Area Bulgaria - Destroyed Our Home

Fiction: Unfinished, Fact: Ruined

2010-05-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

After many months, Anne and I have been working hard to make our house 'liveable'. The house is not very well insulated, and it got very cold in the winter months.

In the meantime we have had some communication with the building company owners, Fred and Dilyana Wright, but these 'discussions' never eventuated into anything. Much verbal diarrhea was heard, mostly about how Anne and I are to blame, we moved in too early for the house to be finished, and that the only thing wrong with the house is 'unfinished work'. If that's the case, consider the following:

- The Roof needed to be replaced at a cost of 5000 Euros to prevent major water damage;

- The electrics were dangerous and needed to be replaced;

- The kitchen is useless, and needs to be replaced;

- The swimming pool is now going to cost more to fix than if we purchased a brand new one - it needs to be demolished;

- Heavy wind and rain recently showed that every window and most of the doors in the house leaks, causing huge amounts of water flooding into the house.

If the house "has been rated as the highest technical construction and used as an example by the Bulgarian Chamber of Architects" as the builder claims, and the only problems associated with the house is the final finish - which we prevented from the builder completing by moving in after the house was nearly 12 months overdue - then I invite Dilyana or Fred Wright to put their money were their mouths are, and buy the house at the same price as we paid them.

I'll wager anyone that I hear nothing from either of the Wrights.

We have heard that the owners of Area Bulgaria have closed their renovated office and relocated nearby, funny though it's not called "Area Bulgaria" anymore, but "Right Estate". I wonder what happened to "Area Bulgaria"?

The Pool and the Roof

2009-08-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of days we had to drain the pool since our builder decided to combine electricals and water. Check out our pool tiling job. The white stuff in between the tiles (and all over them) is not just grouting that needs to be wiped off. It has already been scrubbed, and it's stuck on like glue. When I asked the builder about it, when we were discussing how bad the pool was (before he walked off the job) he stated: "It won't come off".

We are having professionals look at the entire house, and they took some photos of the roof. Here you can see there are entire parts of the roof left untiled, and other parts that are so poor they need to be removed. Underneath the tiles is the supporting framework. This needs to be laid straight and uniform, to ensure a proper job in laying the tiles can be completed. This was not the case for our roof, and the frame work is neither straight nor uniform. It all needs to be re-done.

Lighting cables

2009-08-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

It's only a small thing, relative to the rest of the house, but it just goes to show either the ineptitude of our builder, or his lack of monitoring and managing of his unskilled laborours. Nearly all of the lighting cables protrude immediately next to a beam. This makes it difficult to install lighting fixtures. Most builders see these small details, and install lighting cables in an area free of obstructions. This is called forethought. We have had none on our project.

We had hopes that at least one appliance in the kitchen had been installed correctly, but when the electrician was checking the power, we found the dishwasher had been placed under the benchtop without installing any of the plumbing.

More victims from Area Bulgaria

2009-08-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

It seems this builder has not gone awry just with my project. I am starting to receive videos and pictures from other unhappy ex Area Bulgaria customers. It's just heartbreaking to see how other peoples renovations have been left by this builder.

We have a professional roofing expert coming today, and preliminary reports seem to indicate that the news will not be good. I have heard there are whole sections of our roof left untiled, with nothing but plastic sheeting exposed to the elements.

After living in the house for two weeks, I have found that there really is nothing, nothing at all that can be described as finished in a satisfactory way. The only thing that looks terrific is the fireplace, or should I say, hole in the living room, as it's not functional - there is no dampener, and no fireplace engineer was utilised when it was built. "It's decorative only" states the builder. What home owner wants a fireplace they can't use?

The house has been earthed now, thanks to our Qualified Electrician, so we are safe from being zapped in an electrical storm. The pool is being drained today to fix the unsafe pool electricals. We are also having a pool expert tell us about the structural integrity of the pool, and what it would cost to fix up that mess!

Missing Windows and Ethernet Ports

2009-08-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

Our builder, in all his wisdom, decided that a luxurious house needs all the mod cons. Se he decided to put ethernet ports in all the rooms. All these cables need to terminate at a router, and the builder decided that this point would be a little shelf above the door to the master bedroom, rather than a utility room, or at least a cupboard somewhere!

Interestingly, when attempting to connect devices to the ports in all the rooms, I found most of them not working. Upon looking at how the cables were patched into the point, it was clearly obvious that the person who patched these cables new nothing about what they were doing. A new chore is to re-patch every point in the house. Unfortunately, the housing for these points is missing, so it makes it very difficult to plug them back into the wall - they are mostly being held there by the plaster, not screws.

As an architect, builder and project manager, one would normally notice when a window goes missing. But not ours. Check out the photo and the plans below. This could be one of those 'Spot the difference' cartoons in a newspaper, only this is the reality of our house. Is this the builder you want doing your new house or renovations?

(Hint: Look at the last window on the right on the 3rd floor).

The pool and appliances

2009-08-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we discovered another gamut of problems. The pool was leaking. We knew that already, but what we found out was that it was leaking via the pool light electrical cables. It seems when the lights were installed, one was cracked. It filled with water when the pool was filled, and the water has filled the light and the electrical conduit. No one either noticed this, or did anything about it. We now have to empty the pool, and have the light's removed, and filled in. This is a brand new pool, with a hopelessly terrible finish. I can only imagine what the report will say when we have a structural engineer look at it.

We also found that our new appliances have been fitted with plugs that look like they are pre the Great War. This photograph is of a plug that came off the brand new oven. It's reminiscent of the rusted drain that was installed into the downstairs bathroom.

For some ridiculous reason, the builder had sensors installed in the staircase. Not only did they not work properly, they were installed poorly, and I have attached a photo of the back of a sensor for your enjoyment. Instead of threading the cable through the bottom left hole, the builder had a new hole gouged in the base of the sensor. This is typical of this whole house.

I wonder what we will find today.....

Area Bulgaria Destroyed My Home

2009-08-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

This blog is describe the problems we are having with our new house that was build by Area Bulgaria in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, since we moved in.

My wife and I were planning to move into our home in December 2008, but due to many issues, the builder delayed us, but promised we could move in March 2009.

Our home was promised to be 'turnkey', one that we could simply pick up the keys and 'relax in our new luxurious home'

After arriving in March and finding a building site and not a home, we were continually delayed until we moved in August 2009. Below are the pictures of our 'turnkey luxurious home'

http://picasaweb.google.com/adrian.mollenhorst/AreaBulgariaConstruction?feat=directlink