hi mocha20111 - would you mind giving contact details for your building inspector and how much did he charge.
not long to go now for you to move to your lovely house.

CC101,check your inbox..

Hey guys we have had our pre-handover done but prior to that someone seems to have stepped on the ceiling board in the garage and it has large cracks. Speaking to the SS on pre-handover day he mentioned they would fix but not replace it. Would you make a fuss to get it replaced?
Everything has been good apart from the fridge recess space that we had issues with but Jemima stepped in and helped me sort it out.
I feel it is a new house and why should I have a patched up ceiling?

Hi Johnny.

Sorry to hear about the cracks. So you've raised this with your SS? I can do a bit of investigating as to what 'fix' means - or did they clarify this with you already?

I do agree that you should of course feel completely satisfied with your home when you move in - so let me look into this for you and I'll be back with an update either today by 5pm, or tomorrow by 2pm.

Let me know if they're any other details I should be aware of before I speak to your CLO and SS.

Best regards,

Jemima.

The SS did clarify that they would put wood on the top side and nail the cracked parts then fill up the cracks, sand it back and re-paint. He mentioned that we would not even know that it was cracked. My past experience tells me that with time the crack will re-appear (it could be 5 years or even less). Who would be liable to fix the work then? If I would get a guarantee that Dale would fix it in writing than I am happy for them to do it that way.

I just feel that it is a new house and so the ceiling should be replaced. I can send you the picture later on in the evening.

Hello Johnny.

I totally understand your concerns. I've spoken to your CLO and she is aware of this as I think you have emailed her directly about it? She says she is speaking to your SS ASAP to discuss and will contact you to provide updates. Let me know how it goes and if you have any further queries or do not feel it has been resolved just get in touch.

Best regards,

Jemima.

Hi Jemima,

Just got word from my CLO that the ceiling will be replaced and re-flushed early next week.

You are a super star. Thank heavens we have you here as the backup.

Johnny_Franklin

No problem! Glad to be of assistance and very happy for you that the ceiling is being replaced.

Have a great weekend.

Jemima.

Thanks Jemima... you too have a great weekend and everyone else

I second that. She makes our voice heard.

I wish Jemima was around when our build was happening!

I still don't understand why it has to get to this stage though; why do people need to say something in the public domain to have an issue sorted when they have already spoken to their CLO or SS and nothing gets done? It doesn't make sense that a company allows it to get this far!

Oceanus2 - I totally agree with you. We had a change with CLO the previous one was at least trying but the current one does not even bother to try. I am really glad that we are about to come to an end or else I would have requested a change in CLO. I do not have any issues with the builder but I guess every person is different.

Jemima - you have been a saviour

I'd just say the building industry is -just- catching onto social media and he power of public forums like this. I'm sure it's a case of them trying to get away with stuff like that and assume it doesn't go any further and when it does... Well it gets actioned like this was. Just can't wait until we can do it on twitter in front of they guy and say 'well head office says different'

Hi Everyone,

Long time lurker whose decided to take the plunge and post.

Currently building a modified Reflection design with DAH. Have previously built with DAH and enjoyed that experience so it was a no brainer in choosing them again when we decided to build again.

Background story on where we currently are and how we go there.

Back in August 2011, we were looking at building a home with a Poppy flat attached and our Sales Consultant (SC) came up with some designs he thought would suit us. There was the Hampton which had the Poppy flat incorporated under the main roof. We played around with this design but were unhappy with the frontage. Visited the Archipelago display and fell in love with that. Once again the Poppy flat was incorporated under the main roof. The Poppy Flat area looked better than the first design but it still didn't quite hit the spot. During this time we visited the Reflection display and quite liked that design. I'm sure our SC was getting sick of our procrastinating, but we thought, we're building this as our future home for the next 10-20 years, got to get it right. So with scissors and glue in hand, I got the Reflection design and went to work.

We have most of the Reflection design with a few key changes. We got the Archipelago frontage and kitchen. (We managed to score the stacking windows as shown at the display as a carrot from our SC). Added a storage to the garage. Got rid of the Activity, moved Bed 4 across and extended the Alfresco so that it's now an upside down L shape. The Poppy flat to the back has its own Bedroom, Ensuite, Living Room and fully functional Kitchen. The Poppy Flat has its own veranda that will overlook the future pool. We installed stacker doors from the living to the alfresco area, but had to leave a column in the corner as support. Could have removed it but it would have tripled the cost and wouldn't include fly screens. Removed one of the brick columns from the alfresco so that it wouldn't interfere with the view of the pool area. Finally in the Bathroom we removed the bath (wife thinks it's a dust collector) and added a second vanity. (We have two girls).

So we finally had a design that was good to go. I have to admit that our SC was good during this process and was very patient while a design was knocked out. The only negative was at the end of Aug and Sep, he did get a bit pushy for us to sign up before the end of the month otherwise we would miss out on promotions etc. Trying to meet sales targets I guess.

Well, we did eventually sign up towards the end of Sep 2011. So the whole process took close to two months. I thoroughly recommend that people take their time and make sure you have exactly what you want. Even now I think of minor things that I would change. Our designs are up to Variation 6 I think. DAH have been very accommodating during this time.

Design consultation and Prestart went well. As this is the 4th home I've built not too many surprises apart from how the cost of everything has doubled since I last built in 2005.

Well the pad was laid in Apr and the brick work is due for completion towards the end of May. It's good to see everything taking shape and to actually visualise it all. As I mentioned earlier, even at this stage you think "Wish I thought of that.."

Overall, it's been an enjoyable experience, but.., and there's always a but. A couple of minor annoyances.

First one which I mentioned earlier was the big push to sign up before the end of the month. Annoying? Yes, but understandable.

Secondly and this is probably out of DAH's hands. We are getting full wall tiling to the Enuite 1 and 2, Bathroom and WC. We selected a Matt 300 x 600 Non rectified wall tile. Received a call from our CLO stating that these were no longer in stock and that we had to select another tile. Go to the three suppliers that DAH uses. Nope no one has a Matt 300 x 600 non rectified wall tile. Found a supplier that DAH doesn't use that had our tiles. Apparently this option would cost us an extra $3500 even after we got a credit back from DAH.

So our choices:

[*]Gloss non rectified 300 x 600 wall tiles (Wife not keen as hard to keep clean)
[*]Matt rectified 300 x 600 wall tiles (A lot more $'s to lay and prep)
[*]Wait and see if DAH's suppliers come up with another matt non rectified 300 x 600 wall tile.

As we still have a bit of time before tiling needs to start, we've chosen the 3rd option.

So there you go. Sorry for the long winded post and hopefully someone can find something useful here.

Happy building

Hi there polack - welcome to the DAH group - even though I finished building I'm still around on H1 keeping in touch and reading through the threads.

You made me curious so would you mind posting your plan? sounds pretty exciting with the poppy flat and the changes.

Wondering as well if you got the promotions from DAH at the time of signing?

Hi Bagheera,

Yeah we got the pay for two get four promotion. We selected the aggregate, painting, carpets and the lighting package. Soon after we signed they added things like Air conditioning and Credit for prestart to the promotion.

Being new here, how do you go about posting an image or a copy of my plan?

oh ok - you need to register with Photobucket (it is free) and upload your images - then copy the Image link into your post.

The image link will show when you hover your mouse over the photo you just uploaded - there will be a few link paths listed below the photo but if you copy and paste the image one the photos will open directly in your post. Hope this makes sense

See if this works

[ img ]

Yes it does work - wow - very nice use of space polack. Love the flow and the size of your WIR Everything seems to be quite spacious - can't wait to follow your build.

I asked you about getting the promotion running at the time as I got screwed by DAH on this. My house is a combination of two of their plans. Due to the size of my land none of their standard plans would fit on it so I did the same exercise, pair of scissors and glue and played with a couple of their plans – went to one of their display home and chatted with their sales rep and he wanted us to come to their office and discuss what we want. We went and he was very enthusiastic about the plan, took our glued up plan, put it in a draft and they called it "special". When it came to the details the sales rep told us that we don't qualify to get the promotion. It was around $6.5K or around that figure worth of upgrades for $950 - glass splashback, pull out bin in the kitchen, integrated dishwasher and microwave and probably something else which I don't remember now. Well I hope he chokes on it because even though we insisted, he was very adamant that he can't give us the promotion... So I ended up paying for the glass splashback and the pull out kitchen bin.

Feel like naming and shaming the bu...gger

I think I scared everybody away Don't mind me polak - I'm harmless