Driveway & Concrete Path

Concrete path & drainage solution

With possession of the house, we have wasted no time to get the concreting project started and getting the fence posts in place to facilitate this. We aim to have the driveway done and one side of the house to allow for a nice outdoor area. The color selected is a beige type color, unfortunately I don't have a sample photo to share.

 Our concretes have been fantastic, ensuring that we are involved in each stage of the process and that we are aware and on the same page about the works to be done.

The fencing should have panels in the coming weeks, once the concreting has been done and we are looking forward to our privacy/prevention of rubbish from other builders being thrown on our site.

Curved path/driveway to porch

Final Inspection & Settlement!

The day was finally upon us, the final inspection to ensure that items flagged at PCI had been rectified and the settlement appointment to hand over the final payment (cheque).

The day started fairly bumpy, with headaches at the bank - apparently they didn't know about our loan or that we where picking up a cheque for our final payment. It took a great deal of time, phone calls and waiting to finally sort things out. The branch manager was very helpful with trying to sort things out, while the issue was with the lending department not having their act together.

Onsite we went through the items that had been flagged on the PCI. Most items had been addressed which was good, however the tiles in the showers were still poor/unattended too, much to our dissatisfaction. 

About 9 items were added to the post build fixing list (forgot the name of the form!). We are hoping these are addressed soon (also requires us to be onsite). Normally they are fixed within 14 days.

At the office, we went through the hand over paperwork and certificates for the works done. At the end, once all payments were sorted, we were issued our keys and 'welcome' pack with an assortment of documents in it.

PCI Inspection

Mostly finished product

It was now our turn to be presented our new home and inspect / flag defects to be resolved. We made it an early start to get on top of things.

The pretty much has the Site Supervisor (SS), taking you around the house to explain and show things, along with OHS/Carlisle type explanations (how to use items, etc). While this happens, you flag any items that you believe are not satisfactory and if the SS agrees he will write it down on his list.



Noteworthy (well off the top of my head!) items that we flagged:

General:

• Most power points not flush / not a solid fixing
• Some light switches not flush/solid
• Range of blemisshes on paintwork
• Top and bottom of all doors not painted
• Metal strip between flooring types had large dents in it (doors dropped on it or otherwise)
  

Kitchen:

• Cracked cupboard underneath
• Small scratch in the ceaserstone bench-top
• Power point not slimline 
• faulty draw (didn't close properly)
• Unnecessary hole in shelf under sink.

Front of house (Inside)

• Secondary front door pin still (hold second door in place)
• Cleaning of excess varnish off windows on the door
•  

Master Bedroom

•  Minor adjustments to walk in robe

 Master Ensuite

• Cracked Basin (1 known about, 1 new!) - 2 of 2 faulty
• Only partial seal where the kickrail meets the floor under the cupboards
• Uneven cupboards
• No sealing on the back of basins
• Toilet yet to be installed

 Hallway

• Exposed metal corner in plaster
• Multiple blemishes
• Several dents/chips
• One uneven floorboard/bow
  

Powder Room

• Was missing tiles as per diagrams
• Multiple holes in the plaster
• No sealing of the basin at the rear

Bed 2

• No items - small bedrooms are pretty basic

Bed 3

• As Above

Bed 4

• As Above

Bathroom

• Shower tiles not aligned properly
• No sealing on the edge of the shower
• No sealing on the back of basins

Lounge

•  Side of door not painted well

Living

• Nothing note worthy

Rumpus

• Hole in the wall (wrong spot for light switch...)
• Window extremely stiff to open

Roof Space:

• Leak from unsealed vent in ceiling from heating

External

• Gaps between roof / other external areas where water could get in
• Mortar color issues
• Down pipe not bolted down
• Insufficient drainage
• Alfresco beams not painted sufficiently 

Garage

• Multiple and very visible joins in cornices 

Other:

• Damage to our fence after all trades have been done... (our expense to fix (as per contract)- how does it happens at the end of a build??) 
• Soil not angled away from house in most cases & pooling of water on the edge of slab

SE Water:

• Extremely poor front tap install - leaking all over the place - after taking months to get it installed and being billed for it well in advance...

In total there was just over 80 defects listed, of varying degrees. We hope to see these addressed in full, inclusive of the inspectors report/items.

Our Final inspection / settlement looks to be about two weeks away, to allow time for consecutive trade tasks to happen. It may take some time to ensure that all the jobs are attended to properly and that sloppy workman ship doesn't happen again on the day...

Unfortunately we did feel (and we were) rushed with things (and the SS had to go to another site / double booking...). This did drop our satisfaction with the Carlisle quality and was not ideal. We will be applying plenty of scrutiny at the settlement to make sure the items are address / any additional faults they may have caused while fixing other things.

We have hoped that we have picked up on as many things as possible (lots of angles for rooms and viewing as much items / inspecting paintwork).

Almost Complete - Photo Montage

Final stages!

Alfresco (From Rumpus)

Bathroom

Electrical, NBN and down-pipe

Garage - Wood look finish

Hallway - Carpet & Floating floorboards

Front of the house & tapping

Designer Kitchen (Now complete & with black splash back)

Powder room

Ensuite Spa - will be needed after long days of working on the house & gardens!

Bedroom (Nothing too interesting of fancy!)

Pipes - Appliances to be fitted off on / after settlement

Master bedroom, with niche

Pre Handover Inspection (NHI)

Once again we enlisted New Home Inspections to perform an inspection on our house, the pre-hand over inspection.

The report found a number of issues, many are not that big. Our biggest concern was the exhaust for the central heating was causing a leak from the roof, where it has its exhaust pipe.

The items flagged on our report where:

• Water pooling around the side and back of the house (insufficient drainage)
•  Soil no compacted and slanted away from teh house
• Touch up mortar was a very different color
• No brick in the bottom corner of the garage (seems to be extremely common)
• Areas of bricks that had yet to be high pressure cleaned
• Downpipes not fully secured (bolt)
• Scratches and damage to the powder coat paintwork of the window frames (Metal)
• Bent window frame & seals to long/short and not correctly installed (A&L windows did a less than average job)
• Skirting and walls bowed outside of acceptable tolerance
• Uneven and inconsistent tiling in the shower floors (A big one to us and looks extremely poor and sub standard)
• All basins had not been sealed at the rear (between basin and benchtop)
• Kick rail for the showers where loosely sitting in place
• Powder room tiles where missing from the side walls (Good to take plans & provide to inspector!)
• Plaster damage from toilet water in tap
• (Deep) Scratches on laundry bench
• Mis-drilled and exposed holes in cupboards
• Texta on cupboards
• Random hole in wall (misplaced light switch
• All cupboards misaligned
• Central heating exhaust causing roof leaks
• Water pooling / damaging room space from the above
• Place not cleaned (to building clean standard)

Overall not to bad, but some of the items are pure laziness/carelessness on behalf of the trades who installed them. We hope to see these items satisfactorily resolved for final view/settlement.

Flooring Finished & Garage door in

Carpet

Another granular update, with the second part of the flooring installed, the carpet (to all rooms) of the house. It looks like the carpet will be fun to clean / has a microfiber look to it (sample looked different, but all good!). We look forward to being able to see the carpet inside the house and feel the underlay (Cat 2, had hoped to stretch for cat3, but that didn't happen).

The glass for the showers has also been installed (mirrors had been done previously). However no photo of those at current, but we all know what shower screens look like ;)

Automatic garage door

Our Garage door has also been installed, with the automatic door opener. The garage door is of a wood like finish (to comply with covenants).

We are still waiting on the cladding and panels to be installed in the eaves/porch - which is allowing for birds to make their home in our open roof, not a particular preference for our new home!

Inspection is only a few weeks over, then handover soon after that. Exciting times!

Carpet and garage door for reference, from color selection:

Plumbing & Flooring

Plumbing works

Another small update - the plumbing for the house has been confirmed that it is finished.

Unfortunately, Carlisle has placed the wrong basins in the house. Our existing basins were discontinued, so a substitution was offered, however we ended up with a completely different one to the other models.

We have raised this with Carlisle, and they have said that we can keep these basins (rated as upgrade based on showroom) or have it changed (at their expense) to the correct substitution model. We arranged to view the new (substitution) model at SPECTRA and will make our decision on Saturday. It was good that there was no hassles when it was raised / resolution options.

Kitchen Tapware

The flooring is coming along well, with the laminate floorboards having the edging tacked onto it. Carpet should be complete by today as well. We are hoping to see almost the finish product upon our next visit!

We are also working through obtaining quotes, for items such as fencing, concrete (driveway & path) and split system installations. Busy and expensive times.

Plumbing in, Flooring started

Ensuite

The tiles have now been cleaned, looking much better. The plumbing works have been fitted off, with basins, taps & shower fixings attached. The large mirrors have been fitted, which are apparently custom made by measurements of the space (Different tiles would mean different height glass I guess!)

Ensuite Spa-bath

Bathroom

The bathroom is coming together well too, looking like a mini version of the ensuite. The shower screen glass should be installed within the next week or two.

Laminate Floorboards

 The laminate floorboard installation has started, with a bit of work to be done. They will look great once cleaned up. They are of a very light oak type color.

Internet - NBN Ready

 External connectivity to the internet is all ready for NBN Co to install / do their works.

External Tapware

Although far from the ideal location, our external taps have been installed. We may have to look at installing our own taps at the rear of the house, where the majority of lawn/plants will be!

PCI & Handover - Firming up dates

With the completion of the tiles, we have been given a tentative date/time for our PCI (Practical Completion Inspection).

We have lined up our private inspector to visit the house prior to our inspection, as per our SS (Site Supervisors) requests. The idea behind this is for things to be flagged in a timely matter to be resolved and to allow the private inspector to work in his own time/space. We will have the report for when we have our PCI days later.

I have also invested a few dollars ($4) in getting a PCI checklist from a website (Member on Homeone)
http://www.anewhouse.com.au/2012/01/practical-completion-inspection/ 
I will post after the PCI a small review as to how useful we found the guide in our situation, however it is looking like it will be a great help and we will just write up a small list to compliment it - $4 is great investment to do most of the leg work!

This should also keep us focused on checking items (that we may not have even thought of), that may skip out mind in the excitement / scrutiny applied to specific problems or getting bogged down in them and distracted.


Our handover date is looking to be 2 weeks after the PCI. We are hoping it is sooner if possible and will be arranging the bank cheque (which takes 1-2 weeks to happen with the way banks process things) ready as soon as possible.

Once the date is booked/happens, it will be straight to fencing and concreting! I will detail these more in future posts.

Caesarstone, downpipes & Corking (Bricks)

Downpipes

Externally of the house, the downpipes have been attached to the house and the bricks filled with corking in the gaps (expansion joints), leaving just the cladding to be done outside. (Front facade)

Corking

Inside the house, the caesarstone bench tops have been fitted to all bench areas (excluding laundry). It has come up very nicely and better than the laminate finish in the bathroom areas  (20mm in areas, slightly thicker in the kitchen).

Caesarstone - Powder Room

Caesarstone - Bathroom

Caesarstone -Ensuite

Caesarstone -Kitchen (Island is thicker)

Finally a picture of the bathroom, that was missed on the last post: (Shower to right, out of the image)