Thursday 20 October 2011

The Pink House jr.

We have mentioned before, our holiday house that we kindly refer to as the Pink House- because it had been painted PINK for the past 40 years plus!! Well now we have a second pink house! Our house has been insulated with lovely pink bats. You can see the 'glow' from inside when you pull up out front.

Front view showing completed tiling!!
Front on. The front renedered portico is going to be green too remember. It will look great with all of those trees out the front. The Eucalypt and Fraxinus sprouting out of the road?? Why we need two on top of each other baffles me?? sarcastic sarcastic. But we do love gardens and plants I assure you!
The roof tiling has been completed too with the pointing finally finished off over the alfresco and garage and the front portico has its roof! The air conditioning was installed (well the ducts have been) and the electrical cabling prior to the insulation.

the view from the back. The neighbour is now building so Mum will probably will not be able to take this shot anymore! Lots of crap everywhere, looking forward to the clean up.
The gyprocking started yesterday on (Wednesday 19th). We just went past the house to check some levels for the pool area and see how much had been done. It looks like all of the roof areas have been covered and some walling, possibly all of upstairs. We did not go in to look. So hopefully that can be installed by the weekend then they can continue to set it all and do all the finishing next week. Do we sound wishful? Sure that they will do a super job!

The tradies we are getting have also done most of the work on the house behind us (a Modernview Home). The back neighbour commends all of them- the concretor, sparky and gyprocker so we are happy to be sharing good labourers. It is comforting to know that they are good or have a good rap before they start on our site. Our brickies did not do the neighbours house and they were definitely untidy!! haha

Last week there was a machine in the front yard to clean up some of the rubbish that has been accumulating on site. They only removed waste from the front though and the back yard looks like a tip!! There are broken bricks and tiles everywhere as well as large piles of dirt too.

There is still an open pipe area that needs to be filled in (probably once all the plumbing has eventually been connected?) We have not noticed any other lot with the open plumbing though......we will have to have a look around to take more notice of other yards. We have to also stop comparing our build to others in the area as it is getting disheartening in some cases. Some have overtaken ours when they started weeks and nearly months after us, yet some are very similar. As long as we are finished by early December as per contract  we will be happy!

This is the pipe area that has not settled yet. Wondering if all of the fill on site is meant to go into that hole? lots of tiles through the dirt too??
Well the pool is back on as we said in previous posts. The "pool man" came to have a look at the access (as the neighbours were starting their build which could limit our access) as we will soon be built out on all boundaries. The Pool Man said he could access from behind the neighbours properties as two doors up they have still not started.  That would mean accessing across two other properties into ours. It was the easiest option so we thought we would suss it out!! First phone call to SS next door, they said that they could not see a problem with accessing through the back. Looking good. Second call to next SS. We had to go to their head office. Sounded like a reasonable request , they would be happy to talk more!. Thirdly, called our SS to discuss access and having the pool installed behind a temporary fence now that the externals of the house are completed. "No Way".

They have control of the site and it is in the contract. No access til handover!! Dad asked who is next in the chain of command to ask? That would be the site project manager. Called him.....and still waiting for his return phone call. The pool will take 6 weeks or so to get approval and to be ordered etc. Not sure if it is worth the effort to even broach the subject with them again. We have approx. 7 weeks left of the contract!! woo hoo

The SS has contacted us once, which was to meet on site for the piering. We have not heard anything  from him since. Do other SS text, email or call their clients at all? Are we asking too much? We would really love to have been involved in the build and become knowledgable of the building process and what is involved. To us you pay money every few months and at the end of  the contract you get the house you asked for. No questions asked or contact unless a variation in between!

We have a wide access down the alfresco side of the house hopefully we can still get that pool down here! Our neighbours had their slab installed today. Looking forwar to meeting them.
The electrician contacted us directly which was fine by us as he was a top bloke and very friendly and informative. We have met some tradies on site but have not seen the SS on site whilst we were there. Maybe we are being hard on the SS for not giving us updates? Maybe we should be directly contacting Alkira for updates??Please help? Should we be contacting either for updates or should they provide their customers with courtesy updates? What do you think is suitable? What service do you get? Does the squeaky wheel get the oil or the fly in their soup? We would love your feedback to know whether we should be asking more questions to be involved or if they should just be couteously providing updates? Feel better after venting. May even edit the blog tomorrow after sleeping on it again.

The house looks great by the way!

Over and out!

1 comment:

  1. You are spending a lot of money on this house. I would definitely be contacting Alkira Homes and demanding to speak to someone - his boss or the director of the company. You should be kept informed. This is poor customer service. We are so happy with the decision that we made. Our SS bends over backwards to keep us informed. You should be kept up to date so you know what is happening now and what is happening next. You are spending a lot of money with this company - you deserve brilliant customer service. Start making some noises at their head office.

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