Having said that, since sending this email (to which I am STILL waiting on a response that was promised to us by end of the business day on the 13th – one whole week ago) the carpenter HAS been back. He has addressed the tie downs (tightened the loose ones, strapped down the ones that weren’t strapped down at all, etc), tightened most of the bolts holding the frame to the slab, moved some of the others that were too close to the edge of the slab (although still needs to address the garage as MOST of the bolts there are still way too close to the edge – leaving a large portion of our house at risk of movement), put a cross section in above the cutaway part of the frame to give it more strength and removed the wood that would likely rot from the wet areas. He has not addressed the insufficient nailing of the sheet metal braces, nor will he get the chance to now as the external walling has all been fitted. They will now have to re-brace it from the inside. I find this ridiculous as all it needed were a few more nails, but I checked it after the carpenter had been and gone, and have checked it every day between then and when the sarking and external walls were placed over it.

We have tried SO HARD to build a good relationship with the site supervisor. We’ve worked super hard to prep the site for him and avoid delays – often causing ourselves physical (and mental) exhaustion. We’ve organised baby sitters at the very last moment (and screwed around family members into cancelling their own plans) because he has given us one day notice of work that we need to perform of a weekend (such as UV protecting our window frames in >35C weather) when he has known about it himself for WEEKS (if not months). We’ve swayed to make his job easier for him when he has complained that something is too hard (even though it is specifically written into our contract) and generally gone out of our way to make his life easier in MANY ways in an attempt to encourage some form of alliance with him – he is just a really horrible person… I actually asked him the other say WHY he is so difficult when we do so much to try to make this work, and his response was “well, you started it when you complained about the slab. You’re continuing it now over the frame, and I suppose you’ll be like this all the way through!”. Ummm, yes. If it isn’t done correctly I believe that I have a right to have it fixed! Get it right to start with and we’re happy – got it?!?! Argh! And yes – he is much worse with me than with Chris. I wonder if he’d be nicer if I was meek and mild and kept quiet as a woman should…

I’m very disappointed that our builders do not have other site supervisors on staff who can take over where there is an obvious clash of personalities… I could accept it if we got attitude BUT he made up for it by being exceedingly good at his job. The fact that we have to deal with the attitude AND deal with all this stress from attempting to get issues addressed (and reminding him and his contractors of works required that he hasn’t even noticed because I’m not convinced that he’s even read the contract) has me really questioning myself if I would ever use this company again or recommend them to anyone else… I’m leaning heavily towards no. The only saving grace at the moment is that I KNOW that they have a beautiful product – this is one of the reasons why we chose them!

It is so important for these structural issues to be sorted out. You’ve gone to such an effort and invested so much of your time and money in planning and designing your home for them to not get it right. Thank God for your inspector. If your site supervisor is so simple minded that he doesn’t take your complaints seriously because you dared to double check the integrity of your slab then who cares what he thinks. I’m very proud that you are able to stand up for the integrity of the entire project and make sure you get what you want.

Love ya’s xxxx