Double Whammy

I received a double whammy from Metricon yesterday - two invoices on the same day - one for Lock Up and one for Fixing. On the good side that means that all the bricks have been finished (yay) and that things have are progressing inside as well. On the downside those two invoices account for 45% of the construction price - the next loan repayment's going to hurt!

We met our SS up at the house last night. I was hoping to get a look around inside but the tilers were still on the job - they'd just finished grouting the tiles and washing away the excess so we couldn't go in.

I was so pleased to see the bricks finished. After all my worrying there wasn't a problem with the colour of the bricks and I really like the way the house looks. We're so glad that we mentioned that the half built portico pillar was too small, because the bigger size looks really good.

Peering through our bedroom window I could get a bit of a look at the tiling in our ensuite. All the floor and wall tiles have been completed and my spa has been installed. Shower screens are due to go in today - not sure when the basins go in.

Our SS has scheduled the rest of the things that need doing to complete the house and it looks like everything will be done by the end of October, so if all goes well handover should be around mid-November (touch wood) which allows time for any defects to be fixed.

Day 126 and we have tiles.

Pretty happy with the way it's all going so far. At the moment the tiles stretch from the garage internal access door all the way through the house, including the entry, kitchen/dining/family room, pantry bathrooms etc.

We've run out of bricks, so at the moment the bricking has come to a halt while we wait for three more pallets of bricks. One of the portico pillars is partially built, but will have to come down as it has been built too small. It's not a major problem and we probably could have left it, but we both felt the house would look better with the pillars the bigger size. Given all the dramas we have had with the bricks, we're very concerned that the new ones wont match the rest of the house!

Our SS has moved to a different area and we are the last house in this area that he is coordinating. In some ways that's good - he knows all the ins and outs of the job so far, on the down side there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'supervising' going on at the moment. Maybe that's normal? Everything seems to have really slowed down.

It's all coming together

Day 118. We're so excited, the house is all coming together and we think it looks beautiful.

Wade called in at the house last night to see how the bricks were progressing and the house had been left unlocked, so I went straight around to check out the inside.

All the internal painting has been completed, there are a couple of areas that will need a touch up but nothing major. The finish is just beautiful. Our gorgeous timber front door and timber bi-part doors have been stained and they looked fantastic. The front door won't go up for a little while yet, but it looks great.

The electricians have been and about half of the house now has lights and all our switches and power points have been fitted. So glad we went with the slim line option, they look fantastic. All our vents for the ducted heating have been installed and the remote is hanging on the wall.

All the stone bench tops have been fitted and the cabinet handles have been installed.

According to My Metricon and the internal communication board, our wall tiling will commence today. Of course my camera went flat after one photo yesterday so I've only got mobile phone pictures. Hopefully I'll be able to get back there later in the week with my camera and there might even be some tiles to check out!

Finally!

Day 111 and I finally have some pictures of our bricks to show.

The bricks started going up last Tuesday and I had a bit of a panic when I saw them last Tuesday evening. It was just before night fall and in the low light the bricks looked nearly as patchy as the first lot. So Wednesday night we were back on site again with the brickie and the SS checking it out. We washed the bricks down and had a good look in better light and we were much happier with them.

I'm impressed with how quickly the bricks are going up, with a little bit of luck the bricks will possibly be finished by the end of next week.

I had a quick look through the house on Friday evening, but forgot to take the camera with me. Not a huge amount of progress on the inside. All the cabinet doors have now been attached and the ceilings, cornice, architraves and skirting boards have all been painted. According to My Metricon (which our SS tells us to take no notice of) our wall tiling is due for completion on the 20th. Hopefully I'll have some interior pictures to show later in the week.

The Brick Saga

So here's the house after the patchwork bricks were pulled down and the site cleaned.

Our SS and the Austral Bricks representative said that we were unlucky and unfortunately it was a bad batch of bricks, some had been in the kiln a lot longer than others resulting in the darker colour. Austral told us that it would be at least three weeks before another batch would be made and our SS suggested that we select a different brick.



The Austral rep dropped in some samples of similar bricks and we went back through all the brochures. There was nothing that we really liked so we called our SS and had a chat with him. The hold up with the bricks wasn't a major problem for Metricon because they couldn't find a bricky to do the job, all their usual guys were on other jobs.



The Austral rep came up with a solution. They would sort the bricks before they put them on the truck so that we had a consistent colour.



Here's what arrived.

You can imagine how frustrated and unimpressed we were. They were even worse than the first lot we had received.

We've now had a third lot of bricks delivered. By this stage we were quite wary of anything said by Austral. We looked over the bricks ourselves and there is still some variation between the pallets. The bricks are suppsed to be so similar that they don't need mixing.

On Wednesday Wade had a meeting on site with our SS and the Austral rep. They built a couple of 'walls' with the bricks to get an idea of how they would look. We gave our SS the go ahead to use them, he had a bricky lined up to start on Thursday.

Our SS rang us late Thursday to say that the bricky had been to check out the job and had decided that it was too big, he wasn't going to do it.

At this point we were beginning to wonder if our house was ever going to be bricked (bearing in mind that the bricking was originally set for early July). The SS rang us on Friday to say that he had a bricky lined up to start on Monday and that he is someone that he has worked with for years and will do a good job.

So cross your fingers for us, hopefully I'll have some progress to show you on Monday.

And they all fall down

Well not quite - but all the previous bricking has been removed. The Austral Bricks truck has been there a couple of times to check out what needs doing to remove the bad lot. They'll all need to be restacked, wrapped in plastic and loaded back on the truck before our new bricks can be delivered. Not sure when that will happen.

Yesterday the last of the cornice went up. The plasterers have done a pretty good job, there are some bits that could be better (a dip where the cornice is joined - that type of thing), but overall not too bad.

You can see the channeling that has been cut in the floor for the electrical conduit. Our SS was as annoyed as we were about this. You can see the black marks on the floor outlining where the island bench will be. All the had to do was channel back to the bench (approx 300mm) and the same on the other side where the conduit comes out in the butlers pantry rather than level with the wall. As you can see they chose to go right across the floor, which was time consuming and unnecessary. Thankfully they haven't cut through any of the reo. It turns out that common sense isn't always common!

Plastered

Day 76. Our dodgy bricks were pulled down today - I don't have photos of that yet and I'm not sure I really want to see it. It was necessary but it still feels as though we're going backwards instead of forwards.

In the picture above you can see the amount of variation in the brick. It's not Metricon's fault, we just got a bad batch. Austral tried to get the brickies to toss out the really dark ones, but with the bricks being wet it's incredibly difficult to tell which were too dark. Our SS did mention that we could let the bricking continue and then have the house rendered at the end, but we really preferred the bricks.

On a happier note - the plaster is just about complete. It's all up and the cornices were all cut today and should be put up tomorrow.




Our SS also mentioned that the kitchen floor will levelled this week, ready for tiling to start. Not sure when that is due but hopefully not for a few weeks yet. According to the engineers our slab needs to sit for at least three months before tiling commences.

It's enough to make you cry

Day 71. As you can see from our time line over on the right hand side our bricks started going up on Tuesday. Today we talked to our SS and they will have to come right back down again. To top it all off our new camera has disappeared. It really is enough to make you cry!

I stoppped in at the house at lunchtime on Tuesday and the brickies had done about three panels. They'd done a great job - really neat and clean. I wasn't really that concerned by the dark patch, I thought it was a combination of wet bricks and shadow. Tuesday night Wade had a look and took the picture below. We chose Harvest Malt from Austral Bricks - they are supposed to have only very mild variations and don't need to be mixed. You can see from the image below that they're not mild variations!

Before our SS inspected the bricks it was suggested that we could have the darker bricks bleached to match. When we were down at the house tonight our SS said that the walls looked like a checker board (and they do) and would have to come down. If they don't come down now the only alternative is to render the whole house on completion and that's not what we want.

Our SS said that he'll keep pushing the inside along but it could be another month now before any more bricking is done.

On a more positive note the wonderful lady in accounts got back to me very quickly with an amended statement of account which included the credit and we were also able to talk to the cabinet maker and get the laundry benchtop and cabinets fixed up - just in the nick of time too as they were starting to build the cabinetry this week.

Latest happenings

Since my last post some progress has been made on a few of the problems we have identified.

Concrete boxing and reo has been set up in a couple of places where the house frame was overhanging the slab to support the brickwork. Our SS told us that the exposed reo will be fixed this week and the brickies are due to start tomorrow.

The plumbers have been and roughed in all the interior pipework. We were a bit surprised to find pipework that hadn't been properly clipped, but this is easily fixed before plastering begins. The duct work and heating unit have been installed - I'm really looking forward to having ducted heating next winter.

Our chippie has been on site to straighten walls and check that everything is OK.

The electricians were on site today running cables for the power points and lights. Due to the size and length of our house (and the associated electrical demands) a secondary power board is being installed in our linen cupboard. A bit disappointed with the locations of some power points, in many rooms we have two double power points on one wall. We thought that the outlets would be evenly spaced, both 600mm in from the adjoining walls, however one is right in the very corner and the other is about 600mm in. These aren't hard to fix before the plaster is done, but that's not how our electrical layout plan looks.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress the brickies make tomorrow and will definitely have photos. Our new camera has arrived but I ran out of daylight to get proper photos today.