Day 5 - October 2nd (Day 1 of 65 - inclement weather Day 1)

Today the builder was not onsite. When I spoke with the site supervisor on Thursday, he indicated that they might come onsite on the weekend... but this really depended on the weather.

I got this from http://www.weatherzone.com.au/long-range-forecast/28-day-rain/qld/brisbane

I haven't seen this amount of wet weather in a long time.17 out of 30 days with a high chance of rainfall. Hopefully they get enough time to get the roof on, so they can continue inside, out of the weather! 

I thought I would go through the building period today. It states:

" The works must reach practical completion within 180 days after commencement, subject to Clause 17.

(a) Calculable delays

The building period includes the following allowances for:

* Inclement weather and the effects of inclement weather.  10 days

* Weekends, public holidays, rostered days off and other days not generally available for the carrying out of the works. 55days

* Any other matter that is reasonably likely to delay the carrying out of the works. 0 days.

(b) Incalculable delays

The works will be delayed due to the following specific causes of delay that the builder cannot adequately estimate the period of likely delay:

          

1. Material or Trade Shortages                         

 If experienced may delay the work for a period of time. In the instance where owner supplied work and /or material has been approved by the builder work may be delayed for a period of time

2.  Owner Supplied Work and /or Materials

Incalculable delays include things like obtaining a specific imported material (such as marble cladding) that the builder knows is subject to the vagaries of international shipping.

The building period stated above is the total of the allowances for calculable delays and the allowance for carrying out the works. The building period is in calendar days and not working days."

Clause 17 of the General conditions then goes on to spell out in specific detail what is a claimable delay. Interestingly, it also mentions that a calculable delay is "the industry being shutdown for a 3 week period commencing on or about 22 December in each year". The building period will go over the Christmas - New year period. 

If they take annual leave from the 22nd of December, 21 days (3 weeks) takes them to the end of the 11th of January. From what I can tell, in order to meet the 180 days and only use 55 days for time off, they are going to have to work on the weekends for at least one of the days for all but 12 of the weeks (21 weekends not including the 3 weeks holidays - leaves 12 days).

I suspect they are really going to need to get as much done as possible, as what will happen is they will run out of delays with the time off at the end of the year. From what I have seen on other sites, it appears that the builders come in once the building has a roof on.

I have started a calendar to track the progress. I'll leave it here: