Isabela House (Construction Log 34) Project Completion Today?
In contrast the separate local teams we are managing have made excellent progress with both the perimeter wall and the backfill of the yard. Most of the material for the perimeter wall and railings has now been purchased so we labour costs in the main to pay for now.
In the case of the backfill, due to the recent hike in gasolene prices, a truckload of embankment earth has increased from P1,500 to P1,600, but in the case of the supplier we use this also includes delivery. Some suppliers want more for delivery as they have to hire a truck to do it, which seems a little odd. Anyway, Nelson shopped around but all the suppliers had moved their prices up at the same time. Today the backfill team was spreading and compacting the three loads delivered yesterday and tomorrow we will have a further 10 loads delivered for the front yard.
As with the wall we are meeting material and labour costs for the backfill directly and Nelson is supervising all the work. This leaves Northcon to concentrate on the main project.
Northcon continue to struggle to find sufficient workers in Patul as they rely on casual labour to a large extent. Only a small element of the workforce is employed directly by them. The remainder are sub-contractors like those doing the roof of Mangligot. Apparently there is another project in the area which is acting as a magnet for the casual labourers so painters and other skills are in short supply and some men are asking for P2,000 advances before they will come to work on our project.
So far we have not experienced these kinds of labour difficulties with the perimeter wall or backfill but men working on them are are also people who the family knows well so that gives us a great advantage relationshipwise.
We formally rejected the Mangligot roof today as some of the panel connections are shoddily cut and have not been fully matched to the shape of the roof. This has left larger gaps between panels than is acceptable to us. I took photographs this morning of the worst areas and when we visited the site again this afternoon the contractor had placed a cover over them to conceal the problem. So I the advised the architect and supervisor that we will not accept the roof as it stands. The problem areas will have to be replaced and will require our approval before they can be covered with cappings.
We had similar problems with the earlier roof truss welding and the locally purchased steel used for the spiral staircase and the security grilles. To be fair to Northcon, they had reached the same conclusion about what had been produced and resolved both problems immediately. We have requested their attention to this latest glitch and have already been assured by the architect and supervisor that all substandard roofwork will be replaced.
The third billing from Northcon has also been rejected as the level of accomplishment they are claiming is not matched by what we can see with our own eyes. We have to be more confident in Northcon’s ability to deliver this project to an acceptable quality level by mid-May, which assumes they use all of the 45 day extension we have granted them.
At present we think even mid-May will prove to be a challenging target for Northcon given the degree of incompleteness in many areas of both houses. As an established national construction company we expect them to deliver a quality project on time regardless of any difficulties they may be experiencing with local workers and sub-contractors. After all, project management is supposed to be an area of expertise for them. So let’s see it!
After an early morning phone conversation with Northcon’s boss we were reassured that the project was still on course for a 15 May completion and there seemed to be an immediate step up in energy and the numbers of workers at the site. The new roofers have been fired and the original roofers are back to correct the mistakes their successors made. In view of this very evident step up we approved the payment of the third billing. There is one more to go which should not be until completion, subject of course to there being no defects.
