Wednesday, October 25, 2006

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

Monday, October 16, 2006

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 :-)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

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).

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