Slab Issues - Discussion with Slab Supervisor

The afternoon following slab pour I visited the site to see how they went with the pour. As I previously mentioned, I was quite disappointed with the quality of the poor. Of course my main concern is the integrity of the slab and not the aesthetics of it. 

I raised my concern to our Building Coordinator and Slab Supervisor. I got an email back from our BC within a few hours saying she had spoken to the SS and he would call me ASAP. Next day our SS calls me. He did not for one second of the conversation make me feel like I am overreacting or wrong, which I appreciate as usually that's the default response you get from the builder. 

He agreed with my concerns and also mentioned that he wasn't impressed with the quality shown in the photos I sent. He gave me a few reasons as to why this has occurred but he couldn't confirm until he had seen the site himself. So he assured me that he was heading out on Friday to see it himself and complete a report on the slab. 

He promised that he would share the report with me, get all the issues rectified and provide engineering documents for all the post-pour work done to the foundation. 

Here's hoping all the above happens. Now to wait... 

 

Slab pour!

Great news! Our slab was poured this morning.

Being all excited I left work and went straight to the block. At first it looked really good and clean from the front. As I looked closer and closer I started to notice a lot of 'honeycombing'. For those of you who haven't heard of this term it is when the exposed sides show the gravel in clusters. 

Here is a link that gives some good information regarding honeycombing: 

http://www.cesinspectionstexas.com/concrete-honeycomb/

I was really disappointed to see this and after looking at the opposite house slab (Porter Davis home and same concrete crew) I realized that the honeycombing is much more frequent in our slab. 

Fortunately, I have a great independent inspector and he responded to my email (full of photos) within a few hours and gave me some advice and re-assurance regarding what the best way to tackle this issue is. 

Enough writing from me, here are some photos I took this afternoon. 

Foundation Inspection

This afternoon @ 3 pm we had our 'pre-pour/foundation' inspection conducted by Darren from Darbecca Pty Ltd.

When we arrived, the slab team were still completing the final touches. The inspector went ahead to inspect the works that have been completed so far. Communication from the Slab Supervisor was very poor. I had text him photos of the damaged pipes this morning and no response. Fortunately, the drain for the laundry that was broken had been temporarily repaired by a plumber as it would have held up the pour. The broken downpipe drain is still to be repaired and the inspector picked up on that and marked it. 

Even though most issues were rectified on the spot as the inspector pointed them out (nothing major), we still received a full report from him.

Rememberer my concern about the reduced FL of the house and site drainage? Turns out I was right! Here is what the inspector had to say in the report. 

Finally, the exciting part.... Some more photos, enjoy :)

Site prepared and plumbing damaged for boxing....

Another quick update. 

This afternoon (3 pm) will be our pre-pour/foundation inspection. So yesterday we went to the block and to our surprise boxing had not yet been started. 

We did notice that some 'prep work' was done. Pier holes drilled (not filled), gravel laid over site and step downs re-introduced. It seems that whilst they were drilling the piers they damaged the plumbing for the laundry drain. They also damaged the plumbing for the down pipe on the garage external door side. I've made our Slab Supervisor and Building Co-ordinator aware of these and we have been told that they will be rectified by this afternoon. 

Apparently it takes less than a full day to box the site for slab pour.... Let's wait and see if that happens. 

Holes for piers drilled. Laundry drain missing. 

Damaged downpipe drain near garage external entry door. Drain for 'study' room in the garage. 

Portico step down still 150 mm (assuming by comparison to garage 63 mm step down)

Site works halt 3 days into the build... We're off to a good start!

Many of the followers and regular visitors of this blog would know that our site works officially commenced exactly three days ago. You might also have noticed that after looking at our cut site that I had a bit of a hunch that something was not right. Well.. I was right.

After checking our final construction drawings yesterday I noticed that the floor level has been dropped by 200 mm from our contract drawings. This set off some alarms and I immediately proceeded to email my building coordinator and text my slab supervisor.

Unfortunately, that's all I could as it was after hours and that meant another sleepless night caused by our build. Being human, questions start to arise. Did I read the drawings correctly? Why did I miss this? Why did they do/miss this? etc...

This morning I waited anxiously for an email or phone call. That didn't happen. I wasn't going to wait as I knew I didn't have much time to react.

Finally, I managed to get through to my slab supervisor and building coordinator. After explaining the situation, they both agreed that they needed to look into this further and have called a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. Attendees will be our BC, SS and one more member in charge of siting and floor level designs at the PD Keilor office. Luckily, we all agreed that works will be stopped until this is rectified. I was very assertive about this as they had deviated from our contract drawings without any Building Variation (BV).

Since the site has been cut already, there are really only a few options that I can think of to rectify this (if they agree):

1. Fill, compact and raise the platform for the slab
2. Increase the thickness and in turn the height of the concrete floors

I would really appreciate some feedback of which would be the better solution of the two. Please comment or PM me if you can help. 

Thanks for reading and sorry about the essay!

Site cut complete

Hi All,

Went out (again!) today to have a look at the block and found that the site has been cut. I am a little concerned about the height of the garage floor to the footpath so I have posted my question on the homeone forum hoping that someone with the expertise can help me understand our drawings better.

My current understanding is that the garage floor should be ~40mm higher than the footpath.

http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=75949

Here are some more photos:

Phone call with our slab supervisor

After heading out to our site yesterday and seeing that they had begun works, I decided to make a call to our Slab Supervisor.

Being used to the lack of communication from previous PD staff I have dealt with (our first Building Co-ordinator) I was expecting a short conversation and to be 'snubbed off'. Boy was I wrong!

He (Slab supervisor) was very helpful and took as much time as required to answer all my questions and concerns. Here are some of the questions/concerns I had and the answers I was given:

1. Foundation quality of work: I was assured that he has selection of contractors that he has worked with closely before and only accepts high quality of work from them. He also explained that the slab built by PD uses almost 9 tonne of steel instead of the minimum requirement of 6 tonne for a similar build to mine. 

2. Slab heave: He told me that he has had lots of experience with slab heave (even with his personal property) and that he believes that there are many factors to the cause of this. The factors he raised were site drainage (tick!), quality of foundation work (tick!) and correct design of slab including reinforcement amount (tick!). He has ensured me that all pre-cautions will be taken to build a high quality foundation for our home with correct site drainage. 

3. Slab pour date/pre-pour inspection: He was more than happy for me to pass his details to our Independent Inspector (Darbecca) for them to co-ordinate the pre-pour inspection without me being a 'messenger boy'. The slab pour date is expected on 03/03/2015.

I must say, I was quite impressed and relieved after this conversation. Of course I couldn't note down the entire ~30mins phone call but the above points cover the most important topics. 

Here's hoping that all goes well with our foundation work and slab pour. After all, it is the most important part of the house.

Official Site Start

It's official! The count down begins...

Went to have a look at the block again today and to my surprise there was a truck and excavator working away at it.

It's a huge difference between the progress we saw during all the paperwork stages. They really don't muck around once they go to site! I  really hope that's the case for the rest of it.

I've started a countdown of 168 days. I know this isn't very accurate but hey it's exciting times for us and anything to track progress is a good addition.

Only disappointing part is that I still haven't received a call from the Slab Supervisor. I guess there is still time between now and pre-pour but will need to arrange our Independent Inspector to come out.

Thanks for reading :)