The site supervisor said that it's not in his documents so he hasn't organised it. He was a little irate, and to Von, he sounded like he was trying to convince us to ditch the Termimesh and opt for the external reticulation system that originally came with the package. Von asked for an hour so we could make a decision and the site supervisor pulled out the brickies in the meantime. Von then rang me and asked me to research it further to verify whether Clarendon's chosen termite barrier system was "superior to Termimesh" as indicate by our site supervisor.
I went online and was still convinced we had made the right choice. I rang Howard (our building inspector to be) to ask if he had an opinion based on the inspections he has done before. He said as long as they are certified, then they all meet the Australian standards and do what they promise to do. Perhaps, he's not allowed to make any recommendations.
I rang Termimesh next and asked if our second stage had been done and confirmed it hadn't. She said the mesh was supposed to go on after ONE course of bricks. Well, there's already atleast 10 courses of bricks there! The girl I spoke with said she would ring our site supervisor and I asked her to update me after. I also asked her to get a consultant to ring me as I wanted to discuss the options further.
I, then, rang our CSO and got her voicemail. I left a message explaining the situation and asked her to get back to me. I started to document everything in an email to her but kept getting interrupted as the kids weren't back at school yet and my little one was very clingy today.
After about half an hour, I rang our CSO again and got an additional message saying she was in a meeting until 10.40. That would be past our deadline with our site supervisor so I rang reception and insisted to be put through to someone else who can help me. Spoke with another CSO, who only after hearing that the Termimesh was not done, interrupted me to say I should be speaking with our site supervisor about it. I explained that I do try my best to follow protocol and explained further other issues we've had with our supervisor. He told Von this morning that there was no problem with that left corner of the front elevation (see entry 16th of Jan). This CSO then became empathetic then said she would speak with our CSO and they would take it from here.
At 10.30, I received a call from Termimesh and was informed that there are THREE other possible options depending on a site visit by the area manager this afternoon. (1) If the house was going to be rendered, they would put the mesh under the render - that's out as we like the non-maintenance quality of good old bricks! (2) They could do a band of render at the bottom of the bricks all around and do the mesh there. (3) They could concrete around the perimeter (30cms wide) and put the mesh there. Apparently, the 10 year warranty would hold so I can only assume that the effectiveness would be the same.
After speaking with Von, we knocked back the last two options because we don't like the look of the half-rendered bricks and that would mean maintenance again. We also wondered about the look the house will have with that concrete thing sticking out all around - besides, we didn't know how it would fit with any landscaping we would do later on. My dad asked what would happen if the concrete cracks. Will the warranty stand?
At 11.15am, we heard from Clarendon's customer service supervisor who explained that the mistake happened because they have a new computer system that gives the site supervior the list of things to be done and for some reason, the document didn't include the Termimesh. We had actually jumped to the conclusion that our site supervisor was fibbing because we assumed he would have organised the first stage of Termimesh, but maybe he didn't. Who knows? Just goes to show that we should have a little more trust in people and not jump to conclusions. The CS supervisor also said they had looked for other non-chemical termite control systems and had found no other that could be done at this stage of the construction. Would we like to keep going and just put in a chemical reticulation system and we would be credited or would we like them to tear the bricks down and put our Termimesh in? I said, "I'm sorry for the extra cost and time to you, but we want our Termimesh." She was very empathetic and said it wasn't going to be a problem.
I asked her if we could get a new site supervisor because our site supervisor may not want to deal with us anymore because we had stuck to our guns and he seemed annoyed with what happened when Von spoke with him this morning. The CS supervisor said he's actually one their best and that he is known to bring houses in on time. He may have been like that this morning because he didn't know about the Termimesh and was caught off guard. She suggested we give it two weeks then she'll phone us.
She then gave us our new CSO (again!) as apparently, they've just had a restructure and now, clients are to have the same CSO from the moment they sign the tender to the end of construction. However, our old CSO (who was actually terrific and was probably the only one who answered her phone!) is now on maternity leave. We were assigned someone who has joined the company.
So, everything was sorted in less than two and a half hours - but that was two and half hours of non-stop discussion and phoning. My poor husband was on his way to Bega for work for the week and he didn't need this stress. He's quite level-headed, though. I thought, what would people have done if they had hectic jobs??? That's why I'm contemplating on becoming some sort of a liason officer for those very busy people who want to hire someone who can check all the proceedings for them, handle the problems that arise, follow-up the builder, monitor that the contract is adhered to and see the building to completion. But, that's another story...
I told Von the good news and he said our site supervisor had rung him and asked that Von clarify with the CS supervisor that we were aware that his recommendations were his own and that he wasn't speaking for Clarendon. Von said the site supervisor must have gotten a serving from the CS supervisor. Von said yes, tried to ring the CS supervisor, but when he couldn't reach her, updated our site supervisor that he will continue to try, and apparently, the site supervisor was appreciative that Von actually tried to do it. Our site supervisor did warn Von that he may not be able to get the same brickie (who has done a great job so far) back. Oh well, what could we do? We'll have a building inspector anyway, who will make sure the job's done well.
I visited the site in the afternoon and found our brickie there. He was very friendly and he said he would continue the work. They had already demolished 3 days worth of work as they also worked on Saturday. We thought they were fast. He said it would have cost Clarendon somewhere between $8-$10k to do what they've done. Von said to me, that really, it could have cost more had we not been vigilant. True. What if the bricks were all done (the scaffolding was to go up this afternoon, I think)? What if the house had been finished and we asked for the certification that the Termimesh was done? The brickie also said he was surprised this happened as our site supervisor is the best and the most organised out of all the ones he works with. In fact, the brickie had another job he was meant to start tomorrow but he will complete half of the work again out of respect for our site supervisor. Then he'll come back next week to finish the job. Wow!
Through it all, I thought, "Maybe this was meant to happen and there is some kind of benefit that we're not seeing in the situation." God has done that before when the sale of our house didn't go through with the first buyers because of the pending repairs to the hale damage. We ended up getting cash settlement which allowed us to do the repairs and more because we paid the tradie directly. But, nah! It was a mistake and that was it. Clarendon was swift to rectify the problem and we're grateful for that. Well done, Clarendon!
In the end, we're getting our non-chemical termite barrier system that doesn't need annual inspections and periodic replenishment. That's worth the 2.5 hours today, the additional 3 or 4 days construction time, but most of all, the extra $2k we're paying for.
No comments:
Post a Comment