The end is near - Sort of

Hi guys, it has been a while but to be honest the house looks pretty much the same as it did 3 months ago!

Happy New Year - Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas a great start to 2013!

So, progress on our house:

We have made our 2nd last payment on the house - The Fitting & Fixing Stage!

The outside of the house has now been completed - rendered & painted, though looking at the house on close inspection, there seems to be quite a number of flaws; where the corners of where the walls join havent been rendered. They connected the downpipe before completing the rendering, thus not rendering behind it and standing side on, you can see the concrete behind it? Strange I know..

It also looks like our panels have been rained on whilst the paint was still wet and there are water marks down the majority of them which is quite disappointing but will be rectified im sure.. (?)

Other than that, our tiling has almost been completed. The cupboards and benchtops installed and kitchen sink installed (and loving it!)

The house has been completely painted and I have to say that I am loving the walls and ceiling the same colour (Dulux Lexicon White) though you cannot tell looking at it!

Our electrical allowances have been cut out but nothing installed yet so will be exciting to see everything starting to come together..

There is still quite alot of work to do:

Floorboards
Carpet
Fixtures
Staining the timber doors

And they aim to have this done by the end of January, early Feb to be able to present the house, completed, to us at the end of Feb/early March... Times a ticking!!

Latest photo of our place as of Dec 2012

M.I.A

Sorry we seem to have just disappeared off the face of the earth!

We were on holidays for 7 weeks (travelling around all of Europe) and we forgot to post before we left! :)

So much has happened in 7 weeks - plasters in, stairs are in, kitchen cupboards are in (wrong colour after everything lol) first coat of paint applied, front of the house has been rendered. And the front door installed etc etc etc

Will provide a more detailed update with photos soon!!

mali

Surprise!!!

On Friday afternoon, I received a phone from Metricon that nearly made me fall off my chair at work.. lol

CSC: "Hi, not sure if anyone has contacted you or not but your requests for variations have been approved"
Me: "Excuse me? Sorry what did you just say? Wow, you're not joking right?!"

Anyway, after our first request to Metricon in mid June, and being declined more than 4 times, I am not sure who had a change of heart or what happened and I really don't care haha! It may have been the final email that we sent to everyone that we could find that mattered in Metricon but the variations have been approved (for a fee of course) and that's all that matters!! WOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!! :)

Besides that, the wrong size cladding was sent for our upstairs exterior facade and the SS expects to receive the correct size cladding this week and they hope to have all of the upstairs completed by mid next week and have organised to have the scaffolding taken down at the end of next week! Once that's all done, i assume it is then lock up stage!! Yay for next stage but boo to the next payment haha

Thanks Metricon, can't believe im going to say it but you did make my day :) (cringe)

mali :)

Wow - Super progress!

Exciting stuff! The brickies were on a break for the past week and only recommenced on Thursday but boy do they work fast as we received an email from our SS on Friday to advise that the bricks are now complete! According to our SS, the panels will go up this week and they are aiming for lock up stage in a fortnight! Super progress!

Now just a quick update on our situation with the email to the GM, we found out that he was away on leave so the email was forwarded onto the building manager. After 3 follow up emails and 10 days later, i received a missed call from him asking me to call him back but he didnt leave a return number...mmm hmm, gosh this company we deal with are just full of competent people!

Well it seems that after reviewing our situation and request, Metricon have again declined our request to change the colour of our kitchen cupboards and sink even when we were happy (not happy but willing) to pay the variation fee, The reason? There is no reason, its just because they can and because they do not care to live up to their mission statement!

Here are the latest photos of our house with the bricks complete!! :)

As of today Sunday 29th July 2012

 mali

Update on the Bricks

Well, the bricking is 90% complete on the ground floor, and they've even done some of the feature bricks at the front, which are looking amazing.  We've been told that scaffolding will go up this week and that the second level bricking and cladding will commence from next week. 

Progress is moving along nicely, and have had some good communication with the SS.  So no complaints.

Here's some quick pics for you, and we'll update you next week.
Aaron

Front of house with feature bricks

Close up of feature bricks

Bricks Have Started!

Latest update is that the bricking has started. In one day they've done the bottom third of the sides and back of the house, as well as starting on a couple of the pillars that will be rendered.

It's looking good and the brick layer reckons downstairs will be finished by the end of this week so that's exciting! Top floor is mainly the James Hardie Scyon Matrix cladding (http://scyon.com.au/matrix.html) so that should go up pretty fast as well, depending on when they install it.

Aside from that, not much else to tell. No communications from Metricon except to say the GM we've been emailing is sick and they've passed it to someone else. You won't be surprised to learn that person hasn't emailed us either. Not too long now before the whole email trail goes up and you can see what Metricon is really like to deal with.

We'll take some more photos on the weekend and put them up for all to see.

Aaron

One of the front pillars

Same pillar

Front of house

Garage side

Here's your next invoice

But technically, the frame stage was not yet complete! In true Metricon style, we were sent the invoice 3 days premature of the actual completion date which we are happy to announce was complete and inspected yesterday! :)

Start whinge:

Our CSC is hopeless and wouldn't know what customer service was if it hit her in the face. We had to send the accounts guy 2 emails before we even heard from our CSC to advise that the frame was now complete. Had to tell them to reissue a new invoice with the correct date which we have been advised they cannot do as their systems dont allow it but will note in our file the new due date. What the? What technology era are we in? She has yet to introduce herself or even contact us about anything without being prompted or asked. There is no apology for a response 3 days later nor is there ever an out of office.. Why do we even have a CSC since we seem to be the ones that are following up on everything? But she still had the audacity to finish her email with  "I am confident that you will enjoy the building experience as it is the time when all of your hard work during the pre site stage comes together. If you have any further questions I can be of assistance with please let me know."

Pft - Glad one of us is confident... confident my .....

Our own building surveyor inspected the frame and overall only had a few minor issues to which our SS advised wouldn't be a problem to fix.

We met with our SS today for the first time this morning and the house is coming along nicely! The bricks are due for delivery this week and they should hopefully commence bricking next week! Excitement! We forgot to take a photo whilst we were there this morning but here is one from last night, upstairs windows are in, the corner feature window and the wrapping has commenced! Sorry its a bit dark and blurry..





Now, I'm sure you are wondering how we went with our email to the GM and what the response was... Well if we had held our breath, we'd both be dead. The first email was sent back on Friday 22nd June and a follow up email followed on Tuesday 26th June. We know that he's read it as all our emails to Metricon are read receipted but have had absolutely no response. Nothing. Nudda. Frustrating much? Just plain rude. Grrr (May be replaced with whatever profanity pops into your head ;)). As we can all see, Metricon's management team lead by example.. How can they still be in business with an absolute shocker of an admin team and a GM who doesn't even have the decency to respond to an email even though he may not be able to assist? Absolutely disgusting customer service - do they even know what that is?
We have tried to be nice and we have tried to appeal their decision but they really do not care for the customer whatsoever.. So disappointing and so disheartening to know that this is the sort of service we're going to have to endure for the next 6+ months. Sigh.

End whinge.

mali