2016 has arrived and our excitement and anticipation of the imminent finish of construction, move in, and the daunting list of tasks that come afterwards is being tempered by a complete stalling of work on site. We expected a sprint to the finish since November and December were so productive, however since Provincial came back on the 19th of January there was only one day with a trade on site for the first 2 weeks, and this was the tiler pulling down tiles that needed to be redone... I will explain later in the delays and tiling issue section.
Our calculations have the 40 week contract period ex. rain days ending at the end of February on the 26th, however Provincial have confirmed it is March 4 with the 5 week Christmas shut down. With the bench-tops still to arrive, tiling to still be finished, french polishing the staircase, floor sanding/polishing and carpeting, and a multitude of finishing tasks to be done we are concerned how delayed the project will be. According to the SS the finishing trades are in next week, though I don't know how this will work given the tilers have disappeared with a lot of work still to do, and the bench-tops have still not arrived!
Delays and Tiling issues
The Caesarstone bench-tops still seem to be delayed and holding things up. They were meant to arrive in November and it is now February and they are still not here. We had offered to change our selection if it would help, however we were told they would be ready to go at the start of work this year...
The tilers were late starting and ended up commencing during Provincials shut-down period on the 30th December and continuing throughout January. We had anticipated this happening and told the SS we would keep an close eye then if this was to occur. We needed to check that all the tiles were correct and plans were being followed! It was incredibly lucky we did this...
The tilers work was superb, however after the ensuite wall tiles were laid and one row of tiles in the laundry we found the wall and floor tiles not lining up. To us this looked awful and was a critical issue. Trying to get resolution in the holiday period was next to impossible, our SS was completely offline, Di Lorezo was closed, and it took some time to track down a supervisor for the tilers. Luckily as this was picked up early they promptly fixed the one line in the laundry and continued correctly in the Main Bathroom, WC, Powder room, and Laundry - if not we could be waiting for all the tiles to be ripped up and started again.
To add to this they began the stack stone feature on the brick pier at the front of the house on three-sides. It was confusing as the back of the pier had been rendered and painted making it appear the stone work was only to be applied to the front and sides. We suspected it should go on all sides of the pier and would definitely look better. After checking with George at the Provincial showhome and Di-Lorezo (when they reopened), we confirmed it should go right around - so this was another area where the tiling had to be taken down and re-started.
To add to this the SS has picked up a fault with floor levels around the shower in the powder room so some floor tiles will need to be taken up here and re-done as well.
As it is at the moment most of the tiles in the ensuite have had to be taken down and they are yet to re-do these, they are waiting for the bench-tops to go in so they can tile around these, and a fair amount of work still needs to be completed on the stack stone feature, oh and the power room floor needs to be rectified! The delays are depressing :-(
*One piece of advice even though you think you have selected floor and wall tiles that have grouting that should line-up, ensure you stipulate at the tile consultation that you want these to match-up - otherwise they may opt for the path of less tile cutting and disjointed grout lines!
Ensuite
