Measure Twice, Cut Once

[Citroënbender]

I’m surrounded by construction work at present.

The site next door got off to a poor start by digging trenches immediately before a four day rainy spell. Then they put a footing a whole metre closer to the boundary than the approved plans, I pulled them up on the day of the pour and they agreed in writing (cc’ing the council) not to build on it. 100mm I could forgive, but a metre was just taking the mickey. Certifier unimpressed with it, too.

Next they got into the brickwork. Thousands of bricks, laid by an army of people with negligible English. Somebody forgot to check levels; this afternoon the brickies got an earlymark and the project mangler plus offsider are busy stripping courses. This is only the second week into the construction phase, it’s almost embarrassing rather than Schadenfreude.

This is the site kitchen and amenities. One bloke ate his lunch sitting on the toilet’s horizontal waste pipe!



The big difference I’ve noticed vs “Caucasian” sites is the site supervisor clearly has little practical ability or experience. He’s not doing the “infill” jobs like knocking up lunch benches or a weatherproof awning. (We got trained up to do that sort of stuff as firstly it was useful but not time-critical and secondly it justified you being all over the site to keep an eye on people without being officious.) Just wandering around holding plans - which clearly weren’t being followed satisfactorily.

[.:4:.]

As the saying goes, pay peanuts, get monkeys. I see it all the time. Companies win quotes because theyre substantially cheaper, but often theres a reason for that. A lot also has to do with cheaper sub par materials also. And then there times when the project managers have no trade background. So he no longer works as an electrical project manager, but my brother inlaw was a project manager for an electrical mob, yet his background was an events orginiser. So yes he could run the show to keep deadlines, but he had no idea on the quality of the work he was managing. The major thing a project manager does not want after the deadline is met, is a massive defect list. Minor things, yeah it happens. Many minor things doesnt look good, major things dont look good and many major things, well thats terrible. The minor things that dont throw people under the bus is not workmanship which should have been pulled up at the time, its manufacturing defects on the installed equipment and factors out of the installers control.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

As the saying goes, pay peanuts, get monkeys. I see it all the time. Companies win quotes because theyre substantially cheaper, .

Yep, building sites ain't what they used to be.
One reason I don't work for middle men, builders, developers and architects.

[Ross 1]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Yep, building sites ain't what they used to be.
One reason I don't work for middle men, builders, developers and architects.

I've been getting quite a few calls from developers lately and my standard response is ' We aren't cheap, we work up to a standard not down to a price and if we aren't paid each Friday we won't be there on Monday' not surprisingly I don't hear back from them.

[marty351]

CB, is that little white box a microwave?

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by marty351

CB, is that little white box a microwave?

Sure looks like it. Its plugged into the temp power box. Thats the kitchen, none of this site shed business.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by marty351

CB, is that little white box a microwave?

Would be a lovely day at the site today in Sydney's rain.

[Sprintey]

Oh man I wish I could share my old work stories but I won't.

Think of what you are describing, only on industrial project or national infrastructure scales!

[jaydee]

And is that the toilet?
Surely you can't have effluent just flowing off into a hole in the ground.

[Pis-ton broke]

have you seen the buildings in Baghdad or Africa, hey, don,t worry about it.

but seriously, on the radio ,they are advertising skill to to trade recognition. and it sounds very cheap, i mean , low skill and they will pass you anyway.
check out how many sydney tower are faulty.

[The Yeti]

Originally Posted by Pis-ton broke

have you seen the buildings in Baghdad or Africa, hey, don,t worry about it.

but seriously, on the radio ,they are advertising skill to to trade recognition. and it sounds very cheap, i mean , low skill and they will pass you anyway.
check out how many sydney tower are faulty.

That’s actually not how it works

You have to demonstrate ability, I used one of these services recently to upgrade My trade, have been in the trade for 27 years but never needed the qualification as my reputation always spoke for its self, but now tier 1’s want paper

Even though I’ve done i for longer than many mechanics have been alive I still had to jump through many hoops, at one point I even considered tossing it in and just doing a tafe bridging course and financially it would have been cheaper to do the tafe course

[Citroënbender]

Yes gents, it’s the microwave... Toilet actually goes into the original sewer line, if they had tried a longdrop I’d have gone right off!

Had another peek today, there is seemingly a worse error than I suspected. It looks like a good amount of the concrete footings are higher than the designated measurement for bottom of the concrete floor slab they’re supposed to be supporting. There’s only two solutions - raise the floors which means flatter pitch roof and an amendment to the approved structure - so a fortnight to three weeks down time, or rework the footings. I would do the latter with a couple of big fellows on jackhammers.

Fail at the first turn, get your hole in the ground right and everything goes better from there. They didn’t put in any plumbing penetrations either, that is another curiosity!

[Yellow_Festiva]

The building industry as a whole didn't do itself any favours. Hardly any site inspections no one taking pride in their work, no need to do it right, and when it's done wrong it's impossible to get it fixed due to the legal fees or the fact the company is gone and replaced with a new company.

It's a shambles.

And it's not always about paying peanuts either. Even well paid workers can do an absolute rubbish job because they know they can get away with it and there will be another job next week to do.

If they wanted to clean up the industry random checks need to be the norm, developers or builders need to put aside money for future claims and anyone caught doing shonky work are out of a job and they pay the repairs by law.

But that will never happen....

[Citroënbender]

There is the Defect Liability Period on domestic jobs, and retention on invoices against it. However a lot of blokes will forfeit the defect sum rather than go back and expose themselves to risk of an endless string of remedial works; this can be several years after completion and occupancy.

And some clients will abuse the DLP to try for a freshen-up prior to onselling. They’ll complain about (say) a water leak in an upstairs bathroom and then block the rectification process by being unavailable until it’s so bad there’s a need to renew the whole room and repaint/re-sheet/re-carpet the ones underneath.

[Citroënbender]

Today the brickies protractedly came to blows. I’m not sure whether smashing someone on the side of their head with a trowel is regular assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm - either way, it isn’t a good look on-site at nine in the morning.

[roKWiz]

Probably for good reason. Been there myself, only I wanted to throw an architect off the second storey but was pointless as they would have just brought out another one in his place.

[Citroënbender]

A bit topical today, given the other “bodgy builder” thread that’s come up.

Photo showing misaligned setdown to the slab edge where the building stops and patio starts. The outer bricks should be sitting on the lower level. In theory this is OK as built, in reality it wicks water into the house floor.

The contractors are today demolishing a couple of internal walls and recutting a stairwell opening in a ground floor slab. I’ve not seen a build with actual plans, have so many hiccups or errors before. No further violence on site, but it has come close a few times.

This rate of disarray is usually the province of blonde beach women who think they can run a build or reno (it’s never going to end well)...

[Yellow_Festiva]

One day I'll find a picture of my window that was installed.

Not all that big - perhaps 700 wide x 1100 high.

Regular sliding window - custom made.

When they installed it and left no one noticed that the top length of the window was some 20-30mm shorter than the bottom length.

Yet, 2 monkeys from the factory installed this and neither noticed...

I took a picture and showed the boss... he wasn't impressed.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Needed to get some gyprocking work done. At the same time I asked the guy to patch 2 holes in the ceiling on the rear balcony. The roofer needed to inspect where water was leaking through.

No worries - walk through the house, point out exactly what needed doing and the 2 holes that needed repairing. How hard could it be?

I'm at work, boss calls me to confirm that the workers have started. Confirmed the work we agreed to as well as the 2 holes out the back.

Come home to find that they had patched up the 2 holes in the rumpus that were cut out by the AC guy for manhole installation.

Boss is Middle Eastern, workers Chinese.. What could go wrong?

If I ever build again I will never leave the site and watch every worker like a hawk.

Everything is a 'misunderstanding' when they screw up.

Boss tried to blame me for not being there as well... I can just see him now.

'Yeah boys, the bulkheads above the robes and the 2 ceiling holes at the back of the house'...

[Citroënbender]

Sadly, the experience doesn’t surprise me. Courtesy, commonsense and an idea of building being a team exercise - they’re all gone.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Sadly, the experience doesn’t surprise me. Courtesy, commonsense and an idea of building being a team exercise - they’re all gone.

Here is another one...

Tell me, what is wrong with this picture?



What? They are different colours you say?

The top lighter colour is the original tile. Tilers had already laid several rooms.

They forgot to send the last 15 boxes with the original delivery. No worries, when the ute is doing a delivery in my area in the next few days they can drop by.

So they did, tilers start helping to unload...

I bet had I not turned up they would have started laying them right along the lighter ones.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Here is another one...

Tell me, what is wrong with this picture?

image

What? They are different colours you say?

The top lighter colour is the original tile. Tilers had already laid several rooms.

They forgot to send the last 15 boxes with the original delivery. No worries, when the ute is doing a delivery in my area in the next few days they can drop by.

So they did, tilers start helping to unload...

I bet had I not turned up they would have started laying them right along the lighter ones.

They never had the 'forgotten' 15 boxes. They were winging it thinking she'll be right with the next batch. Or conversely, thinking the same but pleading ignorance and flooging the last part of your order to another client in need who payed a bigger mark up. Im used to the bs of suppliers invoicing 'delivered' goods when they were either delivered to the wrong place and signed for by other companies, delivered to the wrong people from my company regardless of delivery instructions yet the potatoes still sign, wrong parts delivered (thats pretty black and white when you order something in white and they deliver it in black) or simply they invoice something they never received, claimed they sent out and have no drivers manifest or signature for the drop.

[Citroënbender]

Absolutely.

This has been screwing my crook mate’s workplace, they are a good sized developer but a minnow compared to someone like (say) Mirvac. Stock to hand, set aside, evaporated as wholesalers’ incoming supplies dried up - it will have gone to finish projects for the heavy hitters, guaranteed.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

They never had the 'forgotten' 15 boxes. They were winging it thinking she'll be right with the next batch. Or conversely, thinking the same but pleading ignorance and flooging the last part of your order to another client in need who payed a bigger mark up. Im used to the bs of suppliers invoicing 'delivered' goods when they were either delivered to the wrong place and signed for by other companies, delivered to the wrong people from my company regardless of delivery instructions yet the potatoes still sign, wrong parts delivered (thats pretty black and white when you order something in white and they deliver it in black) or simply they invoice something they never received, claimed they sent out and have no drivers manifest or signature for the drop.

They actually did. I went to collect and saw them on a pallet wrapped on their own.

The 2 shades you see are different colours.

When they sent the ute back they returned with the wrapped pallet I saw the previous week.

Just ridiculous....

But yes, the same mob tried to charge me for stuff they knew they couldn't deliver in the timeframe I asked for.

You learn a lot when you do this stuff mostly on your own...

Sent from my LG-M700 using Tapatalk

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Needed to get some gyprocking work done. At the same time I asked the guy to patch 2 holes in the ceiling on the rear balcony. The roofer needed to inspect where water was leaking through.

No worries - walk through the house, point out exactly what needed doing and the 2 holes that needed repairing. How hard could it be?

I'm at work, boss calls me to confirm that the workers have started. Confirmed the work we agreed to as well as the 2 holes out the back.

Come home to find that they had patched up the 2 holes in the rumpus that were cut out by the AC guy for manhole installation.

Boss is Middle Eastern, workers Chinese.. What could go wrong?

If I ever build again I will never leave the site and watch every worker like a hawk.

Everything is a 'misunderstanding' when they screw up.

Boss tried to blame me for not being there as well... I can just see him now.

'Yeah boys, the bulkheads above the robes and the 2 ceiling holes at the back of the house'...

The complete wrong result, i get that and the boss who i assume looked at the job should be kissing your feet and try to fix it, im assuming he simply just plays the blame game instead for the labour he hired probably at the cheapest possible. I see it all the time on site. Its a language barrier thing most the time. Yeah sometimes its just crap workers. Crap workers can be from anywhere. What i see most often is on site the builder, data guy, plumber, whatever, just throw jobs at non english speaking background people and not have a bar of their questions they have because they dont have enough english to understand properly. Hence the stuff ups. And the scapegoat for jobs not running to schedule is the easy option, blame the ones who dont speak english. Yes there are pretenders, ive worked on sites where you can have a normal conversation with a gyprocker but when they stuff up suddenly they dont speak english. In the same token ive worked on sites with guys who only speak basic english, their supervisor has taken the 2 minutes to explain as best they can the task, and the blokes do very good work. Yeah you can throw in different industry standards between countries etc, but thats a rabbit hole. We have an Italian bloke at work. He is a gun at what he does. Nowdays his english is pretty good, but when he started, it wasnt. But no one in his new to the country days was too busy to take the extra 30 seconds to explain things in an easier way to understand. Same way as early on some questions he had he knew the name of the part in Italian, but had to take 30 seconds for us people to work it out. But the bloke is very good at what he does. My work has had more australians get shown the door in the past decade then imports. Guys from overseas typically leave to go home as they get homesick. Work never employ labour hire people who are australian, reason being, if they had to sign up for labour hire, theres probably a reason. We have a few guys from england and ireland who were labour hire who work took on. New to the country and needed work, and theyre hard workers. Not cant get a job for whatever reason so relegated to labour hire.

[CJR09]

The pans have their own fixing kits - you do not use mortar

A way around getting the cistern more plumb was to use silicone in conjunction with the gasket and put a packer/shim wherever it was needed

It does not matter if there was ample time available, it matters how it was priced which unless the job was done as a charge up (doubt it) then most likely priced to do bare minimum once - that is what leads to the 'thats how it is' mentality because if it was priced allowing for the extra work every man and his dog would easily undercut him and he would never have any work

Was this work undertaken direct to client or to main contractor or group housing outfit?

[Citroënbender]

It was effectively “do and charge”.

This was the last job for the same client, to give a idea of where expectations lie. Lots of finicky details you will notice from your time in the trade.

[CJR09]

Yeah well, no excuse if done as charge up - let the client know, do it, charge it, everyones happy


All looks fairly standard - not much room to read the paper on that one!

[Citroënbender]

Exactly. The client is happy when things are right, any modest extra cost is forgotten.

[Citroënbender]

One from next door. I’d say wrong setout by the builder, bad drawings or a massive change in spec.