29 November 2010

Builder Rubbishes Canberra

| ArandaBill
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building debris

The leafy suburb of Aranda is undergoing a rennovation building boom. However, this has been accompanied by a build up of builders rubbish, some of which addorns footpaths and front gardens for months on end (see attached photo).

What is happening in your suburb? Is this standard Canberra builder practice or just an environmentally unfriendly practice of a minority of builders?

What is the ACT Government or Master Builders Association doing to clean up their act?

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Been down this path.

Builder had a skip, removed the rubbish, well done.

Just be aware that neighbours may (and have) deposited dead pets in the skip. A couple of weeks until it’s emptied does the nose no good at all.

Our builder last year insisted on a skip, no matter what. There was no hire fee for the skip, although it was near $300 each time it was emptied. I’d periodically clean the bigger items onto my personal truck and sort/ dispose of them myself. Got away with paying for about 4 skips instead of 15 (lots of internal demo work, bricks and windows etc).

I’m with the OP. Its not just wood and steel. There’s plastic wrapping, insulation, bubble wrap, screws and nails. Builders like this avoid using expensive skips, they then get a couple of apprentices to load one of their own small tippers when there’s time to spare, and take it to the tip at a fraction of the cost. I doubt the savings are passed onto the customer either.

Write to the MBA. Not that they will do anything, as they always support their builders. You’re right: that mess should not be there; it is all building debris. The builder should be cleaning as he goes along. Unfortunately, I think it’s typical of tradesmen and builders here in Canberra–money-grubbing, greedy and unethical. The building industry here in Canberra is a boys’ club whose motto is ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. Write to Simon Corbell. The more letters the government gets about these grubs, the more likely something will be done.

I’m surprised no one has said this yet. To quote the King:
“Well you said you were High Class, that was just a lie
Well you said you were hHigh Class, that was just a lie
Well you ain’t never caught a rabbit,
You ain’t no friend of mine.”

I had a mate in the building supplies industry who used to hate dealing with these people. He had no end of grief from their secretary / supplies orderer who used to ring up abusing him and complaining about the supplies they ordered. He told me many a time that they had champange tastes but insisted on paying with a beer budget then whinged about the results. Eventually he refused to deal with them they were that abusive. I myself ran some deliveries for him, yeah, not nice people to deal with. I am amazed they are still in business.

vg said :

“Second of all, it is not the builders problem to deal with waste removal”

How much do you wanna bet?

Depends if they’re contracted to remove the rubbish. If not, most builders will state in the contract that they will undertake to pile the rubbish centrally for the owner to arrange disposal. Looks like that’s happened here. Gotta admit it’s bad advertising for Hiclass though!

I would hate looking at that trash whatever suburb I’m in and I dont get the hostility to the OP. I imagine that the dust and plastic blowing around would indeed have some environmental impact but it is probably outweighed by the sheer visual impact. I suspect that the “cl” in their name is meant to be silent.

Having dealt with this mob before … “Hi-Class” is a misnomer of the highest degree. I am unsurprised that their site looks like a tip …

georgesgenitals2:22 pm 29 Nov 10

indigoid said :

Aye, but they’d save themselves a bunch of effort if they’d got a skip delivered BEFORE generating all the rubbish. By not getting a skip at the beginning they now have to move all the rubbish twice rather than once. Fools

Depends on how the skip is priced. It wouldn’t be free to have it for four weeks instead of half a day (which is more than it will take for the apprentice and/or labourers to pick it up and toss it in the skip).

“Second of all, it is not the builders problem to deal with waste removal”

How much do you wanna bet?

Come on, how hard is it for the builder to hire the skip BEFORE they start work? I’d be pissed off to either have to do it myself, or pay the builder more money to chuck it all into a skip when it should have been done as the work was progressing.

Aye, but they’d save themselves a bunch of effort if they’d got a skip delivered BEFORE generating all the rubbish. By not getting a skip at the beginning they now have to move all the rubbish twice rather than once. Fools

Solidarity said :

First of all, how is it “environmentally unfriendly”, it’s a bunch of wood and metal.

Second of all, it is not the builders problem to deal with waste removal, unless they are contracted to do it. Seems to me like the owner hasn’t arranged waste removal.

Third of all, quit your whinging, it’ll be gone by the time the project is completed.

Exactly!

Solidarity said :

Third of all, quit your whinging, it’ll be gone by the time the project is completed.

Andrew Barr – is that you??? 🙂

georgesgenitals12:10 pm 29 Nov 10

Solidarity said :

First of all, how is it “environmentally unfriendly”, it’s a bunch of wood and metal.

Second of all, it is not the builders problem to deal with waste removal, unless they are contracted to do it. Seems to me like the owner hasn’t arranged waste removal.

Third of all, quit your whinging, it’ll be gone by the time the project is completed.

+1. Welcome to building/renovating.

The sign as rubbish bin is classy – sorry – hi class.

That little pile is nothing though. In Dickson as they build unit blocks they park about 4 trucks on and around the poor nature strip trees and footpath, dig mega pits around the tree and fill with old gravel etc, as well as the general piles of rubble, then while the poor street tree withers up, they put up for sale signs with ‘lovely location in leafy tree lined street’ .

If Aranda is still only getting single property renos, then count yourself lucky.

Solidarity said :

First of all, how is it “environmentally unfriendly”, it’s a bunch of wood and metal.

Quite right. I suspect it’s more of an eyesore for Arandabill than an environmental hazard unless the hazard is not shown in the photo. Is the work completed? How does it look? If the work isn’t completed, I would suggest any complaints would be premature.

DeadlySchnauzer11:17 am 29 Nov 10

What you should really be doing is thanking these people for increasing the value of real estate in your suburb. Once they clear away the rubbish that is.

ConanOfCooma10:56 am 29 Nov 10

Any good tradie worth his salt cleans and disposes of the rubbish they generate.

I like how they are using the signs as a retaining wall for their rubbish.

colourful sydney racing identity10:46 am 29 Nov 10

What is the ACT GOV or the MBA doing about it? What have you done about it? Have you complained to anyone other than the good folks of RA?

First of all, how is it “environmentally unfriendly”, it’s a bunch of wood and metal.

Second of all, it is not the builders problem to deal with waste removal, unless they are contracted to do it. Seems to me like the owner hasn’t arranged waste removal.

Third of all, quit your whinging, it’ll be gone by the time the project is completed.

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