hedgewizard

Holy crap, this has sobered me up a bit! Memories of our last renovation which went so badly behind schedule that I insisted on camping in a (derelict) upstairs room so I could monitor what the jokers were doing on a daily basis...

Moving to NZ (Ashburton) in April, and one of our options will be some sort of ecobuild but I'll be sure to scour the internet regarding the various franchises. I'm off to read about the new building crisis now :/

escapedtonz

Ah it's not all bad.
Yes, completion has been delayed 6 weeks and yes we still have the issue of the extra $15k variation costs hanging over us and a few other niggling issues that we will insist get sorted but, at the end of the day the house is up and the franchise seems to be doing everything it can to get us in by the end of January. The build quality itself is very good as the man actually doing the work is awesome at his job.
We've also managed to steer away from any price increases that came in at the beginning of 2016 so we are paying the materials and labour prices quoted back in late 2015 so shouldn't complain too much
254 sqm house (total inc garage and portico) for $397k plus the variations which come to around $20k so about 5% over which is pretty good when considering contingencies for a house build.

In all honesty, all the issues we've experienced are all down to communication - or lack of, and all caused or attributed to the building franchise and their staff/processes really. They just don't seem to talk to each other, their sub-contractors or their client sufficiently to enable it all to go through smoothly and those issues can be put down to the workload they have taken on. In the last year or so they've gone from around 4 or 5 builds on the go at any one time to at least 10 without any reinforcement of their staffing levels so everyone is working flat out which causes the communication errors.
It appears that all the other build franchises are experiencing similar issues. They're all moving over to a new electronic scheduling system at the moment which will improve how it all goes down and should iron out any major issues, but we just dropped on the time when our franchise are still using spreadsheets while trying to implement the new system.

Anyway, enough of that

GIB stopping is completed.
Exterior cladding sealed and painted. All window and door boxing in completed.
Interior painted.
Kitchen installed.
Pantry shelving and cavity slider installed.
Tiler to do waterproofing from tomorrow 14/12.
Tiling from 19/12 but unfortunately won't be around over the holidays.
Decorator in over the holidays as all areas (except wet areas) are wallpaper and not left painted only.
Exterior concreting for parking in front of the garage and pathways will be done in the new year.

I'd already booked my holidays thinking we'd be in this weekend so from Sunday I have 3 weeks of planning outdoor stuff and gardening

hedgewizard

Well you've certainly got your work cut out! Here's hoping it all goes by the numbers and everything is planted up in time for winter

escapedtonz

Latest update.


Painter in the house spraying ceilings/coving/skirting/doors today and tomorrow then will finish off the exterior by end of next week.
Tiler in from the 14th and should be finished by the end of next week.
Carpets, decorator and kitchen guy will be in there working around the tiler and be finished by the end of next week.
Also need a visit from the electrician and plumber to do final installs/connections, sort the power supply cable and ducting outside, do the main water supply, fit bathroom suites, taps, showers etc, outside concreting in front of the garage, septic tank man needs to come and fix a broken pipe and a huge tidy up and new house clean ready for us to do the snagging list, get the garage carpet fitted and move in.
Builder hoping to complete 27th although they've asked us to count on another week and we should be able to slowly move in over a week and be out of the rental early Feb.


Still not agreed on the compensation or contribution from the builder for the complete balls up by the earthworks contractor leading to an extra $15k driveway variation that we didn't agree to. The electrician (totally unawares) has also come along and dug a trench down said superior $27k driveway and made a complete mess of it so he's been ordered to fix it......as if!
We got a lowball crap offer of $4k or 26% of the variation cost so we roasted the builder, made a final offer that we'll agree to pay 50% maximum and are waiting for their response.


Slowly getting there.

escapedtonz

Got the keys Friday and started moving stuff across from the rental.
Officially moved in yesterday. Woo hoo!
Had some last minute stress with the building franchise as we still hadn't agreed on the level of compensation for the driveway mess up and the other variations but nothing a couple of heated shouting spitting discussions while pacing up and down the street can't solve.

Had a major tidy up day today after getting the garage carpet fitted and managed to clear a few rooms. A day fitting curtain poles and blinds tomorrow.

shuvit

Wow, congratulations, what a journey!!
Have been keeping an eye on your thread to see how you were getting on
Enjoy your new home!!!

escapedtonz

Thanks shuvit.
Hopefully get to enjoy it in a week or so when I've finished putting up blinds and curtain poles and beds and trampolines and tables and getting rid of huge amounts of rubbish
Rural broadband and Sky TV installs tomorrow and builder coming back to do a few jobs off the snagging list

hedgewizard

Fantastic - hope it's everything you dreamed of!

SkylarkR

what a lovely spot you have chosen! I've been watching this thread with excitement as this is what we plan to do once we've worked out where to settle! Will keep watching out for your updates

escapedtonz

It's not too shabby


Not everything we dreamed of as that only comes with a limitless budget so with a strict budget you are making compromises at every turn. I didn't like the fact that we had to make so many decisions.
Now it's all over and we're looking at the huge negative red balance on internet banking we've actually done really well for what we've got. Even though we only started building in August 2016 and finished end of Jan 2017 we didn't succumb to any of the early 2016 price rises where materials and labour went up 10-15% across the board so we built at 2015 prices.
We also managed to negotiate $32k worth of variations down to $26k as we got some compensation back for some of the variations.

escapedtonz

Thanks.


When you do start the process be sure to post a thread so people like me and others who have built can give you tips as it hasn't been easy. It's the most infuriating stressful thing we've done here. So much harder than moving our whole family across the world and settling on our own with no friends/family in a new country and with a small baby

escapedtonz

Damn!
There's just so much to think about.


Building site manager has been round yesterday and today getting the snagging jobs done slowly. We can now open and lock our new front door
Picked up all our storage items yesterday so everything we own is now stacked to the rafters in the garage. I'll still be opening boxes in a year no doubt.


Got Vodafone rural broadband and Sky TV fitted a couple of days ago and both performing pretty well.


Next on the list is heating, cooling and/or ventilation. Will post a new thread.

SkylarkR

Thanks, I will do but it's a while off for us yet. We have first to arrive and settle our family (boys 1 & 3) and certainly won't plan on doing it within our first 24 months or so. Through all the ups and downs though you can now stand back and look at your house in what looks like a beautiful spot and be very proud of it. It's a great achievement (especially for us uk lot who don't build our own houses!), despite the stress It looks like it's been worth it. I hope your family are very happy in your new home!

escapedtonz

UPDATE:
Moved in to the new house 28th January after a real crazy stressful couple of days and glad the construction is all over. No major issues and only a small list of little niggly snags that were resolved over a couple of weeks. I also managed to persuade the builder to have a general tidy up around the exterior, spread our mounds of earth that had been left for me to sort and they also sorted the top layer of the driveway so we have something decent as a finished product.
Not done a great deal. Still have many boxes to open and we have loads from storage that we simply don't want anymore so looking to sell or gift.
Built a metal shed for the ride on and other garden stuff which took around 24hrs solid work in total. Had a cassette heat pump fitted. Concreted in a couple fence posts for new entrance gates and the auto gate openers. Also picked them gates up ready to fit along with some huge planter boxes.
Had a few issues with ride on mowers over the last month or so that has been costly but glad to say we currently have a working one. Have a huge list of stuff to do along with all the usual grass cutting and weeding etc that needs doing every week. This rural living is a full time job!!!
Glad to say I've now got 28 days off and planning to get at least the gates fitted.
Have also completed on the interest only construction mortgage and have fixed all the borrowing on capital & interest 4.35% 2 years fixed after some serious negotiation.

Suppose all is well :-)

MrsFychan

can you tell me how the cassette heat pump work, been looking at heating for ours and can't actually work out how these work. Ducted & multi split heat pump I can understand but not sure if the cassette is all all in one or still needs heat exchanger outside.

Obviously you wouldn't of used them yet but did they talk to you about how clean the ceiling around them remain and the noise of them??