Friday, December 23, 2011

Another week of Kurmond's broken promises.

I'm sure none of you that have been following this Blog will be surprised to hear that this week didn't go to plan.  The fact is, that not a single week has gone to plan since week four of this epic saga.

As Beck said in her last post, these things were to happen this week:
The eave painters were to have painted the upstairs eaves, they didn't.
The downpipes were to have been installed and painted, they weren't.
The Scaffolding was to have been removed, it wasn't.
The downstairs fascia and gutter was to have been installed, it isn't.
And the bloody useless brickies Kurmond have contracted were supposed to have finished, and they aren't.

So that is exactly 0 from 5. And that's not even considering that half of those jobs were supposed to be finished LAST week.  Even given the wet weather we've had, the delays are ridiculous and I think a lack of planning and organisation have resulted in the estimated lock-up date going from "by December" to "before Christmas" and now it doesn't look like it will even happen in January.  Luckily we didn't hire Kurmond to organise a piss up in a brewery, or we'd all die of thirst.

Anyway, I think it is fairly safe to say that nothing will happen now until next year. So Merry Christmas to you all, and a safe and happy New Year.
D.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Weekly Update (Day 96) Eaves, cavity sliders, cladding, bricks and brick cleaning

Well on Monday the bricks didn't arrive, but the carpenters did.  They put on the eaves, the cladding outside of bedroom 4, installed the cavity sliders, put in the frame work for the ducting and the frame work for the niche in the main bedroom.  The carpenters are very young (Derrick thought they were trying to pinch stuff), but these guys did such a great job.  We went around to check all of the brick ties, to see if they had missed any and in the whole house we only found one that they missed.  Every thing they told us they would do, they did.
Cladding on Bedroom 4
Cavity sliders into the Media Room
Niche in Main bedroom

On Tuesday the bricks arrived, but they are not the same colour.

Wednesday the brickies turn up.  I go out to site on Wednesday afternoon thinking all of the brick work would have been finished, but it isn't.  They have run out of bricks AGAIN.
They finished the front of the garage, one side and the front of the balcony and above the front door.  Instead of using the different coloured bricks on the balcony and the garage ( these will be done in moroko, so you won't see the colour of the bricks) they used the correct colour bricks on these to spots and used the different coloured ones above the front door.  Around the front door should be face bricks, but now there is the two different colours.  Our SS told us they can be colour matched and we won't be able to tell.

Two different bricks

Thursday the bricks were cleaned and that makes such a big difference to the look of the house.

Clean bricks
So happy with the colour of the bricks
now that they have been cleaned
Derrick has a meeting with the SS tomorrow.  The painters should be there to do any painting on the top level before the scaffolding is taken down.  (Oh and the brickies are supposed to be back Wednesday - We will see)
Beck

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Something got done this week. (Day 87)

Well since our last post 12 days ago, we have had some action at the house.
The A/C ducting has been fixed as much as it can be.  The ducting in the corners of our bedroom have to stay, but our SS has told us he will make a niche over the bed area to hide it.  This I can live with, but the one in the corner of the family room had to go.  This one has been put into the cavity that we had made in our walk in robe.

We had been promised brickies would work on the Wednesday, but again no one was there.  Then on Thursday they also promised brickies, but again no one there.  We found out later that they finished off a job on Thursday morning, went to the pub for lunch and didn't make back to work after a liquid lunch.  By this point everyone has the sh#%s with the bricklayers.

Friday morning - WE HAVE BRICKIES.  It was only two of them, but at least something was going to get done.  These guys did the fiddly bits under the windows on the bottom level.  Derrick went out to see them on Friday morning and he was told the whole crew would be there Saturday morning.
We had about 7 guys on site on Saturday morning and Monday all day.

Brick work had to stop again on tuesday, this time because we had to wait for T bar to hold up the balcony and for over the garage doors. The builder also underestimated how many bricks we would need, and we have now run out.  Kurmond has another job that is using the same bricks and same batch number that had been over estimated, so we are getting those bricks to finish the job on Monday. (We hope).

Ducting put into the corner of the family room

Spaces we made for the ducting that the A/C guy didn't  use

Ducting put into both corners of our bedroom
once the ducting was moved, now we have holes
in the floor that will have to be fixed


These are what we have been waiting for, now we just need more bricks.



back of the house with the bricks done

front of the house just need the balcony bricked up

On Wednesday the solar panels were installed for the electric boosted hot water system and


Today we had the eave carpenters there,  they have finished most of it - just a few little bits to do.  They are also doing the cladding on the outside of bedroom four and installing the cavity sliders.  


Eaves done, the space on the right needs to have the cladding done