Simple Job Became A Long Tale Of Woe
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday April 23, 1989
MID-April marked the 11th month of an estimated six-week alteration job to my terrace house in North Sydney.
When I mentioned this at a dinner party on Saturday night, people fell about laughing - then clamoured for the right to tell their own particular horror story about the competence or rapacity of the Australian tradesperson.
My troubles started last May when I was contemplating beginning the work and engaged an architect who was young and eager - but who also, with the arrogance of youth, believed in the divine right of architects. Clients, he indicated, were just an unwelcome necessity.
He added in his plans a balcony I did not want, redesigned the layout of a kitchen I work in comfortably and well, and placed a toilet - the principal object of the whole exercise - on the opposite side of the house to where I wanted it.
Oh, yes. He also failed to file the building application with the local council at the same time as the development application, although he had been warned by Harry, the brickie (our local treasure who does most of the odd-job work around here), that this was customary to avoid delays. The result was an immediate six-week holdup.
But Harry had gone ahead with the demolishing work, anticipating council approval - which meant that the entire two-storey back of my terrace was open to the weather all last June.
Luckily it didn't rain in my part of North Sydney while the house was open, but it was pretty inconvenient. Harry, an amiable and competent tradesman who migrated from Holland 25 years ago, did his best but I had to cope with temporary walls in the kitchen, breakfast room and upstairs study.
The enforced respite did, however, give me time to begin organising the workforce; the architect having withdrawn from the fray, signifying his disapproval of me, as well as his unwillingness to roll up his sleeves and work with tradesmen.
And for the first time there was the stunning realisation that I would have to deal with 15 different tradesmen or council authorities - the bricklayer, of course, plus a carpenter, a drainlayer, a plumber, renderers (God, they're dirty), carpet-layers, a plasterer, a glazer, painters, the electrician and his mate (most obliging chaps), tilers and a paver - as well as Telecom, and the council and water board inspectors.
Innocent that I am, I was also stunned by the extent of our cash society, and the need always to have plenty of $50 and $100 notes on hand for instant bargaining.
A quote from a tradesman working from home, I found, will automatically be discounted by 10 per cent for cash. Some tradesmen - especially from the southern Mediterranean - may eventually be beaten down 15 or 20 per cent.
But Alf, an old Aussie battler, had a different style. A carpenter recently retired, he quoted an hourly rate, payable daily, and was meticulous in keeping a record of his work, which eventually spread, two or three days a week, over two months.
Alf spent a good hour each day "setting up" - making a mitre board or laying out the timber and tools to his liking - so some quite minor jobs seemed to go on and on. He was also planning his next trip overseas and liked to talk about it.
I found it difficult to schedule tradespeople so that work could proceed smoothly. The electrician, for instance, needed to lay wiring before the plasterboard man, work in with the carpenter and then come back again after the painter had finished.
Shortly before Christmas, and into our seventh month, Harry left for a family reunion in Holland. A day or so later, Alf suggested that with Harry gone there was no one supervising the work of the other tradesmen - at this stage a plasterer and the electricians - and he would do so for a modest $1 extra an hour.
Adding up accounts recently, I was surprised to see that his small daily payments total far more than I had realised.
By and large, I'm reasonably happy with the extensions, which should be finished as soon as the painters return in a couple of weeks. It's just the exasperation over the time it took, the inconvenience, the occasional display of incompetence (the carpet people measured up wrongly) and the mess they all left in both house and garden.
And it seemed such a simple job at the time.
My horror story is about the young, clean-cut Australian hired to pave my small courtyard and carport. He was chosen because of the excellent work at his own home, but alarm bells started going off when he failed to turn up three Sundays in a row (this was before Christmas) "because of a hangover".
As soon as it began to rain (it started at Christmas, you may remember) the work in the carport collapsed, and when Harry lifted the paving up, we found the paver had demolished a stormwater drain in order to make his job easier.
By then the paver and his girlfriend were overseas. He had completed the work, unfortunately, while I was out of town, and a friend who was house-minding relented and paid him when he told her he was leaving on his honeymoon before I got back.
Three months later we tracked him down, but he just laughed in his clean-cut way and said it was "too bad". Fortunately Harry was on hand to patch up the work.
Contributions to this column are welcome. Please phone Jenna Price on 2822935 to discuss your ideas.
HOME ALTERATIONS
Total cost of renovations (NSW, 87-88): $454 million
Most common jobs: New kitchens, bathrooms, extensions
Average waiting time: Six months
Housing and construction workers (Aust): 600,000
Most common complaints:
Ignoring specifications, delays, slowness
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald