A tip for those at fixout stage- make sure you specify door clearances to enable carpet to fit underneath. Otherwise, you will end up with a house that looks like this after the carpet layers have been through…

That’s right - stacks of doors scattered throughout the house that the carpet layers could not refit due to inadequate door clearances.

We were supposed to have standard door clearances in the carpeted areas, so not sure what went wrong here. The carpet layers said they had not seen such low clearances and that it seemed like no allowance was made for them to lay underlay and carpet.

We chose a standard cut pile carpet and underlay from Harvey Norman, nothing exotic, so it’s disappointing that it did not fit without doors having to come off.

The problem now is, that without room doors, it’s impossible to heat the place, so it’s freezing at night! Our ducted air con is not fully installed yet (waiting for landscaping to finish so that there is a suitable surface for the outdoor unit), and our little fan heaters cannot heat a room without a door.

M are aware, but I don’t know that there is any urgency. Our fridge tap (for an icemaker) is also leaking slightly and damaging the paintwork on the wall, and even that hasn’t been addressed.

I just hope we don’t have to wait more than a year for M to rectify outstanding matters, like Megan & Stefan did http://www.meganandstefan.com/metricon-warranty-issues-resolved/!

As well as being unsightly, inconvenient and impossible to heat rooms properly, it is also potentially hazardous having 20 doors (5 room doors and 15 robe doors) randomly strewn about the house, especially as the robe doors have mirrors in them. I hope there are no accidents before the doors are planed and refitted!

Sometime ago actually … but as anyone who has moved into a new house knows, there is absolutely no time to be updating blog posts! We moved in on 27 March, exactly 2 days short of a year since site start. Much longer than we ever anticipated, but at least we’re happy to be in.

Since moving in, we have had laminate floors laid downstairs, and carpet upstairs, had blinds installed and various pieces of new furniture delivered. Landscaping has also started and it’ll be great when this is done so that no more dirt comes inside with us.

Not everything that was identified at Presentation, or by my independent building inspector immediately after Presentation has been actioned. Which makes it difficult, as I continually need to take time off work to be at home for various tradespeople.

But we’re slowly getting there - the main thing we need now is for our kitchen appliances to be connected so we can give our local takeaway joints a break! We also need all our doors in the carpeted areas to be shaved at the bottom as the carpet installers couldn’t refit them due to inadequate clearance.

Promise to have lots of photos one day!

Finally, 337 days since work commenced on site (peg out), our house was officially ‘presented’ to us. Over about 2.5 hours, SS and I walked through the entire house inside and out, marking with blue tape any items that needed attention.

Overall, there were about 50 items listed on his ‘Completion of Works’ sheet, which sounds like a lot, but actually isn’t as bad as it sounds - most things were minor and were going to be attended to between now and handover anyway.

There are really only a couple of more significant matters outstanding. The first is the front door and frame, both of which need replacing because the wrong locks were fitted (and hence there are holes in wrong places in the door and jamb), and also because of a ‘soft spot’ flaw in the door.

Metricon have agreed to replacing these, but we have made a request for the standard 1020mm wide door to be replaced with the exact same door in the larger 1200mm width. The larger door is the one used in their display homes and the one we thought we were getting because of the photo in the Essence promotion brochure. We weren’t told at Studio M that this was an upgrade and it wasn’t offered to us - if we had been told, we would have taken the option.

But now that the door and frame have to be replaced anyway, I hope that Metricon will show some flexibility and use the larger door. We have offered to pay the Studio M upgrade price for the larger door, so there is really no reason for Metricon to refuse, except I suppose, if they want to be obstinate.

The other significant item that we noted during presentation today, was the really obvious wood flaw throughout the bottom two timber treads of the staircase.

I know that timber is a natural product and flaws are normal, but this is really large and unsightly, and in one of the most visible areas in the house - in the front entrance area and near the Sitting room. It looks like a zebra pattern has been imprinted on both treads!

None of the timber treads in Metricon’s display homes have such prominent and ugly patterns in the timber. I’d like both of these treads to be replaced (which wouldn’t be difficult), but I’ll wait to hear of SS’s discussion with his bosses.

And finally, there were a couple of small chips in the surface of the kitchen benchtop. I hope these can be repaired?

They are not large, as you can see, but I just hope they don’t get bigger over time?

Anyway, all in all, it was a good day in our long journey building a new home. It seems like the marathon is almost at an end, and we are grateful for the efforts our SS has taken to resolve issues along the way.

If he can also resolve these last few to our satisfaction, then I think we’ll probably end our relationship with Metricon reasonably satisfied. It’s been a long and drawn out process, but probably worth it - we’re pretty happy with how the house has ended up looking.

The last step will be to arrange for an independent inspector to perform a pre-handover inspection. Hopefully there is nothing major that we haven’t picked up already.

It’s been a very busy few days onsite, with SS coordinating multiple tradies to get the house ready for presentation this Friday.

The big news is that the rain thankfully cleared up in order to get our underground rainwater tank in! Because of the wet weather we have been having, this was potentially a major stumbling block to presentation and handover, so we are very relieved that this is done.

Our tank is a whopping 13,200L - even bigger than the ‘Tall Tank’ in the diagram above - so it needed a very large excavation.

In the last week, SS and Metricon have been very responsive to the issues I have raised recently. The wayward heat combos in the bathrooms have been relocated, an off centre downlight in the balcony has been centred and the Outdoor Room lights have also been shifted to where we requested.

Regarding the off centre vanity top in the Ensuite, a work around solution has been suggested so that the top can appear centred without it having to be moved. I’m not sure exactly how this will be done, but apparently it will involve some adjustment to the cabinetry. As long as the top appears centred, I will be happy.

Only other significant issues now are to get the replacement balcony rail (without which an interim occupancy certificate can’t be issued) and also find a resolution to the front door issue from a while back (2 locks mistakenly fitted with the second lock too low down).

Painters are in at the moment I think, doing the final touch ups. There is also a little of plumbing to do, a whole lot of cleaning to do, and then we should be ready for presentation!

I certainly have during the 46 weeks (so far) since site start. I’m sure SS dreads the regular site meetings/phone calls because there will inevitably be something I will point out that has not been done according to the plans or contract.

He has done his very best to get things done and to ensure some semblance of customer satisfaction e.g. the staircase balustrade issue (Stairway to Heaven http://tiny.cc/c03ny) has been fully resolved and the front door issue (The Low Down http://tiny.cc/7q97v) is also on the way to being resolved, last I heard, so I am grateful for his efforts there. SS is always well-meaning, but his contractors sometimes let him down.

But, getting back to the title of this post - at every stage when I point out issues, I have felt like I am being a burden on the builder and that I am being too imposing (which may just be me being too self conscious). I have tried to overlook as many minor things as possible, and only point out the issues that really bug the wife or I.

With many of these items, resolving them will cost (Metricon) further money, and potentially cause delays, so there is pressure to overlook them. Or to accept them as being ‘within accepted tolerances’.

There was another one of these last week. If you recall the misplaced master Ensuite vanity saga (Oops! http://tiny.cc/0557a), the vanity in this bathroom was positioned incorrectly due to wrongly positioned plumbing. This would have led to the vanity almost touching the shower screen door, with a huge gap between the other end of the vanity and the freestanding tub.

It took me weeks and weeks of insisting/nagging to get this resolved. To fix it required the vanity to be removed and repositioned to the left. Repositioning required the stone vanity top to be removed and tiles to be ripped off the wall so the plumbing could be relocated.

Well lo and behold, it turns out I was right - the freestanding tub has been fitted and the vanity is now well centred between the tub and the shower. If I hadn’t spotted this error last October, only now would Metricon be ripping off tiles, breaking down walls, moving plumbing and shifting the vanity. Either that, or I would have felt pressured (even though the shower screen door would have barely been able to be opened) to accept it as is, because we are close to PCI/handover and to fix the issue would cause further delays.

Anyway, getting back to the point about being a burden … the vanity top was refitted to the vanity last week. When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that it was not quite centred over the vanity. Previously, even though the vanity was in the wrong spot, at least the stone top was centred over it!

SS got the tape out and the overhang on the left at the front of the vanity is a few mm (about 4mm) greater than the overhang at the front of the vanity on the right. This doesn’t sound like much and sounds like it would be within accepted tolerances. But when the overhang is only about 16mm normally, this means it is out by 25% i.e. the stone overhangs the vanity on the left side by 25% more than it overhangs the vanity on the right side.

This is noticeable when you walk into the Ensuite - it was the first thing I spotted when I walked in! I didn’t need SS to get the measuring tape out. But SS said that to remove the stone to reposition it would risk damaging the vanity cabinetry, and should it be damaged, it could take a while to remake the cabinetry (we were just lucky the first time the vanity top was removed that the cabinetry was not damaged).

So again I felt pressured into accepting things, or risk causing further delays. Maybe the wife and I need to get over our desire for symmetry and things being centred and done according to the plans. But every morning for the next 10 years (or however long we are in this house), the first thing we will see when we wake each morning and head into the bathroom is a slightly (but noticeably) mispositioned vanity top! 

We would have been more forgiving if this house had been built in 6-7 months, because obviously when things are done quickly, you have to accept imperfection. But you have to wonder why for a house that is going to take about a year, there isn’t more attention to detail?

Maybe Metricon’s sales team need to condition potential customers to be more tolerant (that word again). One of the reasons we went with M (despite the higher cost compared to other builders) is the outstanding fit and finish of their display homes. I asked our sales consultant about whether the workmanship for display homes was different to the real thing, and he reassuringly said no - the level of workmanship in the display homes would be the level of workmanship in our home.

I don’t know that this has been the case with our build. Walking through the dozen or so Metricon display homes we visited before putting down our deposit on 14 July 2010 (sorry to harp on about how long it’s been), I don’t recall any master Ensuite’s with off centre vanity tops!

Three posts in 3 days, I must be really getting over it all…

Tolerance is something you need plenty of when building a new home - tolerance that is, to deal with the delays and mistakes that inevitably happen.

Tolerance also to deal with claims that things that are not according to the plans, are still ‘within accepted tolerances’.

Our electrical plan was quite complex and the electricians mostly did a very good job to get things right. However their attention to detail in terms of positioning some items as per the plans left something to be desired.

As an example, these fan/heat/light combos are centred on our plans, but have been fitted way off centre on site. The centre of the room here is approximately midway between the downlights, but look where the combo has been fitted.

And in this bathroom, the centre of the room is in line with the downlight, but the combo is again way off to the side…

I thought the reason for this could have been a ceiling beam, but when I was on site with SS, he looked up into the ceiling manhole in this bathroom and there is no beam that would have prevented this fan/heat/light combo from being centred.

The downlights at the front of the house are also off centre…

I have checked photographs from before plastering, and there is no ceiling beam here that would have prevented the dowwlight from being fitted in the midline.

In addition, the 2 downlights on either side of this ‘centre’ downlight are positioned at different distances from the centre downlight, contrary to the plans.

You might think that for the front of the house, where appearance is important, more care would be taken to ensure the plans are followed. Alas, tradespeople  working on this house don’t always think that way!

Another one - this light junction box in the Outdoor Room is supposed to be fitted external to the beam on the plans (towards the right of the photo). However it has been fitted way too high and too close to the beam. This very much limits the type of light fitting we can install after handover - we had wanted to fit tall up/down lights, but this will likely now not be possible as they will either hit or get too close to the the beam.

There are several other examples that I won’t go into here in the interest of not rambling on (e.g. the floor level step lights are not fitted where they are on the plans).

SS has been very obliging and dutifully conveyed all our concerns to Vaccaro Group. The initial feedback he has received (nothing in writing yet - don’t know if they have been on site to check my queries) is that the electrical plans are only ever meant to be approximate and that these are all within accepted tolerances.

If that is their final decision, it would mean e.g. that they can fit a light up to about 600mm away from where it is on the plans (i.e. the bathroom combos) and then claim that it is within tolerances! I look forward to seeing the standards document that states electrical fittings can be positioned so far off where they are on the plans.

SS explained that moving light fittings or switches was a major job because the old hole has to be plastered and then the wall repainted. Well, yes. But that shouldn’t be my problem, and if plans had been reasonably accurately followed for these items in the first place, no repositioning/replastering/repainting would be required.

This is another item I have pointed out to SS and that he has conveyed on.

This was caused by the handrail initially being fitted on the incorrect side of the stairs. The handrail has been repositioned, but it now obviously overshadows the light switch that was fitted earlier when the wall didn’t have a handrail.

Do you think they will agree to move this one, even though it will result in replastering and repainting?

Alas, presentation won’t be happening next week. I shouldn’t be surprised as nothing much has happened according to schedule since site start on 29 March 2011 (yep, we’re coming up to one whole year for a project home!).

Met with SS on site today and the new target date I’ve been given for PCI is Wednesday 22 February. Which would mean handover in March. He’s trying his best to get us in as soon as possible, but things are just not going our way on multiple fronts.

The amount of rain defintitely hasn’t helped - this has led to difficulty finding a clear day to excavate for and install the underground rainwater tank in the front yard.

But we’re still well and truly tired of having had to pay both rent and a mortgage for the better part of one year. When comparing costs between builders, we wish we had also considered the the extra rental costs we have incurred with Metricon’s very long build times in NSW (but how were we to know back then?).

When we were comparing, Metricon were a little more expensive, which we thought was OK because of the list of inclusions and the finish of the display homes (which we thought would be replicated in our home). However, because of the additional rent we have incurred because of the slow build time, it turns out that going with Metricon has probably cost us a lot, lot more than if we had gone with someone else.

As an example, a colleague of mine at work recently built a home with a medium sized builder in NSW - their site start was on 1 August 2011 and handover was on on 27 December - yep, only a 5 month build time, and handover between Christmas and the New Year - no mandatory 5 week shutdown! If our home was built in that timeframe, we would have saved almost $15,000 in rent, a considerable sum in anyone’s language.

PCI happening on the 22nd is still dependent on the weather clearing up enough for the underground rainwater tank to be installed in the front yard, and a new balcony railing made.

Why a new balcony rail, you ask? Well, look at this photo. How can you be that far out when measuring?

Obvious problems like this eventually get fixed, but they cause delays and most importantly cost money to owners, in terms of wasted rent.

All I know is that if I had made the number of elementary errors that M’s tradespeople had made during the building of this house, I would have been well and truly ‘let go’ by now!

Who knows how long it will take to manufacture a new balcony rail? Bottom line is, handover cannot occur with an open balcony, so if this issue causes another delay, I will again be paying (more wasted rent) for other’s mistakes.

Had a site meeting with SS last week and he informed that presentation is targeted for next week (13-17 Feb). Since December, more and more issues are being resolved and in a faster time frame. SS has been working hard to negotiate with various suppliers/tradies to fix issues that have been identified! This has required a bit of negotiation on both our parts - Metricon have agreed to address certain items and I’ve agreed to overlook a few as well. Nothing is perfect, so you have to choose your battles. But SS is usually very reasonable and tries to do what he can to keep the customer happy. Although he obviously works within various restrictions and so there are limits to what can be done.

Anyway, I think he must be working overtime judging by the progress that is happening. I get the impression tradies are on site most days of the week. Painting is largely completed. Electrical fit off has occurred and plumbing fit off commenced. Frameless shower screens are fitted. The carpenter has been back to tidy up a few items and the plasterer also. Unfortunately the plumbers had to break down some of the tiled walls, which will cause some further (minor, hopefully) delays.

For this week, SS has plenty planned - the staircase handrail is being redone, the front yard is being cleared and is being excavated to hold the underground rainwater tank, the balcony rail is due to go on. No doubt there will be other things happening - there are lots of minor items to be attended to, and hopefully they will be done over the next week and a half to ensure presentation occurs as planned.

In the meantime, here are some pictures…

One of the reasons we chose to build with Metricon is the inclusion of a Butler’s Pantry in many of their designs. As standard, all you get are some shelves, but you can jazz it up a little as we have done. This is the cabinetry we upgraded to on the inside wall, including some bench space…

And this is the external wall. Other builder’s also have walk in pantries, but Metricon positions them along an external wall. Hence, the inclusion of a window allows us to have an extra cooktop and oven, which will come in handy for entertaining…

Apparently SS’s voicemail message last Friday was that the painting was due to be finished by mid this week. I swear I heard that all work would be finishing this week - but anyway…

I did manage to meet with him on site today, and most of my concerns raised earlier are in the process of being addressed (while a few are uncorrectable).

The good news is that we are getting very near the end. SS said that ‘presentation’, or PCI should happen by the second week of February (6th-10th according to my calendar), with settlement a fortnight after that.

I can’t believe that after all this struggle we are very near the end - I’m taking the “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude.  But hopefully Metricon will end this job with a pleasant surprise, by keeping to their indicative timelines for once.

I’m almost ready to give our landlord notice of our intention to vacate (21 days notice required), but am a little hesitant in case timelines slip again.

Had a surprising voicemail message from SS last Friday - apparently work is due to finish up on site by mid this week. That’s right, before Australia Day, apparently!

Well if that’s the case, he will deserve to be Australian of the Year, because there is plenty more to do be done as far as I am aware - fixout carpenter needs to return to finish off several things, plasterer needs to return to finish off a few things, painter then needing to return, electrical fitout to be done, plumbing fit off to be completed, internal gaps in slab to be filled, balcony posts to be finished and balustrade fitted, cleaning to be done, underground rainwater tank to be fitted etc. etc.

Judging by the rate of progress over the past 302 days (43 weeks) since site start (I kid you not!), I find it very hard to believe that this is all going to happen by the end of Wednesday.

Time will tell, I guess. In the meantime, a pic from outside today…

One thing I did notice is that the piles of building waste in the front yard have been largely cleaned up. Not sure if this is because we are nearing the end, or because of a complaint from a neighbour. One of our neighbours told me a fortnight ago that it was illegal to have building waste all over the yard, rather than in a designated waste bin.

He was in fact correct - according to the building permit, there was supposed to be a waste bin in the front yard, but I don’t recall seeing one. Maybe our neighbour informed Metricon of this fact, and so they cleaned up the building waste before getting in trouble over it?

Anyway, I hope everyone’s builds are in full swing by now!

A very happy new year to all Metricon builders, bloggers and spectators out there! Hopefully your homes will progress smoothly in the new year and you will be enjoying your new home before you know it.

As of 1 January, we are now an agonising (and expensive in terms of additional rent) 40 weeks exactly into this build (way over the 32 weeks in the contract), with no definite end in sight. The builders shutdown that will probably continue for the next 1-2 weeks won’t help either.

So for an escape, we ventured out last night to get a little bit of this…

It’s actually been a relief to not have to deal with M and not have to think about the house over the last week and a bit. We have been able to enjoy a relaxing break safe in the knowledge that there would be no-one on site and no new mistakes.

One thing I did learn before Christmas, is that Metricon are very responsive to Twitter posts, as Megan and Stefan (http://www.meganandstefan.com/metricon-warranty-issues-resolved/) learned. M use the Twitter handle @metriconhomes and are keen tweeters.

Following a tweet of mine at about 10pm on a weeknight indicating how unhappy we were with our Metricon experience to date, @metriconhomes replied within an hour asking if they could help. The following morning I direct messaged them my build address, and within a couple of hours I had a telephone call from the state Construction Manager keen to hear about the issues I had experienced and undertaking to follow them up in the new year.

I have never had such fast service from Metricon, so if you are having issues (as most of you seem to be) and not getting any satisfaction from your SS or Customer Service Manager, a tweet including @metriconhomes may be worth trying!

The house is finally secure for Christmas (38 weeks after site start), with locks fitted to all external doors, all windows glazed and the garage roller door fitted.

Here is our front entry…

Unfortunately the errors have continued here. Firstly, the glazing of the sidelights doesn’t match the door (they were both supposed to be clear according to the colour schedule). I wonder what the person fulfilling this order was thinking? Surely no-one ever orders different glazing for the sidelights and the door? You think they would have double checked the order. But anyway, this can be easily fixed by reglazing.

The other problem is the locks. There was only supposed to be one lock - the square lock (the higher of the two). However an extra deadlock (with the round face) has been accidentally ordered and delivered to site and installed, even though it was not in the contract or colour schedule. The carpenter naturally installed what was delivered.

Now we wouldn’t have minded the extra lock, except it has been fitted at a ridiculously low height. You have to bend down to unlock the bottom lock and this will become worse after we have tiled the Verandah, which will raise the floor level and effectively make the bottom lock even lower!

It would be within our rights to ask for the bottom lock to be removed as it is not in the contract, not in the colour schedule and not in the standard specifications - but then, this would necessitate replacement of the door due to the large hole drilled in it for the lock that we didn’t order.

I doubt Metricon are going to agree to that, willingly.

These continue the long list of relatively ‘minor’ issues that we have become accustomed to while building with Metricon. We have encountered a repeated lack of attention to detail - most of these issues we haven’t even bothered to blog about because it would take too much time. But during our build, there has been a series of errors which lead me to believe no-one at Metricon actually reads the plans, contract or colour schedule too closely.

I certainly hope there is a greater attention to detail and better quality control when it comes to the structural aspects of the build (that are less noticeable to us).

The kitchen benchtops are in, and the colour looks great. The square sink we ordered at huge cost ($1,946), also looks fantastic.

The only thing that doesn’t look so flash in comparison is the horrendously priced integrated dish drainer ($1,190)…

You would think that it would be common sense when you are cutting a ‘square’ hole for the sink, you would also cut a ‘square’ dish drainer, rather than cut large round curves as you can see on the right hand side in the picture above. Common sense is obviously not that common!

The other half is very unimpressed - after planning everything so carefully, choosing a square theme throughout the house, especially in the kitchen, and spending so much money on expensive Metricon upgrades - she is now disappointed with this focal point of the kitchen.

A round dish drainer next to a square sink completely ruins the look she was after.

We’re being particular, but when you spend thousands of dollars on a simple upgrade, you expect to be reasonably satisfied with the quality of the end product. It’s a lot of money to spend to be unhappy.

But we’re getting used to that with Metricon.

Just check the ‘days since site start counter’ on the right to see exactly how unhappy we are with our Metricon experience to date.