So.. Good news and bad news. Good news is the guard rails, gutters and fascias were installed today and our roof tiles have been delivered. And if you were wondering what the black gooey stuff around the pipes are (sorry for the upside down pics), that is some kind of termite "shield"! All i know is that its some rubber polymer mixed with natural plant extracts and its meant to seal off the gaps between the pipes and concrete so termites can't get through. They could have made the job look neater though, some others look like the BP crude oil disaster! The next step is to install a reticulated chemical system around the house but i am not sure when that will be done.
Now for the bad news! The inspector we hired found defects! However we are glad we went ahead and hired an inspector because all the defects he picked up would have easily been missed by us. Our builder's site supervisor has been pretty much useless in picking up defects, and we also found out that a Building Surveyor only really assesses safety standards, not quality or defects. We are now waiting for the builder to act on rectifying the defects before we make any further payment :) Wish us luck!
Termite guard is good! Seeing as how there's so much wood involved....
ReplyDeleteAnd good idea that you hired an inspector anyway. Worth more in the long run in cost savings of fixing things later.. So that's actually good news, not bad! Defects are common though - we're going to have to do the same with our place before we move in - at least a cursory one. the Building site surveyor will only survey against the specifications of the project, not against specifications to homebuyers.
It probably looks a bit weird now, as the dividing walls come together it will start looking like a house! GOod to see that there's now a roof :)
The more I look at it, the bigger it seems!
Yup, although we don't live in a termite prone area, Australia has some of the most aggressive termites and it really is cheap insurance considering the damage termites can do.
ReplyDeleteAnd all "defects" so far have either been rectified or justified :) Funny that you mentioned the size of the house, because in Australia its starting to be like the states where its the bigger the better and we get conditioned to seeing huge impractical homes. But yeh i think house is a little too big, but land size could be bigger though :p