Its been a couple of weeks since we last posted anything, as we have been waiting to hear what Porter Davis would do regarding the painted staircase (people where on holiday, and waiting to hear from their bosses etc ....). To cut to the chase, they will replace the whole staircase (we will inform them not to paint or stain any part of the staircase.

We turned up at the house expecting to see the tiling complete (as we had spoken with the site supervisor on Monday, who was with the tiler at the time). No tiling has been done :-? Is this because the staircase will be replaced or the wrong tiles have been delivered, only time will tell.

Onto the 'problems' they all fall into the same problem : sealing against the weather!

The seals between the brickwork have not been fitted in here (on the step at the front door here).

The same thing with the garage join to the house and over the garage door. Its hard to see on this photo, but the next you can see light through the wall.

Here we are inside the garage: There should be a seal in between the brickwork here.

Its a little strange that they have not sealed the garage against the weather when they have plastered the roof area (including cornicing)! All it will need is heavy driven rain and they will be replacing the plaster roof.......

We have to assume the builders know what they are doing and that there wont be any rain blown in.

The next two photos show another 'rain related' problem. There are two down pipes to take the rain from the roof and then into the storm water drainage system. Unfortunately there is no drain anywhere near the downpipes, so we can only guess that more digging will be needed to put the drainage system in. Also on the back of the house I am not sure there is a downpipe on the house plans, time to check the plans once again.

The fact that these two downpipes do not lead into a drain is concerning: we had to pay extra for a specific slab 'upgrade' one of the details of the slab is the ground has to slope away from the foundations as water straight onto the slab will be a problem (will have to check the details and "ask" if the water pouring onto/under the slab will be a problem (if its not, is it because its not the slab we paid for)....

The bench top has now been installed in the kitchen, pantry, and bathrooms.

The paintwork has now been finished (there are a few places where they will

need to get scaffold into reach the areas) and obviously when they take the

stairs out they will need to paint around that area again.

The pantry sink has now been installed. we are still wondering when they will start to get some of the electrical work done ! It seems to be the hard way to do this, everything nicely painted now they have to cut holes through the plasterwork (ceilings and walls) to find the electrical cables?

Laundry : As stated above, the plaster work and painting has been finished

and now they have had to cut quite big holes in the plaster to find the pipes

(slightly larger objects to find than a speaker wire), we will be checking on

the holes they cut out to fit the electrical components.

Tiles have arrived (are they the correct tiles)? are they still packed

as the tiler does not want to start until the staircase is finished ?

Next week we will have to see, the staircase will take approx. 3 weeks

to deliver ....... Delays ?

To confirm they will have trouble locating pipes and electrical work, look at the size of the hole they have cut through the shower wall to get to the pipe work, lets hope they do some repair work on this hole, paint the repair with the 'blu sealant' before the tiling.

The last problem one of the floor boards upstairs needs to be replaced as it is broken you can feel it move/bend when you stand on it.