We have a completion date - Happy New Year!

Was nicely surprised by the sight of a roof over our outdoor room which was not there before Christmas. The builder had mentioned that we may see some work between Christmas and New Year by their smaller suppliers but we weren't holding our breath. Seems he was right and a few other little items were addressed too. Still nothing on the brickwork though so urgently requested a site meeting.

Met with Wayne our site supervisor on a Saturday morning which was a good effort on his part and we certainly appreciated it as we were getting rather concerned about a few overdue items yet to be addressed. In summary...

1/ Brickwork - Wayne agreed about the quality of some of the brickwork and assured us that all will be fixed. Meaning window edges, bricks and mortar, was going to be redone.

2/ Broken noggins - We had noticed some broken noggins in the frame some months ago which had not yet been fixed. Wayne assured these would be done prior to plaster.

3/ Incorrect door handle on bi part door - This still hasn't been replaced so noted that also.

Rough order of events to come....

- Fixing bricks next week (Claim Lock-Up)

- Garage roof next week

- Start plaster following week (10 days to complete)

- Kitchen installation (after plaster completed)

- Water proofing of wet areas

- Painting (after kitchen and waterproofing completed)

Most exciting off all though is that we now have a completion date of end of March if all goes well!!! We'll plan for end of April to allow for the myriad of delays that could occur. That's just over 3.5 months away so we're pretty thrilled. In the meantime, we have to fix a 'few' things around our current house before putting it on the market early Feb. So much to do and so little time! It's funny how even when you know somethings coming up, it can still creep up on you. Guess life gets in the way and before you know it, you're out of time.

Pre Christmas work

The issues with the brickwork mentioned in the last post was discussed with our site supervisor but it was all over the phone and whilst we received a verbal agreement to have our concerns addressed, it was hard to tell what was going to be fixed and when. We tried to organise a site meeting with our supervisor, hopefully with the bricky too, but as it was getting close to Christmas it never happened.

In the meantime, some other things which we noticed had been completed include:

1/ Inspection items regarding window gaps fixed with the installation of aluminium fills that match window frames.

Example of top fill...

Example of side fill...

2/ Acoustic and thermal insulation throughout the house.

3/ Roof truss over outdoor room. Hopefully the roof goes on soon.

Top floor bricks done

Once the scaffolding issue was resolved, the top floor bricks went up fairly quickly and should look fantastic after a clean! (Though more later on the issues found on closer inspection.) The only brickwork left to complete is the garage which is still needing a roof.

So, on closer inspection..... the brickwork has been a little disappointing. Whilst the bulk of it is pretty good and from a distance, it's all very neat, there are too many imperfections to ignore. The problems we noticed is in the edge work, mostly around windows. Bricks not lining up, missing mortar, and raking not done properly.

Example of bricks and mortar width not lining up under window edge.

Right hand side of the same window is fine. It's as though a different bricky worked on the other side of the window!

Example of cracked, missing, BLOTCHED UP mortar. What kind of quality workmanship is this??! Will have to chase this up with the builder next week.

Bottom floor bricks done and Pre-Lock Up inspection

It's been very exciting seeing the exterior of our new home go up. Despite the shortage of brickies at the moment Metricon have managed to complete our bottom floor brickwork. The ground floor bricks took a week to do followed by a week and a half of delay due to issues with the scaffolding company. Apparently, the company they used failed to meet contract agreements and Metricon had to find a replacement company to complete the works. So many things you don't consider which could delay construction!

A couple of views from the front of the house...

A view from the back of the house, rumpus room wall...

The ducted heating pipes & sarking for the Colourbond roof have also been installed over the past month. It's a maze of silver up there and can only hope it's all in the right place!

We had our pre lock up private inspection a couple of weeks ago once all but the garage bricks were done. We would have waited a bit longer till the electricals were complete but a bit of mis communication led us to believe that the place was ready for lockup when in fact we were still a couple weeks off. As a result the inspector couldn't check the electrical outlets and we had to do it ourselves which wasn't too difficult but just time consuming.

A number of things came out of this inspection which we just wouldn't have noticed ourselves. Here's a few of the more significant ones:

1/ The metal support beam running along the top of the garage door was about 5cm too short on either side. It's not so much the length of the beam but the amount of support under either end of the beam which was insufficient. The engineering report specified 200mm of brick support but they only allowed 150mm. Given we have a relatively wide double car opening this was a rather significant shortfall.

FIX - Beam has been replaced by longer beam.

2/ Vertical gap between the window and the fireplace brickwork. Based on the inspector's report, this could have been avoided if the mortar used in the fireplace brick wall was more consistent with the rest of the house. For some reason, the mortar width on this wall is less than that used around the house. As a result, the brick wall does not quite reach the window and has created a gap. Similarly, around a couple of other windows, there is a small gap between the brickwork and the window edge.

FIX - Gaps will be filled by an aluminium strip to match the window edges. Hopefully won't be noticeable.

3/ Patch of brickwork near the front door is made from a poor selection of bricks which basically look crap. Less of a problem if the patch was out of sight on the side of the house but it's right beside the front door.

FIX - Redo the patch with new selection of bricks. Very happy with that outcome!

There's a few other items from the inspection but all fairly minor and Metricon have agreed to fix before the next stage. In any case, we wouldn't be paying until they were.

Private Inspection - Frame

Bit of a backfill this one as spare time as been scarce lately. At the end of the Frame stage, we opted for an independent inspection. Nothing to do with any problems with the builder but more for the peace of mind. Building a new home is a big venture and a massive expense. We don't know anything about building and only seemed rational to get a second opinion as we would for most major decisions in life.

We went with Urban Property Inspections based on feedback from a fellow Metricon customer who is sharing a very comprehensive blog. Check it out www.tim-and-tina.blogspot.com

Onto the report... Fortunately, it was mostly favourable with only a handful of items to be addressed. The biggest one being some beams that were supposed to span all the way from the stairway wall to the front wall, but only went to the study wall. What seemed like a big problem at first has thankfully turned out to be relatively minor. The reason the beam does not span this entire length is because of a large sliding door we added to the study which is a modification to the standard design of the Tribeca. All that was required was amended engineering documentation, which take some time to acquire.

Overall, we were pretty happy with the level of detail we got from the inspection and more so from the minimal problems that were detected. Now we just have to make sure the items identified are rectified!

Roof done and some doors

It's been a while since our last post but with a newborn and toddler, your spare time certainly twindles. As mentioned in the last post, our Colorbond roof arrived as did some bricks. We selected them back in Feb so I was praying we still liked them, especially the roof which we mulled over in length before going for Colorbond over tiles. The tiles would be traditional and timeless but we love the durability and energy efficiency of Colorbond steel. Relieved to say we still love the Colorbond and colours for both roof and bricks.

The roof took a matter of days to complete and not a day too soon given the heavy rain that followed.

Noticed that the sliding door cavity for the study has also been done. This is going to be my home studio/office space so I'm pretty excited about it. Have always worked from home but never had a suitable space to meet clients. It's not a big room but it's all I need and it's at the front of the house so perfect really. Hopefully the heavy timber doors we selected for the room will keep the kids from getting in too easily. Fingers crossed...

The timber bi-part doors for our outdoor area has also been installed, though with the wrong handles so we've had to contact Metricon to have them replaced. The doors will look great after they've been stained. We also love the look of the 4 section bi-fold doors but decided that our kid's fingers would be safer from harm with a bi-part door. Funny the things you have to consider when you have kids!

Arrival of Bricks

Given that my wife has done every single post on this blog so far, I thought it was about time that I chipped in with a few comments and pics.

I've been fortunate that during the time that I'm on paternity leave, there has been plenty of action on the site and I can go down each evening and see what's been done.

Today I was stoked to see that our Bricks have now arrived, which means that Stage 3 - Lockup, is soon to commence.

(nice self-portait shadow too, we can tell who the dud photographer is!)

The bricks are called 'Ironstone' and they are by Selkirk.

We almost went for the 'Hawthorn' by Austral, but in the end thought it was a bit too popular. The bricks look like a nice batch, with a good range of tones across the browns and reds. This pic shows the variance in texture between the individual bricks. I think we've done well as it is a very tough choice. Our mortar is off-white and with a raked finish, again probably because a flush finish is so popular these days.

The other thing that arrived today was some of our Colorbond Roof, which is going to be in a colour called 'Monument' which is an 'almost black' blue. The roofies have already started to put up the framing for the Colorbond. I just hope they remember to put the 'sarking' (basically additional insulation) up before they put the roof on, as we paid a fair bit more for it!

(Framing for Colorbond Roof)

Colorbond Roof (Correct Colour!)