Garage & Alfresco Removal

Just been informed that the garage and alfresco have been pulled down today.
Scaffolding still due on site tomorrow, before the rest of the brickwork is pulled down next week.

Scaffolding

I've been told today that the scaffolding will be going back up on Friday (as it was removed after I took the photos), so hopefully they'll start taking the bricks down early next week.

Resolution!

After having issues with both the sisalation and the brickwork for the last few months and not getting anywhere, I engaged Porter Davis' group building manager earlier in the week and provided him with all the evidence that I had researched that showed the house was not up to standard - see previous posts.

I got a phone call from him earlier this afternoon to inform me that he had attended the build yesterday afternoon and had taken photos of the problems and would have a look at them and give me an update some time next week.

Within about 10mins I got a call from the regional construction manager to inform me that all brickwork and sisalation would be coming down and would be redone from scratch :)

It's going to be a lot of work as the house is now fully bricked and the garage construction has already started;

It's also going to mean additional delays, but we're very happy knowing that it'll now be done properly and that we'll not be forced to accept a house that isn't up to standard.

Let's hope they don't mess it up a second time.

My guess is that we'll have to live with the network cables being in the wrong place as this is due to the window above where we originally wanted it, but I can live with that. The bricks and sisalation being correct were our main concern. Also with the bricks being redone, hopefully it'll mean that the flashing on the front of the house is rectified also.

Problems, Problems, Problems

It's become a bit of a running theme through our build and we've really had enough of it, but it seems that Porter Davis are still happy to ignore the signed plans and various building regulations and do whatever they want.

Electrical
The cables have been in for a while and I've never really taken notice of them, but today it occurred to me that the location in the garage for the termination of the network cables and rack didn't look right.

The signed plans show the network cables terminating on the back wall of the garage (in red), where as Porter Davis have for some reason terminated the cables on a completely different wall (blue cross);

What we actually have is;

Colorbond Flashing
The Colorbond flashing that's been installed on the front and side extensions has been installed at different heights despite the fact the both extensions are the same height and next to each other. Doesn't look consistent what so ever as the front flashing is at least 1 brick higher than the side extension flashing;

Sisalation
The second attempted repair of the sisalation throughout the house still looks like something produced by a play school. The original sisalation is still behind the new mask they've applied and it hasn't addressed the issue of the original sisalation sitting against the brickwork and removing the air cavity that building regulations require;

We still have the issue that certain areas of the house have sections of sisalation missing altogether;

Perpends

It'll have been a week tomorrow since I raised the issue of the perpends not meeting the required standard with Porter Davis and I still don't have any answer to the issue what so ever. The issue has now been escalated to the Group Building Manager and I'm hoping to talk to him tomorrow.

The Good Bits

The unsightly articulation joint on the front of the house is gone. A rear window that was missing a seal also appears to have been replaced. They've also started the garage and alfresco roofing;

The thing that concerns me is that even though there are serious problems that have been highlighted that have not yet been resolved, it seems like the house build is continuing as if nothing is wrong. Logic would have suggested that the build stop until the issues are resolved as they may have to undo everything they've just done. Perhaps the construction crew know something I don't hence the continuation. Only time will tell.

Really regretting choosing Porter Davis as our builder now. All the advertising and show homes and brochures paint a picture of perfection, but when you dig a little deeper in to the build you soon realise that the quality workmanship you are expecting isn't displayed anywhere throughout the whole build and standards and regulations that are supposed to be adhered to are simply ignored all in favour of knocking out another quick home. It's hard to believe that we started building nearly 7 months ago. Originally we were hoping to be in for July. Now I have my doubts that we'll be in before the New Year.

Brickwork not up to the required standard

First it was the slab, then the frame and then the sisalation that we had issues with that needed resolving. Now it's been highlighted to me by an independant inspector that the quality of my brickwork is not compliant with the regulations required.  The issue is a lack of mortar in the perpends (nearly all the perpends in my house). The issue occurs due to sloppy bricklaying and a process called one-sided flick jointing. For those who don't know, the perpend is the vertical layer of mortar between two bricks.

Normally, I wouldn't have got to see this problem, but with the issues with the cavity between the frame and brickwork being breached with mortar, and most of the sisalation throughout the whole house needing to be cut open to scrape out the excess mortar, it gave me a good opportunity to see the inside face of the brickwork and what a poor quality job it was.

The fact that we had an excess of mortar in the cavity, yet the perpends were empty baffles me. I can only think that too much mortar was applied to the bottom/top of the brick and not enough to the sides.

The issue can be seen in the photos below;

Because of this, I thought I'd do a bit of research and see if I could find the relevant standards that the brickwork should be built in accordance with.

What I found were;

The NCC (National Construction Code) regulation;

Which states that unreinforced masonry must be designed and construction in accordance with AS3700 (Australian Standards).

AS3700 for workmanship of mortar joints lists the following;

Vertical joints shall be filled!

And finally there's the Victorian Guide for Standards and Tolerances 2015;

Voids and holes in mortar are defective!

Seems pretty clear to me that the perpends on our brickwork in no way comply with what the regulations require.

I've already approached the regional construction manager about this, but he hasn't shown any interest in resolving the issue. He hasn't even acknowledged that the required standard has not been met and told me it was 90% of the way there and not too worry. 90%! I don't remember signing up to buy a house that was 90% complete to standard and am pretty disgusted with the blazay attitude I'm getting. Perhaps any future payments I make should only be 90% of what they ask for if they think that 90% is an acceptable number.

Another invoice request

Despite on Monday being told that the front brickwork would be redone so that it correctly matches the signed plans, I have today again been requested to pay the invoice for lock-up stage.

Seems that Porter Davis are still having internal communication issues.

More bricking issues

With re-inspection of the lock-up stage due to happen this week, I took the opportunity to go over the blog and see how things had changed. One thing I noticed was an additional unsightly articulation joint on the front of the house that isn't present in the plans.

Plans;

Completed build with the additional articulation joint.

If this hadn't been on the front wall of the house and completely changed the visible symmetry of the bricks, then we'd probably have let it go, but unfortunately it completely changes the look of the house and is not what we agreed to when we signed the contract based on all the pictures we were shown of what the finished product would look like.

I was a bit unhappy about this and decided to do some research and was lucky enough to find other examples of our design that didn't have the articulation joint and had been correctly built to plan.

The advertising picture (with no additional articulation joint);

Another completed home of the same type (with no additional articulation joint).

I've today spoken with the site supervisor and he's agreed to re-do that section of brickwork again (for the third time), so that it matches the plans. The downside to this is that it's going to push us back again and we're already 5 weeks behind schedule due to the previous lock-up inspection that also failed due to problems with the brickwork.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the tradesmen were correctly supervised and all worked checked for correctness before declaring a stage complete, these issues wouldn't happen and everyone would be much happier. This kind of error should have been found and corrected long before I got to see it.