No news, Is, No News

Today is very much the last day to get notified that the gas will go in tomorrow which can make 31/10 settlement a possibility.

I have been madly calling the gas people to see if they have booked the connection in as yet. Although I have a sinking feeling that the person I have been talking to there has been away the past few days as I have not been able to get hold of her.

On another note, after voicing all our issues to the regional manager and not receiving a response, we have decided to go over everyone’s head. We have found out who the directors are and we have emailed them directly, hopefully this sorts something out.

The goods news today is our concreter has started preparing the site and will be ready to pour the concrete tomorrow, so whenever we get in at least we will have our driveway, alfresco and side concrete completed.

Updates, as always, as they come.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting & Our PC Inspection

Monday morning and still no news, this whole situation is just hanging around waiting to be resolved, waiting for a date.

We have managed to start booking a removalist on a very big maybe basis. We will have no such luck with our furniture or bedding deliveries and now we wonder how long we will have to wait to arrange a new time for delivery and when will that be.

However our PC inspection did go on as planned and the quality although behind the scenes we think is questionable on the outer is starting to look ok. It seems PD’s independent inspector had been in over the weekend and had managed to mark all the paint runs nicks and bits of damage for us, the house was very colourful with red, yellow, orange and green stickers stuck everywhere. The bad news was PD’s cleaner had not been in as planned and turned up to clean the house this morning so it was hard to tell with a lot of things just how good or bad it was.

Some more sort of good news I guess, we managed to pack up 80% of our lives this weekend so should the gods smile upon us we are ready to go.

More of an update when we have one…

An Interesting Day…

Well yesterday was if nothing else interesting. After ringing PD head office to notify them of the whole situation, my thoughts were taken down and I was advised I would be called back. A few hours later, the Regional Manager who we had dealt with before gave me a call professing that they are doing all the can and that he will make a compliant to the ombudsmen. I managed to request that he research the time lines involved in this step before going through with it as I had already looked into it and believed it would not help our cause.

Fast forward another two hours, I receive a nice email out lining everything I already knew, name dropping people I had told him to call and basically saying how they were doing a great job taking care of this problem and how everyone believes this will get fixed prior to 31/10.

I still believe the issue is if this happens to 1 in every 10 homes, which I was told is the stat from our friend above, how does it happen at all when PD know what these gas people are like.

Out of disgust after reading such a propaganda filed email, we decided that it was probably about time that they knew a few “home” truths about all the problems and the impact this has had on our life. Nothing nasty, just the facts and the experience as we have found it.

This email was sent 2:00pm yesterday as yet I have not received a response. I guess only time will tell.

As for good news, the garage door is finally in, this was meant to be up straight after painting 4-5 weeks ago, the last external flood light has been installed and it looks like the painters have been back to start doing the touch up work.

Our Practical Completion Inspection is still booked for Monday and we are still awaiting a copy of the certificate of occupancy so we can get everything arrange with the bank so once the gas is connected we can move in, whenever that will be…

Have a good Friday.

Planners, planning and homelessness….

Well, we decided to hold off telling our flatmate the wonderful news about the gas till last night, as we were advised that we might have an answer within 48ish hours.

Once we got home to tell our flatmate the ‘good’ news that we would be hanging around for another few weeks, he jumped in first with his good news that he had finally found a new flatmate to take our place the same weekend we were originally scheduled to move out.

I have called the gas mains people again this morning and informed them of our situation. Hopefully when the planners get an update on our situation they will have a heart and reschedule something so our gas gets connected and we have somewhere to live.

So, as we stand at the moment, due to the wonderful information from PD our living arrangements hang in the hands of the ‘planners’. Lets hope for good news today or tomorrow, I think we are due for a bout of good luck with this house sooner or later.

Carpet

After all the hassels and dramas, i thought I'd post something that was actually a nice surprise to see.

Our carpet is now laid and we are happy with the colour and style we chose.

So, even though we cannot move in til roughly the 14th November, the house is ready to go. Now, if only we could have the gas connected on time.....

Pics are below:

Our Master Bedroom
Our Master bedroom
Pattern on the carpet
Guest bedroom
Rumpus Room

Still No Answers

Well D-day has come and gone, the gas people have made an issue of our complaint but we will not know anymore until it is actually booked. So it looks like we are canceling trades people, furniture delivery, leave etc.

That will teach us a lesson in trust, mainly do not trust PD. I really thought that they could at least do one thing right, I held out all hope and again we are dissapointed.

That is really the one word to sum up the experience we have had... Dissapointed

In Limbo

Well, as written previously we were thinking today was "D-day" to find out if our gas would be connected in time.

Ryan spent most of this morning back and forth on the phone to the gas company, only to be told at 3pm that they still can't give us a date and that when the trenchers book it in we will recieve a phone call.

I am at the end of my tether... Why won't these idiots just commit and give us an answer. It can't be that bloody hard to say "yes we can do it before the 27th Oct" or "no, you will have to wait until later on". I have lost patience and feel like going down and thumping these people. First on my list would be our Porter Davis site supervisor, as he got us into this mess.

Ryan and I have fought over these dickheads and it really hurts me. I just want to be able to have the last (so called) two weeks of this nightmare to go smoothly and then us to be able to move in and enjoy our house. At the moment I am in despair and really begining to hate our house.

There have been numerous times over the past few days where i have just burst into tears because this dream of ours (to build our home) has been ruined and we have been continually stuffed around making this whole process a nightmare. Ryan has been great at holding it together and supporting me, but it is getting increasingly tougher as the days go by.

At the moment we are in limbo. We have no date for the gas connection, our PC Inspection is scheduled for this Monday and our Settlement is meant to be next Friday. Settlement will not be going ahead unless these morons get their act together and connect our gas. Which means that all the deliveries and tradesman we have booked in to get things installed and delivered will have to be phoned and told that we have to re-schedule.

This is a major pain in the ass. And is so stressfull for the both of us. However, those at Porter Davis really don't give a shit. And that makes me even madder.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow we can get a definate answer and can move forward with this never ending nightmare.

The Gas Saga Continues

Thanks to the big faceless multinational company I work for I was able to spend the greater part of yesterday afternoon on a search for truth.

As of yesterday we still had a gas connection date for AFTER settlement.

PD had neglected to remember when the trenching was booked in for and had, of all things, the port-a-loo in the way so the linesmen could not do the trenches and tap the mains for gas.

After an hour or more on the phone with the retailer and ultimately the actual company who owns the gas mains and arranges everything I was able to get the issue escalated with them. This is something PD or the retailer where not able to achieve when they supposedly have been trying. One does wonder how hard they tried or who they spoke too…

After a sleepless night today is possibly ‘D’ Day, do we or don’t we go ahead with settlement as planned?

Can we live for two weeks without, our heater, air conditioner, stove top or hot water? PD do, we don't.

Was I able to convince the supplier to get our job booked in prior to settlement? Fingers crossed.

Am I going to have to cancel the leave I have already booked?

Is this just another one of PD's 'point of difference' we think so

Progress....

Hey all,

Went down to the house to see the progress of the tiling and were happy to see they will be finished by tomorrow. The bathroom and ensuite are looking great… See below pics:

Our hallway

The bathroom floor

Bathroom floor

Bathtub

Shower in main bathroom

Our shower base

Sneaking into the house :-)

Well, Ryan and I went down to the house tonight and discovered the sliding door opened... So of course, we went in to look around!

We were happy to see how much has been done. Below are some pictures of our house. we are now two weeks away from getting the keys! Exciting!!

Our kitchen sink

Our kitchen

Our island bench

Our kitchen floor

Our dining & family room floor

The shower head in the main bathroom

The floor looking towards the front door

Our laundry Our ensuite Our ensuite basins and tapware

Not really happy with the tiling job that was done, lot of tiles are not level. We will be speaking to our supervisor on Monday and asking for compensation for all the dodgy work and stuffing around we have endured.

Other than that, the house looks nice and we can't wait to move in and arrange our new furniture (yes NEW!) and make the house our "home".

Signing off for tonight. Feel free to comment on anything in our blog. Enjoy :-)

Our Dromana 27 Issues so far

Hi All & Welcome,

In the interest of fair play we have decided to pass on our experiences so far with Porter Davis, Lifestyle West office.

We knew for the start building wasn't easy but we thought we would give it a go, especially with Porter Davis as they reputation was good.

Little did we know......


Within the first 4 weeks from the start of construction we were allocated three different construction supervisors, when we were sold one from start to finish.

Roof tiles were missing and damage (from the bricklayers) left the gutter and fascia hanging off the façade outside the master bedroom. We had two days of rain and ended up with puddles of water in the kitchen, lounge room and Master Bedroom. Not to mention the water seeped through the plaster in all these rooms. Also the fact that Construction Manager tried to take us for fools by saying he had been down to the site to investigate and the “kids” had done the damage, when clearly it had been done by the bricklayers. We think he did a great job when our Construction Supervisor was only annual leave after his second week with us.

Numerous windows were not straight and when closed had gaps, meaning they were not sealing/shutting correctly. These were not rectified until nearly the end of fixing stage, although we had been told continuously that they were being fixed. By all accounts should’ve been straightened at frame stage. And we still have concerns.

Plaster was hung without studs being shaved or packed out to make sure the walls were straight. To rectify this – instead of removing the plaster the carpenter who came out who then punched holes in the plaster throughout the house in order to pack out the studs. This left us with tennis ball sized holes in many of our walls which now have been bogged up and patched over. Also the plaster in two walls of the garage had to be torn down and re-hung due to this method frame straightening.

Failure to read our contract correctly ended in us without wall insulation batts (as we had signed for in our contract and were on our contract drawings). To rectify this now, instead of pulling down all external wall plaster and installing the wall insulation batts as should have been done, we have had to concede and agree to the installation of 6.0 grade batts in the ceiling only. We are still not impressed or happy with this decision.

Painting commenced and we went down to have a look and found that all internal doors were painted the wrong colour. We spoke to our supervisor and mentioned this to him. He made the painters aware and they repainted the doors – however they were for the second time painted the wrong colour. The third time of repainting we received the colour we had chosen.

Tiling began and again we went down to check out the progress. Much to our horror the tiller had laid the wrong floor tiles in the bathroom, toilet and ensuite. At this late stage we decided instead of ripping the tiles up and delaying settlement we would accept the fault.

However, we were only offered $300 compensation which we do not believe to be adequate for such a grievous error or the 3 day delay in construction whilst this was sorted out. Great work on looking after customers National Tiles.

The tiller also tried to make a sale of sealing all our porcelain tiles for $2,200.00 we spoke to National Tiles (where we required to order our tiles from) and were horrified to discover that our tiles do not need any sealing. This was an outright deceitful way of trying to get more money out of us. The tiller also tried this approach a second time after our site supervisor had contacted him and informed him that we did not want to proceed with the sealing at all.

As of today, our gas line to the house has not been installed, settlement is 14 days away and there contractor is supposedly booked until 11/11 leaving us at this stage without gas. Lets hope this can get fixed prior to settlement.

Some pictures below. (more pics soon)

Please leave comments and let us know of your dealings and stories too, I think the support of others might help ease our pain.

Cheers,

Ryan & Jade

Our house from the front

The house from the side

Our front door

Our ensuite shower (almost finished)

Our shower in the main bathroom (almost complete)

Our kitchen, with the splashback installed

Our hallway

Our laundry