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.