Contract Signing ........ a full day of it!

8th February 2013 was the big Contract Signing day.  After delivering one child to a friends at 8am for Kinder drop off, then 2 more children to another friends for School and Occasional Care Drop Off, we raised over to the Narre Warren office for our 9am Contract Appointment.

This time I came with a stash of chocolates, fruit and beverages to keep our blood sugars well in tact for ALL the information....

To be honest, the day was very full on and frustrating, which is why it is taken me sooo long to get to writing this post.  I nearly forget where we started on the day.

I think we started going through a list of issues we had noted on the plans from when we were at the colours appointment.  We quite quickly hit an issue in that they did not have the prices for us for Casement windows we are wanting to put in the facade instead of awning windows.  DH is dead against awning windows and has been clear about that from the start. It was frustrating as there was 3 weeks between our Tender and Contract and and excuse given that the estimator was away with food poisoning and they were trying to get into his laptop to get the information.  I have to say it is now 10 days later as I write this and I still don't have the pricing!!!!!

We also very much want sliding windows with double-glazing in the remainder of the house (as discussed and written in Tender), however the plans show awning windows.  We were told that the window company can't do double-glazed sliding windows.  This whole window fiasco probably took 1-2 hours of the contract time.  Issues that they could have discussed with us prior to arriving on the day, especially when I emailed them 4 days prior to appointment alerting them to the awning window issue on the plans.  Part of this fiasco was that at Tender, we were told that if we raised the ceiling height of the 2nd storey and put in 500mm high windows, this would alleviate any overlooking issues for us, so therefore we could have the sliding windows.  The window sill needs to be set at minimum 1700mm from floor to avoid this issue.  So at Tender, we agreed that we would go with this solution to get the sliding windows and unobscured glass.  At contract, then told that the window sills were at 1650mm with 600mm high windows and we couldn't make these smaller to the 500mm due to ventilation/light issues.  So by the time we headed off for our lunch break, we were pretty upset with the process.  So much for a 4 hour meeting!

We called Stegbar whilst on the break, they confirmed that the can indeed to double-glazed windows in sliding windows.  Hubby also got their pricing for Casement Windows.  How hard is it PD to give us a price!  

I was given their feedback form to complete whilst on our break - well I had a field day completing that form.  Then one of the Managers had a chat with us and I let him know it all as well!!!

After 2.5 hour break, we were called back upstairs.  Then told that they solved the sliding window issue and we can have 510mm high windows.  Relief from DH at that point.  Still didn't have pricing for Casement windows.

The main time for this appointment was going through questions and issues we had previously identified and could have sorted out before the day.  The actual part of going through the HIA contract was fairly quick.

My husband can't take any more time off work, we needed to get through this all in the day and don't want to hold up application to council.  So we agreed that we would sign the contract and we would do a Post Contract Variation on the types of windows.

We left at 5.00pm very annoyed with how the process went for the day, but happy that things are moving forward...

Stay tuned on how long it takes to get window pricing - I emailed BC today (20 Feb) to chase up............