No Progress…My First Rant

Since my last post, there has been no progress on site. In fact, minimal progress has been the trend for the past several weeks. 

Apparently, it is the painter who has been evading, or promising and not delivering. All other activities are pending completion of painting of the eaves. Our SS, Greg has been following up with the painter with no apparent luck…and feeling helpless I suppose. If there is so much trouble in securing a painter for getting the eaves done, I wonder what would be the severity of the challenge when internal walls would need to be painted, and god forbid, a wall that needs touching up at Practical Completion Stage?

We could be waiting for weeks or months!

I acknowledge the problems associated with getting tradespeople to start and complete a task on time may be the norm than an exception; and thus the situation is not unique to our SS; however, for a leading company in the construction industry that prides itself on “being loved” (So You Can Truly LOVE Where You Live), Metricon is yet to – in customers’ eyes – effectively recruit, train, maintain and take corrective actions of the tradespeople partly responsible for delivering on that positioning.

While the Company does such an excellent job at the Pre-Construction Stage, making it highly visible in the industry, my experience and reading of blogs and forums and other personal communications indicate that Metricon customers’ experience at the construction stage of the build may be no different to non-Metricon customers, although my Sales Consultant assures me that Metricon always springs back positively on customers’ minds at the completion of the build. Only time will tell whether this would be true in our case.

So, why am I freaking out now? Because the D-Day is looming. My Mrs and I have sacrificed many to get this dream house up….and I would not like to see any more impediments.

The D-Day for us is 27 January 2014. Metricon, take a note of it.

Neither of us used casual or annual leave at our workplace this year in the hope of using it early next year when we need them the most. So, both of us had applied for annual leave for a few weeks immediately after Australia Day and got them approved. So, we would be devastated and totally cross if handover did not occur around Australia Day next year. 

With the way things are progressing (or not), that failure is waiting to become a reality, unless Metricon takes corrective action now.

Get It Done. Make It Happen.

Cladding Commenced

The pace slowly picked up last week with the completion of eaves and installation of metal capping on the balcony, after which the cladding (Scyon Linea weatherboard) were put up on part of front and south-east elevation. 

Cavity slider doors and the front entry door have been delivered on site and are waiting to be installed.

Apparently, the eaves will need to be painted before other activities could move forward; the painting is scheduled tomorrow (Monday). I seriously want the painting of eaves as well as the cladding to be completed on schedule, so that part of scaffolding can be removed to allow for the installation of ground floor roof trusses, followed by the installation of roof tiles.

On a lighter matter, Stocklands screened the family movie Wreck-It-Ralph in an open air cinema format yesterday at Brooks Reach lawns next to the Sales Office. Around 50 people, including us, watched the movie; and we enjoyed both the movie and the setting; it got cold though a bit….

Construction Pace to Pick up

Took a day off after a bad cold last weekend and decided to drive by Brooks Reach. Met our new SS by chance when he was checking out something at another Metricon construction site at BR.

Although the construction activity in the past three weeks was slow, it was good to see our SS address with a positive attitude the backlog of work (and other unintended consequences) left behind by our previous SS. Looks like the pace of house building activity is to going to pick up this week after I noticed additional materials on site: Hardieflex eaves, accessories and Scyon Linea weatherboard  ̶  with SS confirming that work is scheduled to start tomorrow (Tuesday), with a number of activities: Eaves, metal capping on Hebel, and weatherboard cladding on the upper floor façade, continuing on the either sides of the elevation up to Masterbed and Bed 5, and rear of the house.

SS also advised that the painting of external Hebel walls will occur only after cladding is complete.

Click http://scyon.com.au/linea.html if you want to learn more on Scyon Linea Weatherboard Cladding.

Rendering (DULUX AcraTex Renderwall) Under Way

I caught up with our SS over the phone last week to check on progress, only to be informed that more than one window was problematic on the upper floor. Greg ̶ having inherited those problems from our previous SS ̶ has now apparently addressed them, paving the way to move forward with our build.

The sliding door to Laundry has been installed, although from distance, I cannot see any protective covering on them – it is covered with dirt, and I hope that there are not any scratches on them.

Rendering on all elevations is currently underway, using Dulux AcraTex Renderwall, the application of which acts as a basecoat. This activity would be followed by, I suppose, Dulux AcraTex Trowel On Fine, which is a fine grain, acrylic texture delivering a render finish in Gnu Tan coloured, full acrylic coating that should look like the picture below (the picture below is not from our house).

Also noticed some fancy looking protective thingies around windows and edges of walls – see pictures below. No idea what its function is.

Eaves lining materials have been delivered on site, along with accessories (PVC extrusion); our SS informs me that eaves would be up once the scaffolding on the upper floor comes down on completion of rendering. All I have is a whacky photo of eaves lining materials to share at the moment, considering that I am locked out of site!

Our neighbour's lot now has a site fence and they are building with Beechwood Homes. It would be interesting to see how much their Builder cuts and fills, considering that their land was previously cut, more than perhaps it should be, resulting in a lot of fill towards our boundary on the Southern elevation.

Finally, and contrary to previous advice I received from our CSC, we received the invoice for the Frame stage; our financial lender promptly processed our payment request after receiving the inspection report from its valuer.