Lock up - plenty of progress

It's been a while since the last update - sorry about that!  Lots has happened since the last update.  A few dramas but generally all has gone well.  The following is now done:

• interior walls and insulation
• ceilings
• internal and external doors (one issue here)
• architraves
• waterproofing in and around wet areas
• garage door
• guts of the kitchen (one problem encountered), including all carpentry (no bench tops / appliances etc yet)
• carpentry in bathrooms
• Bathtub in main bathroom
• Guts of the aircon throughout
• fireplace has been installed (a few times, see below)

Also, finally (after all the insurance dramas previously mentioned relating to the fallen tree) our electrical pole and wires have been installed and we now have an electrical supply to the house.

Fireplace / TV niches
We mentioned the issues in the last post.  A month on and it's still not resolved but we think it's now close.  They ended up having to moving the fireplace out and down, and build the wall out so that the cavity is wider... this meant we lost some space in the rumpus room which wasn't great.

Speaking with the site supervisor it was clear that the communication was poor from the main office and that Alkira seemed to have never had to install the set up we asked for in any other house.  Bear in mind that the set up we asked for is on display at Kellyville and you can understand our frustration.

Kitchen issue
Not so much of a big deal but frustrating.  We specifically asked that we have a deep drawer under the bench so that we could fit a few bins in it.... we didn't want our bins out in the open and we previously lived in a property where they were concealed within a deep drawer until - it worked really well that way.

Anyway, they told us during the design phase that they'd be in touch nearer the time to discuss the design if they encountered any problems with it.  You've guessed it... they didn't contact us and went ahead with fitting in out without designing it how we specified.  We now have a strange 'U' shaped deep drawer which you can't really use for anything.  We've requested they fix things up and we need to meet them on site shortly to discuss... more to come later.

Door issue
Again, not a big one but another thing to have to work through...  during design with home option gallery we selected our internal doors.  We chose a sliding cavity door for one of the doors because we didn't want it opening outwards in to the hallway, and it couldn't open inwards due to the interior design.  We were told by home options gallery that the internal doors we selected couldn't be used for a sliding door, so we had to select a plain door as a compromise.

Fast forward to now - we're told by the carpenters on site that there's nothing wrong with selecting the matching internal door and that it could be fitted as a sliding door.  We say great and ask them to fit it.  We're then told it'd cost $240 for the new door... a whopping $180 increase on the $60 / door upgrade cost from the time of selections.  We're advised the increase is due to 'admin costs' and because they'd already purchased the other door.  We argue that we received incorrect advice from home options gallery.  We're then told that Alkira no longer uses home options gallery (for these type of reasons) and after some negotiation we ended up paying $180 for the matching door.  We could/maybe should've fought it harded because Alkira is ultimately responsible for the companies they chose to outsource to, but decided to focus on the fireplace and kitchen issues and pay the extra $120...

We're told that the tiling isn't too far off now.  The site supervisor is now a bit more chatty with us which is great so we're getting much better information and guidance and we now tend to avoid the construction office.  We still think February is an achievable move in date, although March is looking more realistic due to the stupid 5 week shutdown (wish I had 5 weeks off!!).


 

Last few weeks to 1st Nov'14 - gyprocking, cornices, fireplace problems

It's great to see the rooms take shape now.  You get a real sense of the dimensions and natural light throughout the house.  You also get to start imagining the fun to come decorating and furnishing the different rooms.

In the last few weeks, the main things to occur were

• finishing installation of all of the insulation (we upgraded this throughout for sound and heat and they installed all the right stuff)
• gyprocking throughout - almost all finished... just one issue mentioned below
• cornicing throughout

We're also advised that the kitchen is scheduled to commence on 12th November.  Our latest discussion with the site supervisor was promising - he's estimated March / April for completion and we're really hoping he's being conservative! 

They've just sent us the latest progress payment which means we're now officially on to the interior linings stage.  The time taken for that stage was by far the longest we've had so far... almost 11 weeks, vs 6-8 weeks guidance.  We're now at 29 weeks since contracts were signed.

Fireplace / TV niche issues
We're having a fireplace installed in an interior wall which separates our rumpus area from our theatre room.  It'll be a glass two-sided one so that both rooms benefit from the heating and aesthetics.  Above the fireplace on both sides, we requested a niche for a television.  The set up is identical to that in their Elyse 15 show home in Kellyville.  It was quoted clearly in the tender, including dimensions.

It was clear from looking at the framing for the wall in question that they'd not structured things correctly.  It transpired that the site supervisor didn't even know the show home had such a set up and had to call out the manufacturers of the fireplace to discuss placement, and safety related separation between the fireplace and TVs.  It seems like we'll now need to either have the TVs quite high on the wall, or instead have the niches built out, such that we lose around 100mm from each room. 

Bit strange that their display home can't actually be functionally replicated (the display home has fake TVs), and disappointing to learn of the issues so late on.  Hopefully fixing it won't delay the build.

Last few weeks to 19th October '14 - scaffolding down, waterproofing, frame approval

Few more things ticked off... certainly not a hive of activity but things continue to progress.  It's been two weeks since the last post.  In that time, we've resolved (we think at least) the fallen tree insurance claim issue and we'll cover that in another post.  We had the exterior almost completely finished and had the interior fit out commence.  We've also been told that insulation starts next week (exciting!), and gyprock gets delivered on 22nd.

The alfresco roof eaves were completed, along with a few other finishes touches on the exterior, and it was great to see the scaffolding come down so that we can properly see what the outside looks like.  It looks like there's just some painting to finish up now on the eaves.

Inside, things are moving on.  It seems the electrical roughing, plumbing, gas and aircon is now all in the walls and roof cavities.  The wet areas have been waterproofed also (we thought when they said waterproofing was scheduled that they meant the exterior / roof area was having something done to it).  The waterproofing seems to consist of a thick rubbery paint and a small lip around the edge of all of the bathrooms, which is obviously designed to prevent water leaking on to the frame if the bathroom floods.  It goes up around 6 inches.

We've largely given up trying to get a basic level of service and information out of the construction office now.  We were told from the start to route all queries through their office, but at the last time of asking for an update, we got next to nothing back from them. We therefore got in touch with our project manager.  He gave a simple short and clear response listing everything that was scheduled for the next few weeks which was great.  He's advised that lock up is pencilled for 4th November.  That will put this stage of the build at a few weeks over plan, but overall we're still within their estimates given the earlier stages completed ahead of guidance.  We still think Feb/Mar '15 is realistic for receipt of the keys.


 

External selections information

Now that the exterior has been completed, I've had a few people comment on and ask about our selections.  Thanks for showing interest!   Below is a summary of what we went for...

Bricks:  Austral Urban One Silver
Roof Tiles:  Monier traditional flat profile caper
Windows:  Anodic silver grey frame
Fascia & downpipe: Colorbond dune
Gutter: colorbond woodland grey
Front entry door:  Hume Savoy XS26 in Cabot's jarrah
Garage door:  Decowood western red cedar (woodgrain textured finish), slimline style

Anything else you want details on, let us know.

The week that was - to 5th October '14

Few new pics below.  No communication on the fallen tree / insurance claim all week.

You can see in the image of the rear of the house how low the stacker doors to the alfresco area are.  They're low because there are two sliding doors which meet in the corner, and we paid for a variation such that no column was required.  The removal of the column meant we needed a reinforced beam. The beam has caused the height of the doors to be lowered.  A real shame because we paid a fair bit to remove the column in order to open up the room and the low height of the doors closes it in.  They're only around 1.9m high.  This reminded us early concerns around not having 3D plans (and of course not having an architect or a savvy salesperson to consider these issues).  We've updated our general tips blog to cover this.

Pretty good week of progress.  Electrical wiring installed throughout.  The electrician was a good guy.... pretty simple really - he dropped us a text message before arriving, asking if we wanted to meet him and chat through what we had selected so that he had an idea of what we were trying to achieve. He then made a few suggestions on improvements.  He got the job done quickly and we were happy.  We'll use him for some work once the house is released to us.

The tiling on the last few sections of the roof were also completed.  Feels like we're now very close to lock up. 

We had a call from the interior tiling company, advising that our selection for the patio area had been discontinued so we'd have to go back to their store and re-select.  Not the end of the world, but pretty inconvenient given Alkira only use one tiling company and it's a 2 hour drive for us.  Another example of average customer service.  Can't be that hard to pick a couple of tiling companies to source from.  Anyway, on speaking to the tiling people, they advised that Alkira don't order the tiles until they have good visibility on having to install them... that was pleasing to hear whilst being a bit surprising as the gyprock isn't even up inside yet.

 

The week that was - to 28th Sept 2014

Closing out from the mention of the 0.2mm rain day claim from last week's update, we received a response confirming that the day would not be claimed for.  Pretty blunt response, with no explanation as to why they were using invalid excuses... the response basically said they were just relaying what the site supervisor told them to, and that they didn't have time to look in to it so were just crediting it back from the goodness of their hearts...  laughable.

Average week of progress from what we could see.  Almost a full week of sunshine, but the final sections of roofing haven't been tiled.  We were told at the start it would be tiled this week, so not sure what the hold up was. 

There's a small section of exterior boarding in lieu of bricks (structural reasons I think) at the front of the property and that looks like that was finished off.  Also, the aircon seems to have been partially installed in the ceilings and roofing.  Finally, some fascia was installed.

We'll cover our issues with a tree which fell in a storm under a separate post once it's resolved either way in more detail, but just a mention of it now, given how typical the correspondence from Alkira was in terms of representing their highly average customer service levels.  Briefly: a large tree fell in a storm and tore up our newly installed electricity pole.  No damage to the house thankfully.  We were told early on that we wouldn't have to worry as they had insurance.  Then out of the blue we get this email:

[email removed at Alkira Home's request 07/12/14]

 

In summary, we're asked to pay thousands of dollars with no decent explanation, no call to explain and we are asked to only respond from one email address because it's too messy when we respond on each other's behalf and copy each other (I've lost count of how many people at Alkira we've had to liaise with along the way!!!).

We've reviewed our contract and it clearly states that they must have insurance which covers storm damage.  Nothing in there about no cover for existing trees (surprise surprise).  No detail above about why only part of the costs are covered, and no breakdown of the costs.  We've responded noting that from our reading, there's nothing in our contract to suggest we're due to pay them anything.  Let's see how we go....

The week that was - to 21st Sept '14

Not a bad week of progress.  No heads up on what was going to happen but during the week the eaves have been finished off & painted, the particle board on the front spare bedroom has been put up, and the roofing trusses for the final sections of roof on the ground floor have been installed.  Most of the scaffolding has also been removed.

It now looks like only the tiles need to go on before the house can be sealed and the internal work can commence.

Last week we received variation claim for the wet weather which occurred the prior week.  One of the days claimed for experienced just 0.2mm of rain and the claim was filed for 'inclement weather'.  We can't argue with the days either side, but we queried this day, as a single light shower isn't exactly going to prevent people from being able to work safely.  The response we received was as follows:

'Because the roof has to be bone dry before we can complete the ridging wether it be 0.2mm or 200mm of rain.'

That was the extent of the response.  So the ridging on the roof can't be done with any dampness whatsoever.... I can say whether or not that's valid as I'm not a builder but here's the big issue.... the ridging was completed when we stopped by the house the previous morning!!! we have the pictures which we sent to each other to prove it....  

Anyway, I queried this on Wednesday and we're yet to receive a response.  hmmmmm.  We're yet to ask why there was nothing else they could do on the day instead of the ridging also....

Below are a few pics.