry trough. Not an event by itself until you hear what they managed to achieve whilst installing the laundry trough. The trough has 4 screws that attach it to the wall to stop it moving (presumably), these screws attach it to the same wall as what the hot water copper pipe runs through. Yeap, you guessed it, the plumber installing the trough manged the rare and exceedingly difficult feat of drilling into the wall at exactly the right spot to hit the hot water pipe, and at precisely the right depth so as to not directly pierce the pipe but to damage it enough so that after using the washing machine twice the copper finally splits and water leaked into my wall. And because the wall is single brick, and the pipe was laid in a chase cut out of that single brick, the water leaked into the wall, all over (and under) the laundry tiles, AND all through the wall into the built in robe in the spare bedroom... The NEWLY CARPETED spare bedroom with a lot of boxes of stuff in it I might add.

So it was that amazing feat of drilling that pushes the plumber clear ahead of all of the other trades. Well done guys. Go have a banana.

And on a completely separate note, I would like to point out that there are few things as surreal as being woken up at 3:00am by a small 9 week old kitten licking your ear, it plays havoc with your sleep cycle and doesn't do much for your heart rate either (the kitten seemed to thing it was a great joke though).

Take care.

(To the poster that left a comment saying they were starting to build with Dale Alcock Home, best of luck to you. The inspector I used was through Houspect - http://www.houspect.com.au/ - and thoroughly worth every cent).

The road goes ever on and on......

Well, the PCI has been and gone, the 10 day deadline has been and gone and we are still waiting for things to start (let along finish!). On the Saturday after our PCI meeting (which was on the Friday) I spent some time at the house and I noticed a few things that I (and my building inspector) missed, 4 things in total:

1) The brick paving to the driveway was poorly laid, no sand between the pavers, minimal use of cement edging.
2) The Laundry courtyard (which wasn't complete at the PCI) has no cement edging.
3) The stormwater drain which runs along the front of the garage to stop water flowing into the garage is installed... but has not been connected up to the stormwater system, there is no where for hte water to go.
4) One of the window locks has been nearly ripped off from someone trying to close it while it was locked open.

Fairly large things, and things that are fairly obviously the builders fault, its not like they can claim it was done after we took possession of the house.

As it stands now I have had 10 external window shutters installed, half the house painted and all of my network and TV cabling finished throughout the entire house in the same time it has taken Ventura to do, well, NOTHING.

Seriously, I work 40-50 hours a week at a job and my wife works the same and we can still organise several different trades to do their jobs in the small space of 10 days, our builder (who does this for a living) cannot even organise 1 guy to fix some basic things. I know we are not there only client, and they have dozens (if not hundreds) of other clients to look after, but really 10 days and not one person to fix any of the problems they have left behind? Its really quite pathetic, I would be embaressed if I worked at Ventura.

Its kind of depressing, but on the plus side the longer this debacle goes on for the more I am going to enjoy our housewarming party. And this is one party I do not need to drive too :-)

And so we come, to the end of all things.

Well, I haven't been sent to jail. The PCI Meeting on Friday was fairly trouble free and successful. It didn't get off to the best of starts though, our inspector for some reason thought the meeting was at 2:30 as opposed to 2:00, so he was late arriving.

Our supervisor was already there when we turned up, fitting the bathroom door of all things. We went through each room together and I pointed out everything that was obvious to me that needed a touch up (things like scratched window frames, chips in the plaster work etc, leaking toilet!?) and he was quite happy noting everything down on his record sheet. We ended up filling 2 pages, which may sound like a lot but really they were all minor things. Then the inspector turned up and he went around by himself and filled up 4 pages of things to fixed, far far more detailed then I was.

Afterwards he took the supervisor around and pointed out he major things he didn't like, like the fact that the paint work on the ceiling was patchy (considering it's white paint on white gyprock I was impressed that he picked that up, but he was right, if you look very carefully it is patchy).

It all seemed very amicable and the supervisor left promising to get the things fixed over the next 10 days or so.

I then spoke to my Client Liason Officer on Monday and arranged to pick the keys up this Friday (subject to the bank approving the Progress Payment of course - current status on that is that its been approved as of today), the only condition on picking up the keys so quickly is that I do not rekey the garage door lock until Ventura has finished, so not as to restrict access for the tradesmen, and since all I am doing for the next 3 weeks is having tradesmen of my own in and out of the house that's ok with me.

So the big question, how do I feel now about Ventura, now that the stress is over and its practically complete?
Hmm...

I think an 5 out of 10 is a fair score, based solely on my observations and experiances.

Pros
They spent a lot of time with us designing our house at no cost.
They provided an Interior Designer to help us sort out our colours.
The roof timbers are excellent in their construction.

Cons
The brickwork is barely adequate in some places (in one case we are asking them to remove an entire external row of bricks along the window sill due to poor laying on the inspectors advice).
The green staining on the bricks is quite extensive and makes the house look like crap. Ventura's line is that its not their fault and it is just part of the brick and they suggest we try spraying bleach on the stains. Bollocks.
The plumber wins the prize for causing the most errors during the construction (taps installed on wrong walls, taps in the wrong positions, gas points in the wrong positions, cutting power cables with re-laying gas points and so on...).
I had 3 different supervisors in the time it took to build my house, problems bought up with 1 supervisor had to be bought up again with each new supervisor.
There appeared to be to be a complete lack of communication (or even a desire to communicate) with the client, nearly all communication had to be initiated by me.
Absolutely no desire to be pro-active about possible risks (there is no concept of Risk Management as far as I can tell). Even when I raised concerns about potential issues they wouldn't worry about it until the issue eventuated. Its such a waste of time its weird they don't take it more seriously.

I'm overall happy with my house, but disappointed at specific parts of it, mainly the stains.

Am I still going to write a tirade on my Customer Survey form (as I mentioned I would do a couple of times in this Blog)?
Yes I am. It may not be as haranguing as I pictured earlier on (heat of the moment and all that...) but I am still going to let them know what I think of their concept of client relationships and risk management to name just a few.


I guess there are still a few things to write and a few more blog entries to go before I truly move into my new home so I haven't finished just yet, but things are certainly coming to a close

Don't Dream its Over

Well 5 days to go before its all over!! (See - even after all this time I still haven't lost my optimistic outlook!).

The electrician has been and installed everything he should have (and something he shouldn't have - but more on that later), the sand has been delivered and the block landscaped for the paving that needs to go down, and only the gas related plumbing is left to be completed (all of the water related stuff - toilets, taps etc) have been done.

Its going to be completed on time, Its going to be completed on time, Its going to be completed on time (I just need my red ruby slippers on to make this wish come true! However my wife has hidden them threatening bodily harm if I wear them out in public again).

No onto the thing the electrician should not have installed.
Remember the Hot Water Unit Saga? The one where the plans and contract say that the hot water unit is a recessed continuous hot water unit, and yet every tradesman involved with it (brickie, electrician and plumber) seemed to think that it was an external (non recessed) unit? Well despite promises to the contrary this particular has not been solved.

The electrician has installed an external powerpoint on the wall next to great big hole in the outer big wall instead of inside the cavity. So now I need to either get Ventura to call the electrician back on site and change it (which also means replacing the brick he drilled through) or I can have the power cable from the hot water unit which is recessed into the wall, dangle out along the wall externally to the external plug. Some choice.. An email is already on its way to Ventura :-)


And now for something completely different...
For any music fans of the band Queen out there I would recommend a visit to http://www.q-unit.net/ which is the homepage for a bunch of artists (or maybe just one, I'm not sure) called "The Silence Xperiment". They have released a mash-up album of Queen tracks with 50-Cent lyrics and its... different. Its kind of like eating french fries dipped in soft serve ice cream together, two things that on the face of it should never go together, but some how they work. There is a weird synergy going on and I am a rabid Queen fan and a very rabid not a 50-Cent fan but I kinda like this album. Its freely available for download. Enjoy :-)


Hopefully my next blog will be with the good news that the house is finished and everything is going well... Or I'll be posting from jail, sitting next to a new friend of mine call Bubba Pete awaiting sentencing for flushing my Building Supervisor down the toilet.


Take care and have fun where ever you can :-)

And so it begins, the end.

Well the tilers have been and completed their work, and on a Sunday no less! We were over at the house on Saturday afternoon looking at paint samples and the tiles were not done, and then we went back on Sunday afternoon because we still couldn't make up our mind and the tiling was done.. on a Sunday morning.. I'm stunned.

Plus the fence was FINALLY removed last Friday and it is very obvious that the retaining wall will not only need moving to its correct position but will need extending so that it actually has a chance of retaining stuff.

When I politely asked my Client Liasion Officer to ask my Supervisor (don't you love Chinese whispers!) to have a look and see what he thinks about the retaining wall I was informed that he (my third supervisor I point out) was on holidays for a week. Which, as stupid as it sounds, worked out really good because instead of passing it onto the supervisor my CLO got the retaining wall contractor to call me direct, we discussed the fence, he went on site and had a look, we discussed some more and he said he would be out there today to move and extend the wall. How simple was that. I also had the added bonus of getting him to tell me how much he is charging Ventura for this, and just how much of a mark up is being placed on his fee by Ventura, go on have a guess (if any one gets close I'll tell you).

Some progress has been made.

As you know we have a new supervisor now (our third) and the word from him, relayed to us via our Client Liasion Officer (almost our third) is that our PCI Meeting should be on the 20th of October. Now if any one knows just what 'PCI' stands for I would love to know, as I doubt in this case that it stands for Periphial Connection Interface. I sat here trying to think up some amusing building related acronyms that PCI might stand for, but came up blank (I came up with a couple, but nothing I would print on a public web page!).

Still with that in mind I am going to take a bit of a gamble and book my tiler in for 8th of Novmeber and my painter for the 2nd of November. Whilst the tiler is a little flexible the painter is not and the only times he has free are either the 2nd of November or the 16th of Janurary (and considering he will only charge $2500 for the job - dulux top range paint included - I am willing to work with him on a time). The guy is a painter by trade and would normally charge around $3500 to $4000 for a similar job but since he is also the captain of my hockey team things have worked out really well (I'll provide the bourbon and cokes for afterward).

We went and bought a dishwasher and fridge on the weekend also... Damn there are a lot of choices. Whilst we pretty much already knew what we wanted (Fisher and Paykel, Stainless Steel finish, and the dishwasher is a dishdrawer) we still had to look at the other choices and see if what we did want was an OK choice for us. We figured that a full size dishwasher is a little bit of an over kill for two people, it would take a week to fill the damn thing with dishes (and I don't have that may dishes), so this way with a 2 drawer dishdrawer we only need to fill one drawer for a 'full' load. And if we are going to by a F&P dishwasher we may as well buy a F&P fridge. So we ended up with a 520 litre stainless steel monster (with a monster price too - ouch!) that is going to be a bugger to get into the kitchen. The price was $1400 for the dishwasher and $1700 for the fridge and whilst they are great prices (a F&P Dishdrawer is around 1600-1700) we, frankly, could have got something for nearly half the price, but I have a F&P top loading washing machine which for 9 years has not missed a single beat, and Mum's F&P washing machine was be going strong for 14 years and is basically indestructible and I'm prepared to pay for that sort of quality and trust, plus the curved stainless steel finishes to both machines looks great (god help anyone who touches it without gloves though! :) )

For those loyal readers who have been following this blog for a while (hi mum!) you should remember the trouble we had a little while ago with the retaining wall, and the fact that it was quite a way in from the boundary (and not where it should have been). So after a couple of letters and phone calls where I insisted that the builder build according to the signed plans, they agreed to move the retaining wall to the correct position provided I organised the removal of the asbestos fence first. Not a problem says I and I set about organising it. I rang the fence guy, and he remembered my quote, said that he would get someone out to look at it and remove the fence on the 20th (last Wednesday). Great I thought, and I let Ventura know the fence would be gone. Well guess what, its in now the 27th and as of last night the fence was still up!! Brilliant! After months of having a go at Ventura always running things over time and not being able to organise things, it all comes back and bites me on the backside! I have been promised that the fence WILL be down and removed today, but then again I was promised it would be down on the 20th and then the 22nd, and then the 25th, so I'm not holding out much hope....

The tiling which was started 2 weeks ago has still not been done either, for some reason after laying all of the tiles, and grouting the Ensuite they have gone off on a holiday some where and left the bathroom tiles ungrouted. Go Figure. I have to say that aside from that slowness the tilers seem quite excellent. Their laying and tile cutting is brilliant. They have cut holes out of the tiles for the taps, power points, and drains with millimetre precision, I'm impressed, I wish the plumber was as good, he has trouble getting the taps on the right wall!

So, bring on the 20th of October!

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture!

Well, I survived International Talk Like A Pirate Day but it was a close run thing!

Anyways, back to the house...

The blog title for this post come from the first thing that ran through my head when I recieved an email from my Client Liasion Officer (ahh, I still chuckle when I say that) at Ventura the relevant part in the email was this line "Just a note to let u know that you have a new supervisor, his name is Darren *******".

Oh whoopie! ANOTHER supervisor, that now brings my total to 3 supervisors, and 3 Client Liasion Officers (although my CLO's have changed FOUR times, but the last change was back to a previous CLO, go figure).

Just how (and who!) do they think this helps? In a 12 month period expecting your supervisor to change is not unreasonable, but THREE times?! And we are only 6 weeks away from finishing (and we have been for 8 weeks, damn PES).

That aside the orange haired simian I have for a plumber has been back and fixed the dishwasher water outlet, placing it in its correct position, and the kitchen guys have been back and replaced the kitchen (after having to take most of it out for the plumber). So this is good.

The tilers have tiled the ensuite (although not yet grouted it) and I just f*****g give up. "1 row of tiles above the vanity" its a fairly simple instruction, nothing too difficult to understand, no complex sub rules to interpret or anything in that statement, SO WHY THE HELL did the tiler install 1 row of half tiles?!

Its possible that laying the tiles like that means there is less tile cutting else where around the bath when lining the tiles up or something... well guess what, I dont care, I want the place built like I asked, not built however is easiest for the builder.

Mood Assessment for Today: Grumpy, Tired, Annoyed.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

www.talklikeapirate.com

Its also known in my house as "If You Dare Talk like a Pirate for the Whole Day, You'll Get a Wooden Leg Up Your Roger" Day, or IYDTLAPFTWDYGAWLUYR Day, which is quite pithy don't you think.

I will refrain from making any of the obvious snide comments about Pirates and todays Builders...

Technorati Claim

Just cause I can :-)

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I have little to say on the house at the moment, hopefully as I speak (type?) the orangu tang ... err I mean plumber... is moving the dishwasher cold water tap to its correct position, and the tilers are, well, tiling.

More to follow... as always.

PES in full swing

Well the Tiler turned up as planned, on time and ready to go... bugger me! We had a quick chat about where the tiles were going and which bits had the feature/border tiles and which didn't and they were off. By the end of the first day they had built the hobs around the two baths and under the vanities, screed both floors and waterproofed the showers. I was impressed. I was less impressed when my supervisor told me that the tiler work work Thursday and Friday and then take a week off to go do another job before coming back to finish ours.

But as it turns out they can't do much work next week anyway because half of the kitchen has to be taken out and the dishwasher main water pipe has to be moved because my stupid plumber (whom I am now convinced beyond any doubt is either blind or an Orang Utang) placed it inside the dishwasher recess and not to one side as it should be. With the pipe in its current position it would not be possible to turn the tap off with out removing the dishwasher first, and of course you cannot remove the dishwasher without turning the tap off, so go figure. Seriously, I swear I saw a banana peel on the rubbish heap out front the other day....

Good news on the retaining wall issue though. I had a phone call from my Client Liason Officer who told me to remove the old asbestos fence within 2 weeks and Ventura will organise the retaining wall to be moved to the correct position. A small win, but a significant one since it now gives us about 400mm more space down one side.

That's about all I can manage today, its 9:00am and I am too tired to even work up the energy to rant about the house. I ended up playing Simcity 4 for far to long last night (I have vague memories of it being around 2am when I got to bed - which hurts when you are up are out of the house at 6:45am for work). I'm just a software engineer, I have little need to be up so early to get to work, but my wife works on Rottnest as the Newsagency Manager and she has to catch the 7:30 boat from Fremantle so we have a rather strict, unmissable, deadline :-)


I'm off to get another coffee. . . or 3
Take care.

The PES of house building

Well it would seem that we are in the PES (Perpetual End Stage) of house building....

Definition:
PES - The state a house ends up in when the end of the construction is in sight, but the date supplied to the house owner by the builder is forever moving just out of reach, this situation is also known as "The End of The Raindow" Stage - you can see it, but you never get any closer to it!

For the last few weeks I have politely asked when the house would be finished since I have a Tiler, a Painter, a Carpet Layer and a Candlestick Maker to book (ok, maybe not the last one), I have a rent agreement in my current residence to get out of, I need to book some time off work to move houses etc etc. The first time I asked 4 weeks ago I was told "6-8 weeks" which was excellent. The next time I asked (2 weeks ago) I was told "6-8 weeks", hmmm, and this morning when I asked I was told "6-8 weeks". I'm starting to see a pattern here..... If next week I get the same answer I'm going to get somewhat grumpy. I get to such a point at times that I seriously think about using the same tactic when the final bill comes for the house completion:

Ventura: "Dear householder, we see that your final account is due, could you pay it please"
Me: "Certainly, I'll pay it within 8-10 days."
Ventura: "Dear householder, your account is now 10 days overdue, could you pay it please"
Me: "Certainly, I'll pay it within 8-10 days."
repeat....

I'm sure they would see the funny side of it and we would all end up around a coffee table having a good old laugh about it... seriously...

And even after all we have been through (not exactly a Himalayan Expedition or anything, but bad enough) some things still amaze me. What we are waiting on at the moment is the Ventura Tiler to tile the bathrooms, but apparently NOTHING else can get done and everything has to halt now until the tiler has finished. When I asked as to why the kitchen cupboards could not be finished, or why the insulation cannot get installed, or why the electrical work could not be completed, or why the external earthworks and paving could no be started I was told that "The tiler is the next trade booked in to do work and he has be delayed"... so?! The above things I have listed don't effect the tiler at all, but apparently because the tiler is the next trade to go into the house everyone else must wait. Just Amazing.

The other beef I have at the moment aside from the builder's inability to plan tasks in parallel, is the builders insistence that the house must be built "to plan", i.e. absolutely no undocumented changes. Actually I totally agree with this, if home owners changed house plans on a whim then chaos would result (more chaos then is currently apparent in the building industry I mean). The problem is that when the builder says that the house must be built "to plan", what they appear to mean is that the house must be built to plan only if it is convenient to them but if its easier for them to change something then to build it according to plan then they will, on a whim.

This whole issue came about like this:
1) When the house was being drafted I asked for the phone point to be moved from the kitchen to a point in the roof above the garage (in anticipation of the smart wiring we were installing).
2) The drafter didn't get this amendment and stupidly I didn't pick it up on the plans and so the phone point wasn't moved and it ended up being installed in the kitchen.
3) I don't really care as it can be moved easily enough afterwards, but I did point out that I had communicated with the builder that the phone point should have been put somewhere else (I even provided a copy of the email within which I requested the phone point be moved).
4) The builder replied saying that the phone point is shown on the plan as being in the kitchen and so that is were it must be installed, it can't be changed as things must be built according to the plans.
5) That got me thinking and I have now insisted on several minor things to be fixed that are not according to the plans. They are in the whole minor things that I was going to let slide, but if the builder is going to use the "must be built to plan" card then they must back it up.

There are 3 issues I know of that are not correct according to the signed drawings, two of them are minor and one if fairly major and if the builder is reasonable I am willing to let the two minor ones slide so I get the major one fixed.

The 3 issues are:
1) The Lounge room wall vent, for those of you that have been with me since the start of this blog you will know that the wall vent in the lounge room was never installed while the bricks were being laid, even though the one in the family room WAS installed. Well finally they have come and cut out a hole in the wall to install the vent in the lounge room, however it would appear they have chosen the most convenient wall (for them) to install the vent in, and they have not installed it where it is shown on the SIGNED architectural drawings.
2) The Kitchen benchtop is shown on all of the SIGNED plans as having a straight edge to it where it ends, the one that has been installed has a gently curve to it.
3) The retaining wall is shown on the SIGNED plans as being on the boundary, it was installed about 500mm inside the boundary

As you can see 1) and 2) are fairly minor and I don't mind if they stay the way they are, but with the retaining wall being so far inside the boundary 3) is a fairly big issue, the block is damn narrow to being with and every centimetre counts in the width.

What has happened with the wall (the reason it is inside the boundary so far) is that there is already an old asbestos fence on that boundary and it was incorrectly laid about 300mm inside the actual boundary many many years ago, so when the tradesmen came along to install the wall instead of thinking "Hmmm we cant install the retaining wall according to the plans, lets talk to the home owner and see what we can arrange" they just went and installed it inside the old asbestos fence, making it about 500mm inside the boundary.

Essential Ventura (the builder) has broken the contract that we both signed. Since we have signed hardcopy plans, it is reasonable to expect that those plans be followed, or if for some reason that is not possible then both parties should sign a memorandum to that effect and sign an appended copy of the plans, its not up the the builder to do as they wish. At least that is my position on this. If they are going to be stubborn then I will insist on 1) 2) and 3) be reverted back to plan, if they are reasonable and are prepared to discuss things then I am happy with just the retaining wall being fixed.

So here we go again...


This Just In
My new supervisor called about 10 minutes ago saying that the Tiler will be on site and starting work from about 7:30 onwards as of this Thursday (the 7th of September). So maybe, just maybe the next time frame I get for house completion will be the correct one... maybe..

All praise the (nearly) almight Google.

The main reason I'm writing this post is simply because I can write it using Google's new Writely word processor (all hail the mighty Google!).

Writely (www.writely.com) is a online word processor that allows direct posting to a number of blogs (blogger being on of them) and considering my usual posting habit was to write everything up in MS Word first and then cut and paste into the blogger text field to post, this is much more fun.. if it works.

I already use Gmail (mail.google.com) as my primary mail client, and since it has become available I have been using Google Spreadsheets (spreadsheet.google.com) to store all of my house budget stuff (progress payments, item costs, quotes etc), and its bloody brilliant. I can find out some info while at work, oad up my spread sheet via my web browser, edit it just like I would if I was using MS Excel, save it and then that afternoon when I get home I can load it up again via the web browser on my home computer. Anywhere that I have net access I can access my housing budget spreadsheet and update it at will (it supports complex formulas and multiple sheets per spreadsheet, just like Excel). Bloody. Brilliant.

And Google also has a online calendar app which I use to store and co-ordinate all of the housing stuff, its simple, clean and quick. What more could you need?

And all of this is access thru a web browser, no need to install any software, just log on and its there. wheeeee

Anyways, more on the house. Considering that after the house has gone into the lock-up stage (which mine has) access is meant to be restricted only to those people who need access to complete their work (ie not the house owner), it seems pretty stupid that they leave the front window unlocked doesn't it. So, using this conveniently placed entrance we (as in my wife and myself) took the opportunity to go through the house with a fine tooth comb and produce a list of things that we want looked at. We did this in anticipation of the next on-site meeting we are going to be having with Jeff (our NEW supervisor - I think we scared the other one off - which twit thought that changing supervisors 2 months before the end of the project was a good idea?!).

The list is depressingly substantial :( and it includes (and is not limited too) things such as:
· The laundry trough that has been delivered is 100% genuine plastic, pity really cause we asked for the steel one (as stated in our contract).
· Brick work in the garage has been damaged by a (possibly) blind bobcat driver.
· A Low Wall Vent that was cut into the lounge room wall at an angle of about 25 degrees from the horizontal.
· A retaining wall that has been built about 30cm (1 foot) off the boundary, as apposed to building it on the boundary as shown on plans
· and many more.

Still, on the bight side we have chosen our carpets and tiling, and have narrowed down our paint colours to only a few now, and most importantly the pile of bricks on our block is starting to feel like a home, and its even starting to look like one.

Onthe not so bright side we also had a look at lighting the other day. Ouch. These puppies are expensive, especially when some require electricians to install them. Still we found the most perfect light for our bedroom, its so perfect would appear to have been made with only our bedroom in mind, so the wife is most happy :-)


EDIT: Grrrrr. Ok, after waiting a day and a half for Writely to automatically publish my post (something it reports as having done successfully) and Blogger to display my new post (something ti has no knowledge of it seems), I have had to do the good old cut and paste technique I was trying to avoid... Bugger.... I need to work on this a bit more and figure out why it didn’t post as planned.

Damn you Google, here is me praising your virtues and you go and hand me an omelette to place over my face... and you were doing so well too up to this moment of failure!!
(Still Writely is only in beta at the moment, so it might improve).

6 weeks to go and carpets chosen!

Well the house has been locked up and my supervisor has given me a deadline of approximately 6 weeks until the house is completed. I’m not going to hold my breath, but its looking positive especially since they have a tiler organised.

There are still some issues that need sorting out (surprise surprise!) such as:
1) The dishwasher issue (lack of waste water drain) is still an issue and nothing has been heard from Ventura on this matter (again – surprise, surprise)
2) A wall vent was installed sometime last week in the lounge room on an angle of 25 degrees off the horizontal, very poor workmanship there.
3) The bobcat that was used to level the sand in the garage managed to quite badly and quite noticeably damage several brick in the garage

There are a few more issues, but I start to get far to0 depressed when I talk about them to0 much.

On a far more positive note I took a week of work last week (always a positive thing!) and between myself, my wife, several useless and sometimes downright rude sales staff (and the very rare amazingly helpful sales person – hello Ferguson from WA Carpet Supermarket in Osborne Park!) we managed to purchase the tiles and carpet for our house. Due to a stroke of good fortune the most perfect tile for our house was on sale down from $40 a square metre to $25 a square metre and considering we are tiling about 90 square metres of home this was a great saving, which we then ended up immediately losing by spending about $1000 more on carpet, so it all balanced out in the end and we came in only $40 over our $7000 budget (which includes the tiler).

I must say something about what we went through in choosing the carpet. We started at a place called WA Carpet Supermarket were we met Ferguson who actually took the time to sit down with us and our plans, measure everything out, talk to us about the general carpet types and the different underlay types, and all the pros and cons, unfortunately because it was the first carpet place we went to we left without making a choice. We then went to about 6 other carpet places before we realise that everyone stocks the same carpet brands at pretty much the same price so it didn’t matter really where we went. We ended up at Trevors Carpets because they supply carpet to most of the home builders in Perth and we got a builders discount on the carpet we wanted saving us about 10% and a free upgrade to the premium ‘platinum’ underlay. We almost bought the carpet there and then but we ended up going back to Ferguson to see what he could offer us (since he was so nice we though we would give him the chance for the sale) and it turns out that Trevors Carpets owns WA Carpet Supermarket so he could match the price cent for cent :-) So after every carpet store we went too we ended back at with the first place we saw, only we ended up with a more expensive carpet (15 year stain proof guarantee – oh yeah!).

Fun how things work out isnt it.

Now I have to go and try and talk to Ventura with out getting into an argument with them.

Take care and have fun people.

And when the music stops..

It seems to be Ventura’s policy to change supervisors at a whim, we have just been informed of the fact that our supervisor that has looked after (I use the term loosely here) the construction has been moved into a different department and we now have a new supervisor I have never met. Oh, and I use the term ‘informed’ in its most generous sense, where we actually only ‘informed’ when I asked for some information from the supervisor.

Same thing happened when my Client Liaison Officer went on four weeks holidays, I rang up and was asked to put me through to her and the front desk (without telling me) put me through to somebody else. It was only then after thinking I had the wrong person that she told me my CLO is on holiday and she was looking after my file. I know things are a little hectic in the building industry at the moment but just how hard is it for a CLO to send a group email to all of the clients he/she is looking after informing them they will be away and to talk to so and so if you have any queries? Seriously how hard is that? Or a quick email telling me that my supervisor has changed, instead of not bothering to tell me and letting me know only when you can no longer get away with NOT telling me, how damn hard is that! (in fact I timed myself doing just that, writing and email and sending it and it took me all of 30 secs – including the time for outlook to open – they are not THAT busy).

But this I fear seems to be currently typical with my builder Ventura Homes. The policy (as it appears to an outsider like myself) is something along the line of “Talk to the client before they sign the contract (to get them to sign), once signed build their house with as little interaction as possible, here by saving time and money by not having to fix things that we muck up”… or perhaps they are just anti-social people with anthropophobia?

Now, onto the house. Remember that dishwasher issue that I mentioned last time (power and mains plumbing supplied to dishwasher cavity but no waste water drain!), well it still has not been fixed and no solution proposed either (in fact it was about this that I wanted to talk to my supervisor about and was then informed he wasn’t my supervisor anymore).
On a more positive note, all of the doors arrived on Friday (28th August), on a not so positive note the glass window in one of the doors (the laundry door) is meant to be obscured glass, its not (par for the course really now isn’t it).
And in a moment of incredibility I discovered that something I asked for to be adjusted on the plan on the 15th of November LAST YEAR has not been done. It managed to slip past me for this long because I foolishly took the word of the person that it was all ok and would be done as I asked. The issue is with the telephone point, initially we had 2 phone lines and a TV point in the house, but then we went with a smartwiring option which removed the need for the builder to supply phone and TV points so I asked for 1 phone line to be removed, the TV line to be removed and the remaining phone line to be moved to the garage (where the smartwiring hub was going). Now silly me figured that since the TV point was removed as asked, as was the second phone point, that the remaining phone point would be in the correct position, instead they have gone and installed it where it was on the original plan.

However I’m not mad at all, in fact I sympathize with them, it really must be hard for the poor little over worked darlings to co-ordinate a house construction when there are so many people involved… To date I have had 7 people involved in the house construction (from designing the floor plan to brick supervisor), 7!! How inefficient can you get? These guys need to attend some seriously hard core Six Sigma training and get their processes fixed, quick time.

So I haven’t been arrested… That’s good.

Well, one good thing came out of Thursdays on-site meeting with Ventura…. I wasn’t arrested for throttling anyone J

Now, on to the meeting itself. I must admit from the start that I approached the meeting prepared for a minor confrontation, I had emails backing up the claims I had previously made and dates for everything etc, which may have been a bit over the top but this is my house and I want it built properly. But when I got there at 8:30 (on one of the coldest damn mornings of the year! It was freezing!) he was there waiting for me, he greeting me and explained that he thought he would call this meeting so he could personally take me through the issues I had raised and sort them out with me. And bugger me, he actually did.

He explained that the guys that laid the concrete slab no longer work for Ventura and that he had organised with the plumber to do the required work at Ventura’s cost. Finally after 4 and a half months I have some resolution to this issue, yay! Unfortunately things went just a little bit down hill from there (and only a little bit, nothing too serious was encountered).

The recess box for the hot water unit was apparently a fault of the Scheduling Department, who forgot to order it and therefore the brickie never installed it (buck passing I thought, considering when I first pointed out the lack of the hot water unit recess, which was during the construction of the brick walls… but anyway I digress). The solution he has arranged is to have a hole cut out of the wall and have the brickies come back and face up the bricks that require it, now of course I would have preferred it installed by now but you can’t have everything in life you want can you.

And then I took him though a new list of issues I had that was written up from the day before when my wife and myself went through the house and noted a few things down.
1) The dishwasher recess has power to it (which is good) and water from the mains (which is good) as is required for a dishwasher unit, however it does NOT have an waste water drain for the waste water to go down (which is bad). The supervisor said it was because most people have the dishwasher under their sink and can tap directly into the kitchen waster water pipe (our recess is bout 1.5 metres away due to the way the kitchen has worked out). I pointed out that that wasn’t any good to me and I didn’t want a piece of polypipe running around my kitchen cupboards for the dishwasher, I wanted proper plumbing. He said he would fix it.

2) The shower in the bathroom is placed into one corner of the room against two walls and the plumber has managed to install the taps and shower head on the wrong wall! Seriously, even without the plans these guys had a 50% chance of getting it right. I’m beginning to doubt that they can read.

3) We have two gas outlets in the house for gas heating, one in the family room and one in the lounge room. Both are clearly shown on the plans as being close to the edge of each wall (within 300mm of the edge of the wall in fact), and both have been installed slap bang in the middle of the wall! Now I can understand (and accept) if they were a foot or two out, but both of these are over 2 metres out of place!! The reason they were put near the edge of the walls was so we could place furniture (namely couches) against the wall. I am now beginning to doubt that the plumber even had the plans with him at the time.

That’s 3 fairly biggish issues that need fixing but he did seem fairly earnest in wanting to fix them for me so I am hoping all will go well…. I’m ever the optimist I know.

On the plus side he said that he has booked lock-up for next week (week starting the 23rd of June) and the house should be finished 8-10 weeks after that, which brings us to mid-October which is pretty much when we were promised it would be done when we signed the contract, so that is very pleasing. I’m not going to hold my breath (namely because that is like 12 weeks away and I’m not Superman or anything, and because I am not yet ready to full believe Ventura) but things are looking hopeful. He did warn me however that that time frame was dependant on the availability of a Tiler who are in great demand appearently.

Still, I was feeling fairly good after the meeting. So until next time take care (and yes, I will one day get around to putting photos up, promise!!)

He's not the Messiah, He's a very naughty boy....

I am SO riled up at the moment (or more accurately I was when I wrote this a day or so ago), I need to find a defenceless kitten to yell at or something.

I just had a phone call from Ventura (a stand in Client LIASON(HA!) officer) today. She wants to book a on-site meeting between me and my brick supervisor which we have pencilled it in for 13th Thursday.

During the phone call she mentioned (in no particular order):
The concrete contractors who did my slab are no longer doing business with Ventura anymore (have I mentioned recently that the concrete issue STILL hasnt been fixed!!). Some other contractor will have to come in and complete the slab. She mentioned something about once they have been Ventura will need to sort out payment for them (I wasn't paying much attention so I'm not sure if she meant Ventura internally had to sort something out - if so why tell me? - , or if I was being told because I might have to handle the expense of the new contractor... Good effing luck on that, I'm NOT paying a cent).

She then mentioned the fact that apparently I'm a naughty boy (not her words I might add) for having the building inspection before the roof was fully complete AND then having the gall to include non-completed work in my report, she said that Glen requested I work a bit closer with him to organise my inspections..... I snapped at that point and developed a funny facial twitch.... WORK CLOSER !?, I don't know if I should scream or laugh at the moment!!! HOW THE BLOODY HELL CAN I WORK CLOSER IF THEY NEVER F**KING REPLY TO ANY OF MY MAILS OR BOTHER TO INFORM ME ON ANYTHING! And what the f**k is his problem any way even if I do do the inspection a few days early and the roof isn't bloody well finished! I'll damn well include it in my report and he can simply ignore it (as he has been doing for months with the slab anyway!) GRRRR!! *ok calm down, breath deeply, count to 10*

So now I have to take another day off work to meet with the supervisor at his request..... I might get dad to come out for the meeting, just to there is a witness to the 'justifiable homicide' when I strangle the supervisor.

Tempting.... really tempting....


In other news the gyprock ceilings and plumbing went in yesterday so it must have been one busy day on site (either that or they were working on Sunday), and the progress is looking good.

At this point in the construction I'm not sure what the supervisor is hoping to solve by having a meeting since we are pretty much on the downhill run, and he is not going to stop me emailing and phoning if I damn well feel like emailing and phoning. Of course I could be going totally off tangent and the meeting is merely because he wants to discuss my colour choices for the paint or something..... Maybe...

We shall see..

Great Ironstone Roofing Batman!

Another stage down, another inspection completed. And this one went fairly well actually.

In the words of my building inspector the roof carpentry is “excellent” and “above spec” in many areas (like the use of long bolts instead of nails in some high load parts of the roof and using thicker stronger timber then the standard in areas). So that is quite good news.

However the colorbond sheeting on top of the roof carpentry is a different story. It would appear that the guys who laid it had to rush off somewhere before completing the job and only hand enough time to screw in the colorbond sheets with a couple of Tek screws…. Or they are really shonky. A typical example is a 15 metre ridge cap which has only 3 screws in it, 2 on one side and 1 on the other…. I could pull that off with my teeth! So that is the major “needs to be fixed” item on this inspection report. The rest is pretty good.

The plasterers finish putting up the interior concrete render yesterday, and boy does the place look dark and gloomy or what! Next week the ceiling will be installed and then its down to the plumbing and fittings (tiling, kitchen cupboards etc – windows in there somewhere..). According to my inspector the house is running pretty much on time, maybe even a little ahead of schedule in comparison to the other houses he is looking after, so perhaps all my complaining has gotten me some where (or am I doing Ventura an injustice here?....... nah I don’t think so).

The one thing that still makes me weep, which at this point has gone from being annoying to being a farce, is the concrete slab situation. The problem we had at the very start of construction when the slab was laid HAS STILL NOT BEEN FIXED. I’m not sure what it will take now to actually fix it, really it is pathetic, just pathetic.

Now I am faced with the situation that when (IF!) someone turns up to fix the concrete there is a strong possibility of damage to my now rendered walls and not to mention the amount of rocks and dust and s*#t that will get kicked up and not have anywhere to go to cause the roof and ceiling are on.

So currently my mood swings between happy, cause the roof is basically good, to down right filthy at the amazing contempt and stupidness of the builder in fixing an issue that has been highlighted since the slab went down 4 months ago.

Oh well… time for ANOTHER letter to Ventura asking about this… again.

Engage the Swart Wire Captian!

Yesterday I had my own electrical contractors (as apposed to Ventura’s) go out to the building site to start the installation of the house’s Cat6 and coaxial cabling setup (the engineer in my is drool, seriously).
Maybe its just a case of tepid water tasting like pure heaven to a man dying of thirst, but these guys are wonderful (as compared to Ventfury… sorry, Ventura). Met them on site, walked through the house pointing out where I wanted the data and TV ports, they offered helpful suggestions and advice on what should go where and where just pleasant to speak with.
To stop the risk of Ventura’s electrician laying his cables all over my shiny Cat6 cables (which need to keep a minimum 150mm separation from all other power cables) they are rigging up a high tensile cable (think steel core washing line which is as thick as your little finger and you get the idea) which hangs about 2 feet down from the roof rafters and is tensioned to be ‘twangy’ tight (technical term) to which they will attach the data cables to keep them away from the electrician’s cable runs.
I asked them to put a couple of totally unrelated chases into a particular wall for me, quite happy to pay, but they said its not a problem, their guy doesn’t cost any extra per chase. They are even going to lay a small amount of conduit for me to avoid some future difficulties when it comes time to install the security alarm system.
Ahhh such professionals are a delight to work with!

Now, back to Ventura…
Concrete slab – still not done
Brick issues, mostly already fixed (well spin my nipple nuts and call me Frank! – for those people who are not Red Dwarf fans (poor souls) please ignore that last comment).
Roofing, rafters et al are done except for a small bit at the front of the garage where they can finish totally until the brickies fix the debarcle the left by not inserting the steel reinforcing rods into the brick columns.

Next step is to fix the Colorbond roofing (and the sisulation blanket underneath that) to the roof, and then its time for another inspection. Given the success of the lst one I am hoping to arrange it to be done at about the same time as the last one (bout 9:30am) so we might catch our Brick Supervisor on-site again.

Hope is a cruel temptress

Took the day off work on Thursday to meet the Houspect building inspector onsite because finally the brickwork has been completed.

About half an hour into the inspection guess who turns up, the missing roof guys (who should have started on Tuesday, but until I wasn't even sure they existed). Well they turn up and get straight to work (rather industrious) claiming they will be able to roof the equivilent of 50 square metres of floorspace a day, so all being well they will finish on Wednesday the 14th of June. They seem fairly competent (but then I siad that about the brickies too) and the main roof guy had a long chat to my inspecotr about some new roofing standards that have come in recently to make sure they both understood things the same way.

And THEN bout half an hour after the roofies turn up guess who else turns up! Glenn the Brick Supervisor, and that WAS a surprise. As it turned out it was a really good thing to have happen as my Housing Inspector showed that he is worth his weight in pure gold as the first thing he did was introduce himself to Glenn and then take Glenn around the construction and point out the major things that need fixing and then gets agreements from him to fix them. Now I know what you are all thinking, you are thinking "It will never happen" and so was I but then Glenn got on the phone in front of us and called Ventura Accounts and cancelled the payment to the brickies, and then rang the brickies and told them get over to the site and to fix a series of issues if they wanted to get paid. I was almost impressed (I say almost because I have learnt to reserve my judgemtn until something actually gets done).

Although I must admit that I was slightly stunned at the flurry of activity on my block, we had the inspector measure and hitting and testing everything in sight, Glenn on the phone arguing with the brickies, and 4 roof carpenters balancing on top of the walls over the place (an OH&S nightmare!) moving long bits of timber around.

Still, most importantly the overall report from the inspector was that the brickwork was pretty good, all the measurements are accurate to within 10mm, the walls themselves are straight and not likely to fall down anytime in the future and the rooms are all where they should be. But boy is he sharp (he being the inspector) , on a blank wall of large limestone bricks, (full height and about 4 metres wide) he spotted 1 brick (one!) that was poorly laid, with far to much cement between it and the next brick (and we are talking cream cement here). I would never have spotted that, never.

The other major problems (relatively major to the other problems, but by no means huge problems in themselves) can be summed up in 2 words : "Lazy Brickies"
The problems are:

1. Haphazardly spaced weep holes in the lower brickwork (2 in the space of 2 bricks and then none for 8 bricks)
2. That one brick that was very poorly laid
3. A lack of brick ties on ajoining walls. luckily however it only seems to be on the half height wall that forms the kitchen bench, there are no ties between the end of that wall and the main wall it butts up to.
4. No ties on bricks that go over one of the interior doors, a couple of taps with a chisel handle worked a brick loose
5. The biggest problem structurally was in the garage. The garage has 6 columns to strengthen it (siz point on the single brick wall that has a second rown of bricks applied) and only in 3 of those columns where steel reinforcing rods used. This will require quite a bit of work to fix, but fix it they shall!

That is about it for today. But finally some progress.

The building of the barricades

Well tuesday has come and gone (for those that arent paying attention, it was 2 days ago!.. wake up!)

That was the "we will be finished by this date, really, honestly!" date, needless to say they are not finished. but in this case it was raining constantly all Monday and Tuesday so I can forgive that, hopefully they will be finished today, since today is 2 days since the promised end date, and 2 days is the time lost to rain.

However, seeing how much is left to do from yesterday evening I seriously doubt it. Half the garage, all of the front wall, the top row of bricks at various points around the house and the linen cupboard and robe in one of the bed rooms all have to be done by the end of today for them to met their deadline.... not likely.
Oh well..


Still on the plus sie, the weathre will be fine for hte next 10-12 days according to the weather bureau (a bit of crystal ball gazing on their part I think), but if it holds true then that should see the roof carpenter clear to completing the roof (he starts supposedly on the 6th of June). And then the cabling guy can come in and do he magic with my ethernet cables!

So maybe, just maybe it will all work out...


On the slightly funny side of things (funny as in "I either pretend its funny or I has a mental breakdown") the accounts department of Ventura homes sent me out a invoice on Tuesday informing me that the second stage of house construction has been finished and the second payment is due... Excuse me?!... This by the way was on the same day I recieved an email from my Client Liasion Officer (HA!) telling me the brickies have been delayed and will not be finished on time so the roof carpenter has been re-scheduled to the 6th of June (the brickies where due to finish on the 19th of May remember, I recieved this email on the 30th of May, did they think I hadnt noticed that my house wasnt finished or something?!).
Any ways I politely and with only a little sarcasm informed the accounts lady that my house had not in any way shape or form reached the end of the second stage and Ventura will have to wait for their money a bit longer.

She replied saying that after talking to her boss she would grant me a few extra days to pay the money. At this point I decided to walk away from the computer beofre I sent an email that I would very likely regret. SHE will grant ME and few extra days?! Excuse me!? The damn house is running behind schedule but I still have to pay as if it was on time? I bloody well think not. I will pay, I have the money ready to pay, but I will not pay until
a) the stage is actually complete
b) the stage has been inspected my by building inspector
c) any defects found are resolved (or discussions are made to resolve them at a later date)
d) the defects FROM THE FIRST STAGE are fixed


Sounds fair to me. And they can go and lump it if they think otherwise.

Enjoy people and have a great weekend cause I am going to have a good one! I am having a BBQ brunch with my family on Saturday which is always wonderful, On sunday I am going to spend most of hte day trying to bond with my baby niece (9 months old) who when she see me bursts into tears (talk about taing a hit to the self esteem!), and then in the afternoon I am going to the Model Train Expo, and then on Monday I will spend the day as a delivery driver on Rottnest Island. If you havent been there for a holiday then, well, I pity you, and if you have been there then HA! I get to drive on Rottnest all day (the delivery bit will consist if about 2 cartons of milk and a bottle of wine all day, so I can cope).


Take care :-)

One more day...

Some times it feels like manning the barricade I tell ya!

According to the actual brickies (whom I spoke to on Saturday morning) they will be finished on Tuesday the 30th. Of course this was before it absolutely bucketed down with rain most of monday morning, so assuming no work will get done today then maybe just maybe the brick work will be finished on Wednesday....
maybe...

I tend to trust the brickies a bit on this one.. Ventura on the other hand is about as useful to me as a piece of paper and pencil is to a deep sea scuba diver.I sent an email to them on the 23rd of May asking some specific questions and pointing out some specific issues/concerns I had (and still have) with the building process. As of today (the 29th) I still have not heard back from them, and basically that is just pathetic. I know they recieved and have read my email (MS Outlooks read receipt isa wonderful tool!), but thay just cannot be bothered to talk to the customer. I get the distinct impression I am an inconvieniace to them, nothing more.

For example, after I sent the email on the 23rd I mentioned above I sent another on the 25th, which included the email I sent on the 23rd (included as a subtle hint) the body of the email was as follows:

Just, as always, following up on the email I sent on Tuesday. And you may (or may not) want to let Chris know (concrete supervisor) that he should look at finding new slab contractors as nothing has been done to fix the oversights made when they laid the slab on the 16th of March (which I am sure he is well aware of). Of course he may well be on the phone to them every day, but having heard nothing back from Ventura about the situation for at least a month I can only assume (for lack of evidence otherwise) that little is being done about it

The reply I recieved back from my Client Liasion Officer (that title is a laugh to begin with)
is:

I have been in touch with u regarding the slab, maybe not by email but I have verbally spoken to u about it .I have on a number of occasions spoken to Chris about it and yes the company we use isn’t reliable. I will how ever speak to Chris again to see if he has any news
Thank you,
K**** S*******

(the * are my insertions)

If I could point out at this point that the last time I was in any way contacted about the slab either verbally, by email or by carrier pigeon for that matter was on the 5th of May (at around 4:15pm in fact - I record the date, time and content of EVERY contact with Ventura) and it was to tell me that the concrete contractor was coming over that weekend (6th of May) to fix the problem. So while I was incorrect at saying I havent heard anything for a month, I was pretty damn close since it was 3 weeks AND a broken promise, which they never bother to inform me about.

The best line is where "KS" agrees with me that the concrete contractor is indeed unreliable, as if that is meant to make it all better or something?!

I'm going to send them another email today, not asking any questions but just pointing out the lack of feedback, service and help I have so far recieved. By a happy accident I have been given the General Manager's email address and I might CC him on this also, however I am depressingly sure it will change nothing, there seems to be a very imbedded culture of "dont give a crap about the customer" with this company.

Still, I might feel better though!


Take care.

Blowin in the Wind

Well the 19th of May has been and gone and, you guessed it, the brick work has not been completed.

Its now coming up to the 26th of May and in my completely unprofressional opinion it is not going to be finished this week, not unless they employ 4 or 6 builders for the next 2 days.

Still to do before brick work is complete:

1. The top two thirds of the interior wall of bed2 (they have done the wallto about 1 metre high), this is about 9 metres of wall (goes around a corner).
2. 4 metres of the wall that separates the main bedroom from the hall, not started yet.
3. The entire lock up garage.
4. The entire double brick wall tthat is the front of my house (10 metres, plus porch columns).
5. The entire top 2 courses of all the brickwork done so far (it hasnt been completed to plate height yet).

I told my Client Liasion Officer on Tuesday that the date given to me (last Friday - the 19th) was laughable and could almost be considered as bare face lying to a customer and I was not impressed.

Please understand that I am not annoyed about the length of time it is taking to build (well, ok I am a little, but only a little, I know the building market is busy, lack of brickies etc..), I am annoyed and amazed that the builders seem to have no schedule or plan and that they make no attempt to be honest with me. If it is going to take 3 week to finish that is fine, JUST TELL ME THAT HONESTLY! When I asked them for a end date to the brickwork, it wasn't becuae I wanted them to hurry but as I explained to them it was because I have to arrange for my data cabling guy to arrive on site after the brick work is finished and before the roofing guys appear, and he needs advance notice, THAT is why I need a realistic end date.

Perhaps I am asking too much...

Nearly Complete

Appearently the brick work will be finished this week, on the 19th of May....

uhuh..

They have the entire interior to START, and about 20m of exterior double brick to complete, so we shall see. But the timetable I have managed to grugingly extract from Ventura (its like pulling teeth from a comatosed elephant, really) states that the bricks will be complete on the 19th, the roof carpenter will start 1 week after that and take 1 and a half week to complete, then I have a 2 week break to organise my cabling contracter to come in and lay the data and tv cabling through the house for the smart wiring (presumably this is when the Ventura electrician is also going to be working) and then the roof sheeting goes on over the roofing frame.

And then to me it seems like we are on the down hill stretch. Maybe, possibly, somehow....

Ventura has also finally contacted my neighbours to organise replacing of the fence.

This is good.

Once in a blue moon..

Oops, its been nearly a month since I posted here to say where the house is up to. If any one was reading this SORRY! Things just keep cropping up.

So on to a quick summary
1) We now have about 3/4 of the external double brick walls built. 2) The only reason I havent changed builders is because it would cost me more then it would cost them 3) We are still holding out for a october completion date.
Problems 1) The soakwells still have not been installed. The guy installing the soakwells recommended to me and the builder that they needed to go in before the house was built due to site access issues, but the building company thought that they knew better. Now they will have to remove and replace 2 fences to get the soakwells in, at their cost.

2) I have a sneaky suspicion that the brick supervisor that I have been assigned is the guy that they give all the 'trouble' clients too (ie the clients that research what is meant to be happening and questions and queries every step of the way). At rhe meeting where we met him all he did was to explain to me how busy they were and that I should not expect my queries and questions to get answered, and that even if nothing looks like it is being done, it is being handled in the back ground. I spent the entire meeting trying to get him to understand that I dont care if I cant see the work being done, just reply to my queries with more then a "we are looking into it" and let me know what is happening and when. He told me he was too busy to do that..... Oh boy, just wait until I get to fill out the customer satisfaction survey at the end of all this....

3) To highlight the above, bout 2 weeks ago I emailed the company a letter because I had a couple of issues with the brick work so far (they had not put a wall vent in where the plan showed there was one, and they had not capped an external window sill with the correct bricks). Minor issues but I emailed him about them any way. 9 days later (NINE!) I emailed him again asking if he recieved my eariler email, he called me up and told me that he had recieved my email and everything was fine, goodbye. Everything may indeed be fine, but it would be nice if he could damn well let me know! or even just reply to my email say he has read it. (I now attach read reciepts to all my email so I can see instantly when he has read it).
On the other hand the actual guys doing the brick work seem very competent. I had my windows measured yesterday for external window shutters to be installed and every window is within 2mm of the stated size on the plan. This is encourgaing.

So all in all things are progressing just about on time, the company seems to be either ignorant or purposely rude, but the brickies are good at their job which is far more important.

By the way, the company is Ventura Homes, if any one is interested (oh I hope they read this!). Would I recommend them.... tough. On the whole I would have to say maybe, and then only just, because:
1) They provide a free service where they sit down and help you customise any of their plans to suit your block/lifestyle
2) Their contractors are good (so far)
3) They are fairly priced in todays ridiculous market (At least they where when I signed on).

But I would only recommend them if you have the time and the stubborness to keep on their tails and bring them to task about everything they do. And I do mean keep on their tail, I would recommend no less then 3 or so contacts a week asking where they are up to. They act like a stubborn pig-head, but talented teenager, they can do the work well but boy do you have to work at them to get it done.

Take care.

I'm on the way.. To misery and happiness today...

Well all the bricks have arrived (3 different types of bricks!) the steel lintels and various other pieces, so now we just need to wait from the brickies to turn up.

On the soakwell side of things I have just about given up with it all together. I finally managed to get Ventura Homes to pass onto me the phone number of the guy installing the soakwells. I nice guy, quite happy to chat about what is going on and how it will all go together, he quite put me at ease in terms of how he was going to solve the laundry courtyard issue (appearently its fairly common and the standard solution is to push a thicker pipe then normal under the footings use that as the stormwater pipe.

Frankly I feel much more confident with him telling me it will work and everything is good, then with Ventura ignoring me.

However (there is always a however isnt there), however the stormwater guy (we will call him Ron from this point on, because that is his name) said that he was really hoping to be able to install the soakwells before the bricks arrived due to site access issues. He even informed Ventura Homes of this, even though Ventura Homes as continued to tell me that the soakwells need to be installed after the brickwork. They even let Ron order the soakwells to arrive before the bricks so he could do it. And yet that order got delayed, the soakwells are no where in site and all the bricks have arrived. So Ron is not happy, I'm amazed that Ventura does not seem to be able to even organise a simple delivery and Ventura doesn't seem to care (In fact I am becoming convinced that Ventura Homes could not organise an orgy if they were in ancient Rome).

The one bright point in all this is that after talking to Ron for 20mins I found out more about the soakwell issue, including how it will be solved then I ever did after weeks of communication with Ventura.

Ron says that he can install the soakwells after the brick work, its is just not his preferred option as it now requires him to use the laneway down the side of the house and removal of several parts of the boundary fence. This is fine with me as I have to remove the fence anyway cause we are getting a new one installed there, so the more he takes out the better!

On the finanical side I am still refusing to pay Ventura Homes the first invoice we have recieved because they (after FOUR WEEKS) have still failed to come out and fix the problems with the slab. To re-cap, the problems with the slab are fairly minor (set down needs enlarging, bath grave needs grinding out and a few other things) but since I was promised 4 weeks ago that the slab contractor was going to come out and fix them and nothing has happened I am insisting on a written guaranteed date that these will be done by before I pay the money. Sounds fair to me, and I have informed Ventura (politely) of such.

I'll ring them up later today and speak to them about it. I have the money, its sitting in my bank ready to go and I can transfer it immediately, I just want my written guarantee that it will be done (since I am not at all confident it will get done without one).

Moving to stage 2

Well things are progressing somewhat, the toilet, shed, and other building supplies have been delivered to the building site, so now we just await the arrival of the bricks.

We also received the request for the first progress payment earlier this week, and I am just waiting on the few things from the first inspection report to be fixed before I pay it (and I have informed Ventura that this is the case). The things to fix at this point are fairly minor (the bathroom setdown needs to be increased, the ensuite bath grave needs to be dug out, and the concrete slab in the bed 1 area needs to be smoothed down), but I feel that until they are complete then stage 1 isn't complete, and if stage 1 isn't complete then I shouldn't have to pay for that stage.

I'm holding out a vague small hope that the bricks will be delivered today, given previous experience everything on this project seems to be down just before the weekend, and with tomorrow being the first day of the Easter long weekend the odds are good.

Fingers crossed.

Defects sorted. sort of

Well, I received a reply from our builder (Ventura) about the issues that I mentioned in my previous blog. The answer was pretty much what we were expecting, in short all o the minor stuff (like the set down isn’t large enough and the slab needs smoothing down) are going to be fixed and we have no answer on the major item, the soakwells.

The reply we received about the soakwells is that Ventura has passed our plans onto the company responsible for the drainage systems and they will reply soon with a solution. I’ll be generous and give them until Thursday before I start chasing up an answer, which seems fair.

Also this week is the week that the bricks should arrive. When I asked about them on Friday I was told that all the scheduling is done each Monday so she couldn’t tell me if my bricks were going to arrive this week until Monday. Well, to day is Monday And I’m going to send a polite email chasing up the bricks and then of course ring up at around 3pm if I haven’t heard anything.

One cool thing that I found works is the read receipt ability of Outlook (it would seem that Ventura’s email server is running MS Exchange). What that means is that when the recipient of my email opens my email to read it, their email server sends me an email automatically to tell me that the email I sent has been read. It allows me to track down the “I never received your email” comments that have happened a few times (and perhaps were quite genuine), plus it allows me to know when my email was read.

So for the end of this week I am hoping to have
a) All my bricks delivered on site
b) All the minor defects corrected, and
c) A solution to the soakwell issue

Here’s hoping!

Building Inspection #1

Well, we have engaged the services of a independent building inspector as a form of insurance during the building process, for around $1000 it is a fairly cheap way to establish a small peace or mind as things progress. Since the first inspection is normally done after the slab has been laid the inspector came out on the weekend and did a progress inspection of the construction so far. Generally the report was encouraging and there were only a few minor and (to me) one major problem with the construction to this point.

A summary of the minor things:
1) As mentioned in an earlier blog the hollowed out section under the bath in the main bathroom should indeed be replicated under the bath in the ensuite.
2) The set down (the part of the slab that is slightly lower then the rest o the slab, used for the wet area of the house) for bath room one is the incorrect size, it is 40mm to short along the western edge of the bathroom AND it doesn’t extend to the bathroom door, instead it finishes about 600mm short.
3) The concrete finish to half of bedroom 1's floor is rough and noticeable, it would definitely be felt through carpet, and laying of tiles (which we are not going to do anyway) would be impossible).
4) The concrete contracts lefts a mess behind that should have been cleaned up (a lot of concrete splatter up next doors fence).

The major thing:
There is no soakwells or stormwater plumbing yet installed. The client liaison officer assures me this is because it is installed just before the paving is laid, fair enough I can deal with that. The problem is that approximately 20% of the roof empties into 2 down pipes into the laundry courtyard, the courtyard that is surrounded by boundary walls and is not accessible from outside the house, so where the f**k is the water going to drain to?! Stormwater pipes can only be laid with boring under the house because on the east, west and north sides of the courtyard is the house and the south side in the neighbours property. The Client Liaison Officer quite disarmingly says that they will put a soakwell under the courtyard. WHAT THE!!? The courtyard is 2m long and 1.5m wide, my calculations suggest that the minimum soakwell that should be put down for the size of the catchment area is 1500mm (1.5m) in diameter and 900mm effective depth, it does not take a genius to see that IT WILL NOT FIT!!! However the Ventura person doesn’t seem to grasp that and has recently taken to cutting me off while I am trying to explain things to her, I think she is getting a little annoyed at me always calling up and trying to get things moving (feeling is getting mutual I can assure you).

So I have composed a 2 page email that details each defect found by the inspection, along with the solution that I would find acceptable (with the exception of the soakwell issue - I have no f**king idea how to solve that one). That 3rd revision of that email (the first two were bordering on libellous - I was annoyed) was sent off about 9 hours ago and I haven't heard anything yet, I tried calling a little while ago but she was on the phone (again!).

Another thing that adds no confidence to the whole process is that since the 22nd of March Ventura seems to have lost my file, as of the 27th they still hadn't found it. whoopie.

The next step if I get little or no response beyond "we are looking into it" is to re-send the email to the Regional Manager and escalate this quickly and early to get results. Remember the fence debarcle? Nothing happened for two weeks about that until it was taken to the Regional Manager's attention and he went out to the site, at that point to was solved in less then half a day.

So in summary
Inspection report - well well worth the money spent.
Stress level - holding steady (at least until I speak to Ventura).
Pissed off level - increasing quite rapidly.
Coffee level - depleted, so I'm off for a re-fill.

That’s all for now. Enjoy.


(PS. thinking about it, there is a possible solution to the courtyard problem, and that would be to remove the down pipes that drain into the courtyard and have the water empty into the gutters and run around to down pipes at the east and west sides of the house. This means a greater inflow of water into those soakwells, which means a larger soakwell is needed and I don't know for sure if it will work, its a lot of gutter (and ergo water) before it gets to the ends of the house....)

The promised pic

Hmmm ok, so the pic is a little small on here, but you get the general idea of the slab at the moment. The pic was taken by me (thats the devestatingly handsome shadow you can see) from the familyroom area near where the glass sliding door is going, looking towards the front of the house with the kitchen being the first sticky out bit in the slab and the ensuite the second sticky out bit, with my wife sitting in her 'bath'.


Now we just need bricks!

Its obvious really!

Well the slight mis-understanding (re: me not knowing sod all building) has been cleared up.

The reason why there is a hollowed out section where one bath is going and not where the other bath is going is NOT because there was a stuff up by the slab layer (my suspicions lay in this direction), but because my significant and most important other half decided she wanted a 'proper' bath in the ensuite (so $900 later after we move the entire wall to accommodate it she's happy) and she chose a much larger/deeper bath and there is enough clearance already under the bath for the required plumbing, whereas the main bathroom (re: kids bathroom - when they arrive) has a smaller bath (and separate shower) which doesn't have the space required, so part of the slab was removed to make the space.

At least that is how it was explained to me!

If I remember I'll post a pic of my other half sitting in her 'bath' later. She's quite pleased :-)

The bricks are going to be delivered in 2 to 3 weeks time. As it was explained to me by the lady at Ventura Homes, they are going thru an efficiency drive at the moment to speed up the delay between signing the contract and delivering the required building materials, so naturally its taking longer to get the bricks at the moment then it normally would. That makes sense doesn't it.

Still at this stage we have no issues or worries and for the next 2-3 weeks everything will be plain and smooth sailing (mainly because there is nothing for Ventura Homes to stuff up).

On the "relax with confidence" side of things we have booked in a building inspector to come along and check everything out at the slab down stage, compare measurements to the plans, location of plumbing, dodgy cement etc. As I see it $225 dollars for a written report and inspection is fairly cheap piece of mind!
And talk about keen, this guy is meeting me at the block at 8am on a Saturday morning! Eight!! Like I'm going to be able to pay attention to anything he is saying at that time! Oh well at least it is written down.

That reminds me, I need to get photocopies of all my plans for him before Saturday! *mental note*

Well on Monday the footings went down and yesterday the slab went down, down and dusted!
AND all with the fence still in place, still standing and untouched.

The other half is much more excited now because rather then looking like a sand pit it actually looks like a house is going to be built!

I have a minor concern at the moment with the provisions made in the slab for the plumbing in the bath room and ensuite. In the bathroom there is a hollowed out section of concrete (see the pic on the side) under where the bath is going, in the ensuite there is also a bath, but no hollowed out section of concrete. So why in one place and not the other? I assumed the space was for the U-Bend to be installed under the bath, but there is no space for the U-Bend in the ensuite. So its all a bit bizzare!

Anyways I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

Enjoy.

So here we are 3 weeks later.....

Well, the fence saga has been resolved. Finally. And do you know what the resolution of the saga was? No? Well lets recap the issue first.

1) I was told (and only because I asked), that the fence between my block and my neighbours would have to be removed before the slab could be laid.

2) I told the builder that that was not going to happen because the fence was NOT on my property (the neighbours willingly and happily built the fence entirely on their property instead of half on our side - as they are entitled to do), so the builder can not touch it.

3) The builder basically said tough it needs to be removed anyway.

4) I said no and sent them the first of 3 emails that continually asked the same questions and pointed out the fact that the fence was in now way encroaching onto my block.

5) The builder commissioned a fence line survey to establish where the fence was and billed me for it.

6) I told the builder to go jump because I didn't authorise anything and that it didn't take a surveyor to go out to the site (10 min drive away from there main office by the way) and look at the fence for themselves, they agreed to pay for the survey.

7) At this point I was on first name basis with the regional building manager and he said that the survey showed I would have to remove the fence.

8) I replied saying that the survey showed that I did not have to move the fence (it quite clearly shows the fence as being between 15mm and 5mm beyond the boundary line on the neighbours side.

9) He said he would get back to me.

I rang him up yesterday, not waiting for him to 'get back to me' and he said that the concreter was going out to the site next week to lay the slab, and the fence didn't have to be taking down because .... and wait for this, this is good.... because HE HAD GONE OUT TO THE SITE THE DAY BEFORE TO HAVE A LOOK.

So something that took 3 weeks, 4 loooong emails, more phone calls then I care to count, a surveyors drawing and involved two families could have been solved at the very beginning if someone with a little bit of common sense went out to the block 3 weeks ago and just had a look for themselves.

I now feel I was right in sticking to my guns on this, had I just said "Oh well" and taken the fence down I would have been out of pocket by a large amount, temporary fencing required for neighbours dog (I couldn't expect them to pay for it, its my house), cost of removal and re-installation of fence and all for NO REASON, because in the words of the Regional Manager, the fence does not need to come down.

We had a coffee over at my soon-to-be neighbours house last night 'celebrating' the news. I let them know how appreciative I was at their patience and efforts on my behalf (they talked to there surveyor for me, confirmed the fence line for me, placed the fence 4 cm inside their property originally for me, very nice people). Hopefully now I will not have to trouble them again. Hopefully I will not have any more issues with the building of the house either, but I am not holding my breath.

Until next time :)

A Fence Divided

The surveyor finally came back yesterday with a new survey of the block (Ventura - the builder - insisted on it because of the issues with the fence line, see last post).

Funnily enough it is different to the first survey I had done. No hugely different, but things like the north fence line (not in dispute) is now apperantly 50mm inside my boundary, where as on the original survey it was on the boundary. If any one wants to own up to moving 36 metres of 2.4 metre high asbesto fencing, please do so.

Having given up for the moment at trying to speak to a actual person I have sent a 2 page long email to Venture Homes to try and get a definitive answer to my problem.


Now to other matters..

Galactic Civilisations II: Dread Lords has been released! woohoo. Good bye free time.

And so it begins...

Footings down on the 21st right, Slab down on the 22nd.

Not a chance.

The boundary that I share with my (lovely) neighbours has a fence along part of it, and a brick wall (their garage) along a bit more of it. My house is going to have to boundary walls on the same boundary, overlapping the garage wall already there and about 10 metres of fencing.

Now because, to me, this seemed like it may be a problem I rang up and asked what was going to happen to the fence while the footings, slab and brick wall were being laid and the built wall was being built. I replay I got back was "You will probably have to remove them for about a month.

I turns out that if I had not rung up and asked about this what basically would have happened was that the crew would have gone out to lay the footings and either removed the fence themselves or delayed the footings until someone else (ie me) removed the fence first). Don't these people believe in prior planning and preparation? Obviously not.

So I went round to the new neighbours last night, spoke to them about it and they said that
a) Its not a boundary fence, it has been placed 3 cm inside the boundary (they did this to make it easier for us when we build, we didn't ask them to, they did it of their own bat)
b) The dog they have (large thing!) means the fence stays
and I added point C..
c) if they can build the house, lay the footings and lay the slab at the point where the brick wall is (they obivously cannot remove the neighbours garage!) then why do they need to remove the fencing?

So I rang up the builder this morning and said that the neighbours, in no way, give their permission to allow anyone to remove or dismantle the fencing, and I could see no reason why they should.

The end result is that the builder is going to get the block surveyed again to determine where excately the fencing is (my word of it being inside the boundary is not good enough), which is going to take 4-5 days, delaying the footings and slab by at least a week.

and so it begins, the delays, the hold ups, the problems..


Can any one out there tell me why the fence why the fence is in the way, but the brick wall is not?
mood: depressed.

The road is paved...

Well, we have just been informed that we are scheduled in for the footings of our block to be laid on the 21st of Feb, with the slab to be poured the next day onthe 22nd.

Exciting, but I can't help hold a touch of cynicism in being willing to bet that it won't happen on time.

Here's hoping I'm wrong!

All quiet on the Western Front

With nothing happening on the block until Friday at the earliest I thought I would post a few link to site that I find useful, you may of course make of them what you will...

1) www.spurl.net
I have used the bookmarking (favourites) feature of any web browser since I started using this. Basically it lets you store all of youe bookmarks (you are allowed to import your current lists from most popular browsers) online and that means you can access them where ever you are. Now I can bookmark a page I find at work and when I get home I can access the bookmarked link just like if I was at work. Brilliant!

2) http://http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA031384/software/Joe_en.html
For anyone who uses the Opera web browser, and loves the Right-Click + scroll wheel way of navigating through multiple open tabs and sorely missed the ability to do the same with the ALT-TAB functionality of window, well now you can :-)

which leads me to
3) www.opera.com
The best web browser in the world.

Take care and I hope I have more happy house building news to report soon!

Builders work funny hours!

The retaining wall was meant to be done last Friday (10th of Feb), but as we drove past on the way home full of excitement and anticipation, guess what.. No wall.

Well, no big deal, the earthworks were also meant to be done on a Friday (sidetrack: what is it with this builder - Ventura Homes - always scheduling for Fridays?! The slab is tentatively scheduled for a Friday too), anyway as I was saying, no big deal because the earthworks were scheduled for a Friday but were done on a Saturday. So on Saturday morning at around 10am we popped round on our way out and still no wall, maybe they start after lunch...

At 7:30pm on Saturday we walked around to our block (did I mention that it was just around the corner from where we are living?) and still no wall. We both doubted that they would be working at night and never even gave a thought to them working on a Sunday so we resigned ourselves to the fact that as of that Saturday our house was beginning to fall behind schedule.

We went into town on Sunday for a quick shop and a lunch and decided on a whim to pass the block on the way home and well bugger me the wall was done! The builders had been and built it on a Sunday. Quite amazing. So once again by Monday the house was back on schedule and I think I am beginning to see why everything is scheduled for a Friday... or am I being too cynically here?


And now for something completely different, a rant.
Its about these bloody cartoons some dimwit in a Danish newspaper drew. For a start they are not funny, and at best they are crude, but bloody hell what a mountain some people are making out of this pathetic little molehill. Burnings, riots, "westerners should be beheaded" posters, its just frigging unbelievable. I can understand (just) some people being upset, angry, put out etc about these crude drawings (really to call them cartoons implies some level of thought or effort went into them and that is giving them to much praise), but to react the way that these people have reacted is just as pathetic as the drawings themselves.

Peace, love and tolerance...... HA.

Imagine what would have happened if Monty Python produced a movie called "The Life of Mohammad" !! (Cant recall any Bishops storming the BBC studios and burning it when Life of Brian was released, they weren't pleased but they did act civilised about it, mostly)

A call went out here in Australia by a leading Muslim cleric to the effect that Australian schools should teach Islam along side Christianity in class. Yeah.. right.. I'll support that idea as soon as the Middle East starts teaching Christianity in their schools.

And there is my problem. All of these people of different nationalities choose (for the most part) to come and live in Australia and then demand that Australia changes to their way of life. And worse then that for the most part we give in. We don't celebrate Christmas any more, just a feastive holiday, in case it offends someone. Well what about offending me by denying me my rights to celebrate my religion and the main religion of my country? Oh that's right, I'm only a white Australian, my opinions don't matter unless I'm a minority.

Imagine if I went to live in any middle eastern country and demanded that they not celebrate their central religious holidays because it offended me? I'm sure that would go down very well.

And just saying out loud "Islam offends me" (and it doesn't) in Australia would brand me as racism, insensitive and various other labels, but it is perfectly ok for a Muslim to state that the celebrating of Christmas on a national scale offends him...

I don't care whether you are white, black, pink, green, blue or any other colour under the sun, and I don't care who or what you worship, I will treat you with peace, love and tolerance and the world would be a far better place if I was treated the same way in return and more importantly if certain people or groups of people were not so goddamned insensitive when it comes to their religion and basically go around looking for an excuse to cause trouble in the name of who ever they worship.

I challenge anybody to show me a religion that preaches it is ok to riot, to commit murder and to kill. Anyone, ANYONE, who uses religion as an excuse to kill, terrorise and subjugate any other person is a hypocrite, a coward and a git no matter what their religion, from the Christians involved in the crusades to Islamic fundamentalists in the current day.

A lot of people in this world need to grow up and stop acting so childish.

Day Four and Counting (or The SoakWell Saga)

Yesterday I took the day off work, I was in as good as a condition as an apple leaving the juicing factory. Still I dragged my self out of the house to meet the slab engineer on site since I have a few queries about the block.

The biggest concern I had was that our block level is about 20-30cm higher then our neighbours and since I have bout 9 metres of zero lot wall (i.e. wall right on the property boundary) I was a little concerned over the stability of the soil under the slab at that point.

The Slab Engineer assured me that everything was fine and that it was well within tolerances, but I'm angling for a second opinion I think.

Just before I left I asked in passing where the soakwells were going to be put, idle curiosity on my part. He seemed surprised and after checking all of his plans we could find no mention of soakwells nor any plans showing where they were to be placed. Cue alarm bells at this point.

When I returned home I rang the building company an asked about soakwells. Asking him to confirm that the builder was supplying AND installing the soakwells. The Supervisor wasn't sure and didn't think that they were supplying and installing the wells since it wasn't mentioned on the contract, so I asked (in a rather patiently and nice manner I thought considering the drugs were wearing off at this point and I had a headache the size of the Queen Mary 2 on the way) why I had and entry on MY contract that said "storm water to be piped to soakwells $1800".

After a bit he did agree that that did indeed sounds like the builders were supplying and installing the wells. So I asked him for a confirmation because "sounds like" really was a comfortable position.

He called me back 4 hours later and agreed that yes they were to supply and install the wells. Finally!

I more productive news, the retaining walls are being built this Friday, and the slab hopefully next week, and the soakwells..... god knows.


On a more exciting note, My DVD boxed sets of Seasons 2 and 3 of Quantum Leap shipped two days ago and should arrive either today or tomorrow. The other half will be MOST pleased :-)