Fixing Inspection - Not what we'd hoped.

With the fixing inspection today it was a good opportunity to see how things had progressed in 3 weeks since our last visit.

While things had seemed to be improving, it seems that there's still a lot of issues - some that the inspector doesn't know how they'll fix without major work.

Until now, the inspector had not had a chance to check the ground floor brickwork as there was scaffolding in place during the lockup inspection due to the fact that it took 5 attempts to get the eaves straight and level. He highlighted lots of issues all around the downstairs some of which can be seen below;

Mortar joints nearly 20mm in size, blow outs at the edges and unsightly patch work using different coloured mortar.

More bad repair work.

Where the garage was rebricked about 3 months after the house there is a visible line where different colour mortar was used - This is right next to the front door.

Mortar around the front door has been blow out. The rolled joints that we asked for now look more like a raked joint with the top and bottom edge of some bricks being clearly visible.

The other side of the front door isn't much better.

Complete blow out.

Some of the balusters fitted to the stairs were originally wrong (we didn't want the fancy swirly ones). They've now replaced the incorrect balusters, but have made a mess of the fitting leaving rough damaged edging and what appears to be glue over the baluster itself. The hand rail also appears to have a number of deep scratches on it.

All of the bathroom cabinetry has all been fitted at the incorrect height (after I already pointed out that they had fitted the taps in the wrong location after the last visit which has since been rectified). The cabinets should have been fitted to a height of 960mm, but appear to have been fitted at the standard height of 820mm.

Contract height;

Actual height;

The upper cabinetry in the galley and laundry were pointed out as being incorrect at our last visit, but this now appears to have been corrected.

Excluding the brickwork, all of these issues are down to someone not reading the contract. I really don't understand how such mistakes are being made when the correct information is readily available - unless they are not using it.

There are a number of other issues that were highlighted during the inspection such as bowed walls, architraves out of level and the like, but I'll have to wait for the inspection report to come through to see the full list of problems.

And to think I thought things were improving. Sure the internals can be easily fixed but I'm not so sure about the brickwork - not without leaving an unsightly mess of different coloured mortars. I just fail to understand how someone can do a job like that and walk away from it thinking that its acceptable. The moment they realised the mortar was the wrong colour why didn't they stop and make some the correct colour? I really don't understand the logic in some people, but I guess time is money and everything is done at speed with little care or interest and it's the customer who has to deal with the problem later.

Porter Davis carried out their own inspection recently, so it will be interesting to see how the two inspection reports align - if I'm allowed access to the Porter Davis report that is, which I very much doubt.

Porter Davis broke ground at the site on 23rd Nov 2014, so we're nearly at a 1yr build and the end still isn't in sight and I'm still not confident that we're going to get the dream home that we're paying for. Happy? Not in the slightest.