He also let us know the head brickie has been off sick after a brief trip to the hospital so it has just been him doing the bricking! no wonder it is on the go slow. I asked him about the area that doesn't have the wrap he said they had had to take it down because of the fence and that the chippies need to put it back, and to make sure they do. They have been having lots of problems with the bricks themselves, they are different colours and different sizes, apparently the SS and CM have been out to inspect it and have said just to keep going. The skip is overflowing with discarded bricks. They have been doing a really good job of mixing up the different colours and using the "good" bricks but looking at them a lot of them are pretty crap. There isn't much they can do though, and there really isn't any point pulling them down and starting again. We are hoping to have enough $'s to put a clear glaze over the top of them after handover, but will just have to see how we go.
The other thing we noticed, is throughout the build our SS has been carrying on about next door having their bits and pieces on our land and has had multiple run ins with their SS, but today we noticed we have 5 pallets of our bricks in their front yard and the roof of our outdoor room is leaning up against their back wall, nowhere near our house! So will be funny to see if the tables are turned, and who would blame them!.
Here are some piccies of today's progress:
It's good that you are able to get both the CM and SS involved. During our build it was only the SS that we contacted. The CM didn't want to have any part of it. He would always say I will contact your SS to discuss with him.
ReplyDeleteNot good to have contractors that are skipping corners and making mistakes. I hope the mistakes aren't structural, or else it could fail later on. Chances are minimal.
You asked if we had any problems post build. Not really, as long as we addressed all the issues on the waranty form, then they were obligated to attend to it. Some cases it would be a warantee issue with the manufacturer, so they would send them out. But all in all, it has been quite good. I thing I encourage before the 6month defect periods comes in is to use everything vigorously. Taps, switches, handles etc. Although you may not want to do this, because it's all new. Because sometime things take a bit more that 6months to wear and fail if you know what I mean.
I'm an engineer myself so when I came around to inspect the house, I could find various defects here and there, but must of it was asthetics. I could put many requests in to fix this and that, but never confirmed that they were ever done. My justification was, I probably wasn't going to live here forever. So by the time it fails I will probably long gone.
Along the way there will be thing that go wrong. And you will think I will never build with these guys again. But truth is, every builder will make mistakes, just like every person does (human error), but I have to admit the mistake rate from Metricon is a lot less than other builders. Other builders will hurry through the build, compromising the quality of work.
You may think your build is slower than your next doors, but just be reassured, you are getting a better house than them. Who is their builder?