Week 18: thank you Vaccaro_electrician

Last year, although I heard several negative stories about Vaccaro,  personally, I always felt very so good whenever I wrote emails and talked to R from Vaccaro regarding our electrical plan last year. Vaccaro's prices for our extra was not cheap (but not expensive neither) but her professional service and attitude were so good. Whatever I asked ( my questions were all so boring as I don't know anything about electrical), she made sure that I would be happy with her response ...She answered within 5 hours and repeatedly changed plan for us as I was not sure what exactly I wanted.

Last year, I hardly saw a truck from Vaccaro running around our area to serve electrical plan for new houses.

However, this year I have seen trucks from Vaccaro everywhere  in our area. It means Vaccaro business grow very much in our area. It means my feeling last year about Vaccaro was correct.

It is certainly good note for Fowler too. Well, it is not top secrete that  I have many times been "down" by Fowler but I always try to stay positive as I know Fowler's contractors who I have met such as Vaccaro... are so skilful  and serious  professional.

Recently I have sent her emails again requesting some amendment for our electrical plan. She has still kept responding very fast and even called me (last week) to  provide  an appointment to see her staffs on our site to show them what we want to amend. I can't be happier. Big thank you!

Week 18: Sweet surprise with 4 carpenters on Saturday

This morning, I just want to have some good photos of our baby house under a very sun shine Saturday. However, I got a very pleasant and sweet surprise that there is 4 carpenters working hard on our site.....

I will be more than happy and over the moon as Fowler repeatedly prove that my thought for their part time working mode is incorrect, that they will make hard efforts to catch up the jobs and complete our baby house as fast/good quality as possible.

Actually,  I very much open my eyes to witness many "fundamental changes" within Fowler's building system:

1) New team for pre-construction

#    The head of this new team is very hard working guy. Several times he sent emails to me after 6.30pm and before 8am. And he is trying his best to be a man of his words

#    I heard Fowler seriously want to improve their DA, CDC, CC approval procedures for their clients by paying a lot money to  hire a very experienced lady  from EDH

2) New studio for color selection and new Kitchen guy 

# Frankly, I like very much old Kitchen guy as he was the only one who visited ....us ....at 8am ....to make a kitchen plan for us. He had his personal circumstance so that he couldn't communicate with us within 1 month. However, his hardest effort to fix his mistake under such personal trategy have made me to have a good view about Fowler's contractors. From the bottom of my heart, I wish  him the best of luck for his re-start  job
   
# The communication with new Kitchen guy is still behind my expectation. However, I hope that we will get our beautiful kitchen   

3)  2 new SS

I wait very badly for my opportunity to finally say thank you Fowler, thank you SS for their hardest efforts to professionally build our beautiful house

Week 18: reasons for Fowler's double building durations (part 1)

This morning I went to site to see progress for eaves installing but no one was there and I feel the need to point out why our build have always been behind the normal build duration.

1) Eaves and cladding installation (Week 18):

I red on other blogs with other builders there is normally 2-3 calendar days for upstairs eaves including big job for all cladding . Yesterday I partly came to realize why our eaves installation is predicted longer than DOUBLE timelines in   compare with EBH

It was a part of eaves done on the first day. There was only 2 guys there

There was a baby progress on the second day as there was still 2 guys there

I was so happy to know eaves installers have more job  for 3 big timber post so that our timline is even longer than double time in compare with others

Lonely our baby house!
However, I was wrong. The truth is Fowler don't do the job on full time basis. Fowler worked 1 day and half with 2 guys and then they don't bother keep working (on the following day ) just for job progress.

 

2) Week 13-week 17:  1 MONTH for brickworks

- As I have already posted several entries that brickies on our site are Team A. They are very skillful, hard working and nice personality. Our house bricks are just fabulous ...but  it is not top secret that we had suffered double brickwork duration as  there was roughly only half of the team actually working on our site.

- There is none excuse that we had high brick laying quality therefore we suffered double time for brickwork  as building duration/timlines is an essential  factor of building quality.   

To be continued

Week 18 (Wed Jun 20 - Tue Jun 26) Only Eveas and Cladding?

Today we had most of upper roof.

It means we only got upper roof on Week 17. However, after 1 month bricking and waiting for completing brickworks, we were so happy to see upper roof.

Upper roof really turns "our site" to "our house"

* Schedules:

# Roof tilers will be back tomorrow for few hours to finalize our upper roof.

# After lunchtime tomorrow, carpenters will start eaves and cladding jobs

# However, SS is not sure if our eaves and cladding jobs will be done in this week.

* Issues:

1) Roof valley color:

There is two roof valley in the front house. This is our southerner roof valley which is a bit hidden due to its position behind big tree. This roof valley is bright metal which made me very sad as our roof is black. 

This is our northerner roof valley which is clearly seen from the street. However, today we had the roof around this roof valley but I have not noticed it from the street. So, I'm very proud that I let the jobs go ahead as we will paint that roof valley with black color in the future if necessary.

2) Facia/Gutter color

As the first time I saw this ironstone gutter, I was so upset because it looked much lighter than my expectation.

Under raining day and dark sky (last Saturday)  installed ironstone gutter/facia showed much lighter than my imagination. I thought I should choose monument(black color). However, I still hoped Saturday weather is not perfect for knowing the real color of our ironstone gutter/facia

And my hope turned to the truth as it is clearly seen our ironstone gutter/facia are as dark as neighbor's nearly black facia on the good weather day ( Yesterday -Monday). Well, we have traditionally black roof which is a very strong and "heavy looking" color so theoretically lighter gutter/facia will make the house a bit lighter and taller and more balance..I am really happy with our gutter/facia color as it is actually what I'm looking for.   

Frankly, I'm not really sure the weather really make a color looking so much different as I wrote or my eyes are actually adjusted to justify the reality .... Whatever it is I have to admit that the house now looks as our baby so that we love our baby house ...

Week 17 (Wed Jun 13- Tue Jun 19): ONE MONTH for brickwork

* Our bricks have turned out with very strong and bold appearance on our house which is beyond our expectation. We are also supper happy with brick laying which is very neat and professional. We have reconfirmed why this team was chosen to do for Fowler's latest display homes in Homeworld V

* Very disappointed that  brickwork schedules couldn't be done as there was only half team (about 3-4 brickies) on site.

1) The first week of bricking
May 16 (Wed): 5 brickies
May 17(Thur): 5 brickies
May 18(Fri): 5 brickies
May 21(Mon): 4 brickies
May 22(Tue): 4 brickies

2) Re-commencement  of bricking
May 30(Wed): 3 brickies
May 31(Thur): 3 brickies
Jun 1 (Fri)     : 4 brickies
Jun 5 (Tue)  : 7 brickies left early due to non-stop rain
Jun 6 (Wed):  3 brickies in the morning and 4 brickies in the afternoon (working under on-off rain)
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Jun 7 (Thur): 4 brickies
Jun 8( Fri):  4 brickies
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Jun 11 (Mon): Public holiday

June 12 (Tue):  Carpenter back for balcony job

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June 13 (Wed): 6 brickies arrived but left due to non stop rain
Jun 14 (Thur): 6 brickies
June 15 (Fri):  3 brickies


*****  We started to do brick on May 16 and completed on June 15. ONE MONTH for bricking is NOT normal job.

 However, we have noticed all along our bricking that our brickies are the top range of bricklayers, hard working and nice people. But, there were about 4 brickies working over 14 days. So, if we would have a full team of 6 brickies, we should complete our actually bricking duration in only halt time. 

June 13 was rain so that our building duration will be added up to 14 days

Week 16 (Tue Jun 5- Tue Jun 12): complete bricks?

1) Review week 15

- Brickies recommenced their job on time but the number of brickies were much less than expectation due to their own planning. Bad luck on us in this regards.

- There were only 3 brickies on last Wed, Thur and Fri . It meant there was only half of the team working for us.
- Mon Jun 4 was sunshine but there were none brickies working onsite

- On the second week with brickies, we were unfortunate to have only half of the team and wasted 1 day

2) Pictures times:

Front window bricks on the Day 3 (first week). Brickies did beautiful job!

Wall looks neat and bold!

 

Alfresco's very nice wall (on the Day 3_first bricking week)

Another high quality brick laying on the corner of Courtyard (on the Day 3 of the first bricking week)

Bricks' color on our garage wall is not too bad but the color is not quite uniformed! (On the Day 4 of the first bricking week)

Another high quality job done on our Courtyard's all  (On the Day 4 of the first bricking week)

Over the past 3 days of the second week, brickies did a bit on the front (as they mainly worked  on the house sides). However, their job quality is always on the first ranking. Happy happy

On the third day, there was only 4 brickies (only 3 brickies on the first two days)

On the storm day (Jun 5) there was 7 brickies on site

3) Schedules:

# Bricks to be done
# Facia and Gutter to be done

@ Tue Jun 5 had a storm so that building duration will be added up to 13 days

***** Jobs to chase up:
# Kitchen with bench island's width and the distance between cupboards
# Electrical layout
# Robes to Retreat