After a long wait, with little information from both Metricon and Council, we received the phone call we’d been waiting to get for quite awhile. Council has signed off on the remaining items, and our permanent occupancy certificate is in the mail!

For weeks, we’ve been wondering what big issue we’d be facing next. No info was being communicated from the builder (please work on this in the future, Metricon!) and frankly, we were starting to freak out. After a number of unreturned phone calls to Metricon, we were contacted out of the blue by Blacktown City Council. It wasn’t Metricon that was causing the hold up – it was Council!

Continue reading “Permanent Occupancy Certificate (Part III)” »

The saga continues…

Council’s requirements to get our permanent occupancy certificate were, all in all, pretty reasonable. Fire protection measures needed to be in place, BASIX provisions needed to be in order, and downlights needed to be installed in an acceptable manner. What didnt’ make sense, was the dog door needed to be screened. Yep, the dog door was a fire hazard – despite having a metal cover that closed it off when we weren’t home. Apparently metal isn’t bushfire compliant. Who knew.

A few certificates were required from our builder stating that all bushfire prevention measures had been completed, and all necessary building inspections had been completed. It seemed pretty straightforward from here. Would you believe it wasn’t?

Continue reading “Permanent Occupancy Certificate (Part II)” »

With most warranty issues resolved, and only minimal follow up work left, we are very close to putting our issues and concerns with Metricon behind us. Not a moment too soon either, as I am over having the tradesmen showing up just as we’ve got the baby to sleep, only to have him wake again.

We raised the issue around scratched glass in our windows and doors and, as of yesterday, all windows and doors have been replaced. All of these were the result of the cleaners that Metricon hired, using dull razors to scrape away the dark oak stain from the glass – something that ended up costing Metricon a pretty penny.  It appears that this is a common issue in new homes too – a neighbour of ours who also built with Metricon had similar issues. He too had to fight to get these replaced. Frustrating, but a worthy battle to fight. We’ve even had a home here at Stonecutters Ridge that had to have ALL their tapware replaced, after the cleaners used an acidic cleaning solution that caused it all to rust.

So with warranty issues more or less behind us, we can start to look at other projects around the house. We’ve recently had retaining walls built in our front yard built (pictures forthcoming), and had plans drawn up for a veranda. There’s a lot to look forward to now!

I’ve been slack on updating. Funny how life can shift your priorities. Bryce is growing like a weed – smiling, giggling, and just bringing a whole lot of happiness to our lives. Things all of a sudden feel like they’re in fast forward. Unfortunately, addressing the outstanding warranty issues feels like it’s progressing at a snails pace.

Over a month later, we still have a lot of the issues we brought up with Metricon outstanding. The Christmas holidays brought things to a screeching halt, and all the rain that Sydney has been getting caused numerous delays. Even a bit of bad luck delayed the replacement of our ensuite mirror (On their way here, the driver went over a speed bump too fast and the mirror broke!). But with that said, a few items have been addressed.

Continue reading “Outstanding warranty issues: Update” »

We moved into our house in November of 2010. It’s almost 2012, and we’ve still been “working” with Metricon to address the outstanding issues from what was originally supposed to be our 90 day inspection (Side Note: A 90 day inspection is typically when the inspection is held, but lord knows when the issues are actually fixed.). Finally, after complaining posting on Twitter  (Kudos to Metricon for managing their social media channels!), Metricon contacted us directly and scheduled a time for their NSW Building Manager to meet us and inspect the final issues we had that were related to the initial inspection (hence the lack of updates lately…). Were we finally getting somewhere?

Continue reading “Metricon warranty issues: resolved (sort of)” »