Things are progressing

There has been some progress over the last couple of weeks:

Plumbing

• Donald Ward and Graeme (Master Plumber friend) managed to get down to Queenstown two weeks ago and remove all the piping from the house
• They also noticed that the Hot Water Cylinder is not compliant (never has been)
• They have found a solution and when they go back in the house to fit the pipes, they will correct this
• They couldn't get back to the house last weekend due to the extremely bad weather!
• They hoped to get there this weekend - we'll update you next week

Builder

• John Cameron, our builder, went in last week and did all the work to the internal walls that was required
• Once Donald has been back in to fit the pipes, they will do the gib work

Kitchen

• Designs for the new kitchen have been recieved (much the same as the previous kitchen)
• We haven't heard what any costs involved will be
• I will update soon

Carpet

• Jae's Carpet Services have advised that the carpet is unable to be cleaned and will therefore be replaced
• The Insurance Assessor has asked Carpet Court in Queenstown to measure the place up, look at the existing carpet and provide a quote to replace
• They will only replace up to the front door - not the stairs etc
• We'd like to propose that we continue the carpeting up to at least the bedrooms and if not too expensive, replace the bedroom carpet also
• We'll be in touch once we have any costs
• Once we have the quote from Carpet Court, we are free to investigate if we could get better value for money from a different carpet store

That's all for now...will be in touch soon

This week's update

Hi all,

Here's this week's update:

• We had asked for a breakdown of the costs from the plumber but had not heard anything. Donald Ward's friend, a master plumber, has offered to do the job for $3000 plus GST and they have started that work yesterday.
• That means that the builder can go in and start on the interior from Thursday.
• We are still waiting to hear from the joiner on the additional costs of using the kitchen joinery we have requested.
• The carpet is sitting rolled up in the cleaner's garage - apparently it's dry but we don't know if it's able to be cleaned. We have asked the builder (who is acting as the project manager) to get him to clean so we can see if it needs to be replaced.
• We have received a quote from the builder for the work required to get the house up to legal requirements
• The interior work will cost us $4462 (incl GST) and can be done straight away (they start Thursday)
• The exterior work will require major heavy landscaping work and leaving the walls exposed so the builder will not be able to do this until the Spring. He has told us it will cost approximately $14,175 but they won't know how much it will cost exactly until they dig it out and see the damage.
• These additional (non-insurance) costs are due directly to previous work not being completed correctly which is very frustrating

That's pretty much it for this week. We'll update you again next week.

Cheers

It gets better

So things have gone a bit pear shaped this week. Have decided to break down the updates via the following:

• Plumbing
• Kitchen
• Bathroom
• Carpet
• Insurance
• Engineer
• Other

So updates will come one at a time. We'll try to update more regularly.

OK here goes...

The plumber

We have received a quote from Plumber. Costs will be $3671 excl GST
This includes:

• all new hot and cold pipes
• lagging new connections to sink, toilet basins and bath etc
• new valve set to hot water heater
• new stop tap to unit
• labour

I have asked for a full breakdown of costs but have not received it

This is the first job that needs to be done so work can't commence until we have this

The kitchen

• The choices we have made on the kitchen are outside the insurance allocation
• We have asked for the additional price before downgrading as we may look at adding funds to get this joinery
• The kitchen joinery will be made offsite and moved in once the plumbing, lining etc is done

The bathroom

• The joinery will be the same as the kitchen
• There is no further update at this stage

The carpet

The carpet is currently still with Jae's Cleaning Services and we don't know if it is salvagable.

If it is, it will be cleaned and put back in the house. The underlay was beyond repair and will be replaced. Details of what will happen should it need to be replaced can be found under the 'insurance' post below.

We hope to get an update tomorrow and will let you know

Insurance

At this stage, the insurance appears to be in hand for all the damage as a result of this flood but does not include:

• Fixing the plumbing
• Damage as a result of faulty remedial work
• If the carpet requires replacement, they will only pay for the affected room (the ground floor) and may not cover the stairs and bedrooms.
• We will question this as it would be good to do the same as the paint work and cover the entire stairwell etc

They have said they will also paint the walls in all rooms except bedrooms and upstairs bathroom (ie. including the stairwell). We have asked them to paint it a Resene colour called Quarter Pearl Lusta.

We'll keep you updated on insurance.

The engineer's report

As mentioned in our first post, John The Builder, noticed that there was considerable damage to the outside cladding that looked like it was long term damage and not caused by our flood. He suggested we get an engineers to look at it.

We did this and his news is not good. This is the quote from his Summary Opinion

Summary Opinion

• The construction works both original and repair, have not been carried out in accordance with the New Zealand Standard 3604, the Building Act and its regulations.
• Past remediation works have been carried out without compliance to the Building Code Regulations, and/or competent trade practice.
• Reconstruction shall require compliance with the current Building Code Regulations E2 and B2 which shall mean a complete reconstruction down to the ground floor level slab from the bathroom position to the north east dining room corner.
• The extent of decay viewed including the mould and mould spore deposits within the cavity and to the back sections of kitchen joinery are sufficient to be of a health concern.

He goes on to say:

"As detailed, it is my view that both the original construction and all the remediation work able to be viewed has been quite inappropriate and not at all in accord with either the New Zealand Standards or Building Code requirements or of an appropriate trade standard.

There has been clearly a knowledge that major weathertightness and decay failure has been occurring for some time and the remediation works have neither gone anywhere far enough to appropriately correct and/or remove decayed and damaged timbers. Both the original construction and the subsequent remedial works are in my view well outside the Code and New Zealand standards of the time and I would describe both the original construction and the subsequent remedial works as unbelievable and well outside an appropriate trade standard."

This is very upsetting to us and we are up for considerable cost to fix this. The engineers has advised that we can fix most of this from the inside so the house is liveable but once Spring has come we will need to dig out the path on the east of the house and probably the area outside the kitchen window again to ensure this is fixed correctly.

We have asked for a quote from John Chapman for the completion of this work and we'll let you know when this has arrived. We would also like some information about the remedial work done. If you know, the answers to these questions, please contact us:

• Date of the previous work
• The builder who completed the work
• Any builders consent/permits that were obtained at the time.

We'll let you know when we have more information.

Other

Donald Ward visited the house last weekend and saw that work has progressed. He took these photos. They do a good job of showing the additional long term damage.

We have also put together the video that Geoff took on the first weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI0L1KIGvZE