Well, I think I do. Why?
Almost 3 months ago, a young lad after a big night out managed to run his big ute into my house and garage causing structural damage. The insurance company, pleading Qld and Victorian disasters took quite a while to assess the claim. They finally provided me with the scope of works proposed by the builder’s assessor, that included demolishing two garage pillars and one porch pillar. I accepted that scope and gave them the go-ahead to engage the builder to fix it. Now it gets sad.
The Siemsen Group who have the job, after almost five weeks, have not yet started work. They have sent a couple of tradies around to look at aspects of the job. I have phoned them and emailed them a number of times to discuss timing and scope and have had no response whatsoever.
A brickie turned up last Thursday and advised that he would be doing the job this week. After a quick look at the job, he told me that only one pillar would need demolishing and rebuilding and the others could be somehow patched.
I’m not happy. I accept that the brickie probably knows how to lay bricks, but I’m not so sure he is qualified to make an assessment of the structural integrity of the project. In light of my discussions with the other tradies that have turned up, they seem to have very diverse views of what part of the job they’re doing, and I am now not at all confident that the project is being managed in any coherent way.
I have a friend who is a builder, but unfortunately he lives in Tasmania. However, I sent him some photos of the damage, and his strong advice is that a structural engineer should be assessing the project. I think that’s sound advice, and I intend to take it.
So, can anyone recommend a structural engineer?
And no, I’m not feeling lucky…
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