Our house got plastered!

Went around for a look bright and early this morning and was happy to see that our house has been plastered.

I picked up a couple of issues with the bricking. The one that caught my eye was one of our front pillars is overhanging by 50 mm!!! Will be asking for this to be rectified ASAP. I think the only way is to box up the area and pour some more concrete.

Plenty of photos below.

Fish tank alcove/room.

Living room

Entrance from garage and front door. 

Storage room

 WIP with a centred door! 

Rumpus room

En-suite Niche 

Master bedroom

Cornices delivered

Garage

Brick pillar overhang

Full house shot

Thank you Porter Davis!

Our old BC asked me if I wanted to leave a review for Porter Davis a few months back to go into the draw for an iPad Mini. I rejected the offer as I was having some serious issues with the build and wanted to hold off on giving a review till the end of our build.

However, our SS has been so great and all our issues are being resolved. So when he asked me again to leave a review about his performance, I thought it was the right thing to do. 

Lucky for me, I managed to win an iPad Mini!! This is the first prize I have ever won! Thank you Porter Davis for the generous prize. 

Here it is :) 

I plan on leaving another one after our 90 day maintenance period. 

Starting to pick-out blinds

We were both fortunate to have a long weekend together so we decided to do some furniture shopping. Somehow it turned into a weekend of blind/curtain shopping.

We visited a few showrooms and companies but the best service (And pricing) we found at www.blindsonline.com.au . The staff there were fantastic and pricing seemed really good in comparison to other companies. This is a DIY fitments store but the on-line website is so easy to use and they can help you at their showroom. I love DIY projects so this is definitely something we will consider.

Here are some of our choices so far. Nothing locked in-yet. 

Home theatre. Blinds will be have backing stitched on to reduce light

Deciding between the middle and bottom colours for our blinds.

Brick Work - Progressing

Hi all,

Few photos I managed to 'snap-up' this morning. Brick work is getting there with one half of the house almost complete. The quality is great IMHO.

It's going slow but I am happy to sacrifice time for quality.

Site visit update

As we do every weekend, we visited our site today.

Much to our surprise, the bricklayer was there! This was great to see but I hate visiting the site when someone is working on it as I always feel bad for hanging around while they are trying to work. Anyway, the bricklayer is lovely and had no problem for us to have a look around. Luckily, as my Fiancé's family was driving down from Bendigo to have a look too!

Here's a quick update on what's happening on site:

- Bricking is progressing (slowly). Quality of workmanship is top notch though!
- Insulation installation has started.
- Many items we raised had been rectified. I.E Facade window changed to correct one.
- Plaster has been delayed till next week due to some outstanding issues from our lock-up inspection

Mostly positive so far, however a few issues we spotted. One that really made me shake my head...

They were kind enough to install some sound proofing under our ducted heater.

Wrong insulation installed to the entry/garage wall. Should be sound proofed. 

Now this is the one that really annoyed me. Temporary downpipe was pushed into the house and was pouring water inside near the plaster!! It didn't seem to have splashed or touched the plaster. I told the bricklayers and they fixed it straight away but we're going to have to check the plaster now. This is one I will definitely talk to the SS about. 

Non-compliant plumbing. Should be minimum 25 mm cavity behind brickwork. 

Meeting with Independent Inspector and Site Supervisor

Our independent lock-up inspection was booked in for today. Fortunately, I was able to meet both our independent and supervisor on-site.

There is A LOT happening on our site at the moment.

- Bricking
- Lock-up crew
- Electricians
- Data rough in (Argus)
- Framer

It seems they are all hands on deck to progress our house towards lock-up this week. They are also rectifying all the issues BSS 'Independent' inspection raised. And by all I mean MANY.

There are too many issues to list at the moment. Most are small and can be rectified easily. However, site drainage has been raised again by our independent and he will be personally calling PD management to get it resolved.

Without going into too much detail, AGI drains are required to both front sides of the house and a retaining wall to the right hand side.

The slab supervisor has told me previosuly that the 2x AGI drains and retaining wall are not required which is incorrect.

Some good news though, the independent has praised the brick layers work and said it was of high standard. I agree with him and can't wait to see it all complete!

It's going to be an interesting few weeks...

Taking a step back...

Lately, I have been so fixated will all the build issues we have had that I tend to forget to stand back and admire our future house in the making.

It was a beautiful day today so I thought I would take some photos of the house as it stands.

Enjoy :D

Another BC change...

Yesterday, we got a call from PD's Business Co-ordinator.

We were told that our BC has left the company and we will therefore be allocated another BC sometime in the near future.

This was really frustrating to hear as we are now up to our third BC and second Site Supervisor.

PD's staff turn over is quite concerning. I'm not sure what the reason is but many PD customers seem to have the same issue throughout their build.

The worst part of it all was that she was really great to deal with and always prompt at responding to any queries or questions we had.

I hope the next BC will be the same!

Quick site visit update - Bricking Started!

It was my Fiancé's graduation today so I had taken the day off. What better excuse then to go out on site afterwards and show the father-in-law the progress on our house.

We found that bricking is well under way (started Tuesday), Electrical rough-in crew on-site and whilst we were visiting the A&L replacement window was being delivered. 

One thing I noticed was that the DPC was not visible from the outside of the brick although specified in the drawings. However, all the homes I have seen so far (no matter the builder) don't have the DPC visible. I can clearly see that the brick layer has installed the DPC correctly so I don't see any issue with this. Will definitely ask our independent though. 

Some photos :) 

Progress update

Quick update on progress this week.

Evaporative cooling installed

Argus technologies has pre-wired the fibre optic box and marked all the data points.

Data point and main entertainment shown as 800 mm but should be 300 mm. It seems they 'miss-read' the 3 as an 8. 

W.I.P Data point for Telephone and future wireless router.