Friday, March 27, 2009

Frame Stage Inspection

Today is one of those "milestones" as Clarendon and our independently hired inspector carried out their inspections prior to internal linings.

Their certifier was there when we took Von's mum and sister around to the site (as they live quite a distance away and were in our area for the day).  He said, except for very minor things, the house has "passed".  We met up with our Independent Inspector at the site at 2pm and he was already almost finished.  He discussed his findings very briefly with us and with our site supervisor who was present for this inspection.  Our Independent Inspector sent us a report via email by tonight already.  Talk about professional and efficient! 

In the end, the Clarendon contracted Certifier pointed out a few things that were picked up by our inspector, too.  In my point of view, our Independent Inspector was worth the $495 we paid him for peace of mind and the extra bits which we were able to ask our site supervisor to have a look at.  There were a few items that needed another inspection during handover.  We were prepared to have two independent inspections done, as we were informed of this by our chosen inspector.  Just wish it wasn't as expensive!  Hint, hint, Howard, from H & K Ryan!

These are the main issues we are concerned with:
- A garage wall metal brace passing over a copper pipe fitting that needs insulation to avoing future corrosion.
- A truss bottom chord bracing that is poorly fitted in the top floor.
- The T-junction girder bracket/s are apparently tek screwed only when they used to bolt them together.

Also confirmed today that we are supposed to clean the boundary fences ourselves (which has quite a bit of concrete splashes).  In hindsight, we could have covered the fences OR asked the person who cleaned the bricks to give the fences a quick wash, too.  No big deal.  Von can pressure wash it with our rain water later.

Another thing that we confirmed, which, according to our inspector, no other builder requires, is that any footpath damage is OUR responsibility.  Well, the person who dug up our footpath to connect us to the main water supply just quickly patched up the big hole with asphalt.  I was too naive with regards to these.  Hope someone else learns from our lessons.  I read these in the contract but didn't realise the cost of doing the above.  I guess we can just ask whoever does our driveway, to re-do the footpath as well.  Besides, there were cracks on the footpath already and when I discussed this with Blacktown council previously, they said any further damage is our responsibility despite the cracks which would most likely make the footpath susceptible to damage once work on our site began.  Couldn't win that battle either and believe me, I tried.

Overall, we are happy with the inspection report.  

After our inspector left, our site supervisor stayed a little bit and I jokingly asked him if I should start lay-bying furniture as most shops only allow a maximum term of 3 months lay-by.  He said, "I would be doing that if I were you."  Apparenly, he has everything else booked in already and providing we have no unforeseen delays, he thinks he'll be "finished" by end of April.  Technically, with the allowances for Christmas and wet weather, he had told me that from when he got our paperwork, he really had until nearly the end of July.  You can only imagine how excited I got.  I estimate that with the clean-up after, the flooring and the driveway, we can probably expect to move in by end of May.  Our three boys' birthday party (all born in May), may not be that belated after all!

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