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.