QA vs Independent Inspector

Interesting issue this one, everyone has an opinion and one I have been wanting to ask for awhile.

The builders say they aren't required and not worth the money while the inspectors say its worth it if only as an insurance policy for your investment.

Each are paid by opposing parties, so have vested interests in opposite directions and it appears each has varying degree of attention to detail.

So the M employed QA guy went through our place weeks ago and obviously prior to handover and rated it a 98.3%. How the hell that is worked out is beyond me, but a pretty good score none the less.

Our engaged Independent Inspector found quite a few obvious issues that was over looked by the QA guys including,

• A window lintel was not painted at all,
• The fire box was still not to code - frustrating given he raised it in April at his early inspection,
• The heating duct was not connected to the outlet - ok if you intend to heat and live in the roof space,
• Insulation wasn't correctly installed in all places,
• The carpet still had visible lines through it which needed replacing, and
• Two of the 5 ceiling mounted vents / fans didn't have dampeners which are required for the star rating.

Excluding paint imperfections and other tidy ups, the above are a couple of really obvious, easy gets if your inspector is on his game and / or has a quick look through the manhole into the roof.  Our independent inspector did. Not so sure about whoever did the QA.

With a mark of 98.3% - which is a great score - I can't help feel like I was copying the paper of the student next to me and really deserve a score less than awarded....

I must say M fixed all remaining items without fuss (although at their leisure), so we are really happy overall with our house but the question remains - QA vs Independent Inspector ?

Cam

FINALLY – passed to the construction team

It’s taken awhile but we have been advised that our job has been handed from pre-construction to construction….   

So after weeks of reviewing largely the same plans (small variations made by M – mostly by their hand without any discussion) we have signed off on final plans as pre our requirements and requests….

QA, Drafties and to a lesser extent Studio M have a lot to answer for.  Illogical and unrequested changes without any discussion as to why or communication as to what had changed is unacceptable – there... I'm feeling better already.  DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING!!!!

Well, we also took advantage of their multiple versions and requested a number of small changes ourselves.  I look at it this way – it’s not final til it’s final.  M can change items around without any fuss, so why can’t we….  So while reviewing the plans, for the god knows how many times, we decided to move this, change that, etc etc.   “Just make this change to the next version if you wouldn’t mind”   

On a more positive note, our CSC has been great and followed up all our queries and ensured any illogical / unrequested changes were reinstated.  Felt a little sorry for her a few times, as she was the ‘middle man’ the majority of the time – but that’s what her role is I guess.

So, the next step is to wait for our construction service consultation (made that title up) and / or our site manager to contact us.  We have been told its usually 2 weeks b/w pre-construction and construction til you see anything actually happen.  The construction team has already made a start on our job so work on the slab could be as early as this time next week. 

Now that's progress….

Sloooooooow progress; its better than no progress!

We are still in pre-construction and it is taking its sweet time to get everything signed off. We have had another 3 versions of the ‘final plans’ and ‘final contract variation’ and if there is one piece of advice I can give to those of you building and at this stage is that you need to check, double check and then check again. We have picked up a myriad of mistakes and changes this week and they have not always been logical, nor highlighted to us by the builder.

The biggest error was the removal of the provisions for future evaporative cooling (a powerpoint, capped cold water point and upgraded roof trusses). This for some reason was on the electrical variations and the plans but didn’t end up in the final contract, in fact in the last version of the plans ‘QA’ had it removed altogether from everything without informing us. Lucky we went over everything with a fine tooth comb!

The other issue that we have been dealing with this week was post-demolition asbestos residue. All homes built about the time our original old house was, have asbestos in one form or another. We had asbestos removal done prior to demolition but some more residue was spotted along the fence boundaries by out site supervisor last week and we needed that cleaned up before Metricon will send anyone to site start, and that’s fair enough. Jim the demolisher was onto it quickly and to cut a long story short, we have had another site clean and Metricon is now in possession of another independent asbestos clearance certificate.

The good news in all of this is that by Monday once the office receives our signed final plans (they are about 99% correct with only 1 small correction remaining, which doesn’t require a plan redraw), the ordering will commence. Once the ordering has finished (by the end of next week at the latest), we will be at site start… FINALLY!!!!

As I said above, slow progress is better than no progress. We are happy to take the time to get things done right. You can never look through your contracts enough and our toing and froing has all been by email which has put everything in writing (a great tip!). I have no doubt our pedantic behaviour will be worth it all in the end!

Hope that the next post will be more exciting!

Kirsten