Category Archives: Contractors

Builder Calls it Quits

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I had previously written about our builderhaving his previous off-sider quit on him while working on our house. He had picked up a new apprentice and things seemed to be going well, until last week when he had to let his apprentice go.

With this latest apprentice quitting he has come to us and told us that he can’t abide by our contract and get the house enclosed by the end of January (our previous thoughts were that we would actually be moved downstairs by Christmas, woops). So now it looks like we are left without a builder.

This sucks…

Because of the wait that there is for builders in Townsville this looks like our plans could be pushed back a year behind where we thought we would be.

So now we are stuck with a house three metres above the ground and no-one to enclose it. I wish that I could say I can do it myself, or even get some mates to help do it, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that happening.

Now what?

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Worker Quits

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This morning Tamara received a phone call that our trade contractor’s “off sider” has quit. His off sider was his second man in all of his construction work. This basically means that now all of our plans are pretty much on hold until he can find either another “off sider” or an apprentice to work with him on the building work.

From what our main trade contractor told Tamara he is eager to pick up an apprentice as he won’t have to actually teach as much as he has had to in the past. An apprentice should be able to pick up the work and run with it a lot more so then a casual worker will.

My only hope is that he find a new employee soon, otherwise this project will draw on well into the new year and probably mess around with our plans to visit family in Canada next year…

Trouble Finding an Electrician in Townsville

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Last week I called about eight different electricians to try to get quotes done on the renovations under our house. Of the eight I left about four messages, booked a time with one electrician and was told by the other three that they were too busy to do any more quotes this year.

Well, of the four that I left messages with only one has called me back, and he has already been and given me a quote for doing the electrical work under the house, and the upgrades needed for the top floor.

To add insult to injury the one guy who I originally booked a time with called and canceled, saying that they were not doing any more quotes this year.

If I want any more quotes I can only hope now that the carpenter doing the framing under the house comes though with the electricians that he has worked with before.

The other problem is that I really can’t wait too long, otherwise the guy who has quoted me already will probably book up and no longer be available for the job. It almost feels as though I just need to hire whatever contractor actually shows up, regardless of the price…

Throwing in the Towel – Almost…

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Last week I ended up with bruised nuckles after I punched my car after a rather frustrating meeting with an engineer about some of the “stranger” features of our renovations…

I must admit that this renovation process is a lot more complicated and aggrivating than I had thought it would be. I was looking at the real estate section of the newspaper last weekend and thought about how nice it would be to buy the house down the street that already has four bedrooms, two living areas and a new kitchen.

Now with an extra week behind me I am feeling a bit better about the whole project. This week I met with my original architect and I found out that the strange things in the drawings were actually recommended by our original builders, who we got rid of quite a while ago. The main thing that had been bugging me was that the drawing had required a new joist to be run next to every existing joist. This is a lot of extra work and materials, which means a lot of extra money for me. Now I need to get in touch with the builders who had quoted us already and get them to re-quote the work with the new information from the architect, which was that the extra joists were not needed.

If it all goes how I hope these changes will hopefully mean that we can afford to go ahead with the full renovations, rather than just getting the shell under the house done.