Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Are you building with Alkira? 79Jul 12, 2016 1:56 pm Forg We're on our 3rd "serious" builder ... and that's Alkira. We've gone further down the path with them than with anyone else. Long boring backstory; loved a display-home (at [url=http://www.homequest.com.au]Homequest at Bella Vista[/url) by a custom builder, it had everything we wanted. Took us 9 months to not think about it & prepare for the plunge ... and meanwhile they went broke. So we started looking around for someone who could build us a light comfy airy eco home; which nobody else will do without charging an arm & a leg, as it turns out. Search for another custom builder resulted in a $1.2m estimate - ack! Decided on a project builder, looked around, got very serious with Rawson Homes, but since giving them the original brief their business seems to have boomed and they no longer want to do something largely custom; which took us 8 months to find-out. So the next round of questions we had for project builders were very very specific; a few builders didn't get back to me for various reasons, but in the end the only two (who did respond) who could/would do what we wanted were Alkira and Jandson Homes. We ended-up with Alkira (thus far) & submitted for tender mid December, no real reason apart maybe from their display homes looking better finished. We're going with a quite-modified Olivia (with the study & spare bedroom of the largest Elyse 15 downstairs, upstairs completely rearranged to have a big lounge & our bedroom facing north, and a separate shed in the back yard). So where we're at is our colour & electricals meetings are next week, kitchen selections the week after, we're awaiting council's driveway-levels and because I've got some unusual requirements for the backyard shed we're awaiting an engineering design on the slab. Floorplan is pretty-much finalised. So far we've been a lot more impressed with their customer service than Rawson. Yes it's taken a long time to get to where we are (faster than Rawson), but the person doing the work on each stage is in contact with us & asking questions, whereas at Rawson that person would either make assumptions or go through the (pleasant but busy) salesdude. I can't say if I can recommend Alkira until we're finished, of course, but it's looking most likely we will build with them (I'd say it was definite we were building with them if we'd not encountered so many extended false-starts before). One comment; their sales people seem empowered to actually give you a price on most things you'd want, so the tender process takes a week or two rather than a few months. Another comment; getting extra stuff done (over standard) does seem to be expensive with them. This could be just because of what extra stuff we're getting (the shed with special slab requirements, double-glazed thermally-broken-frames windows/stackers, Hebel flooring upstairs so we can lay tiles, lots of etc). Depending on what you want, of course, you may not want this "extra stuff"; and their standard designs seem to be fairly solid but expensive ... and example a friend encountered with another builder was being told that removing the upstairs cladding and replacing with brick was an expensive job because the upstairs wall wasn't directly over a downstairs wall so a lot of reinforcing would be needed to cope with the weight of the bricks, yet the Elyse (for example) has upstairs walls not over downstairs ones & comes fully bricked as standard (I'm sure they're not the only builder who builds like that, but it did make me feel a little better than the house sructure wasn't too weak to cope with bricks ). A final comment; don't get too attached to the imported French hardwood flooring in that Elyse 15 at Homeworld ... Oh My it's eye-wateringly expensive (can't recall exactly but $200 per lineal metre rings a bell, and the boards are about a foot wide so if I'm right on that cost it'd come to ~$600/sqm!!). Who is your aerated concrete provider. I had CSR install hebel flooring on my house (which is under construction) and its 75mm thick. Can you please share a photo from ground floor with hebel just being installed on top ? I wanted to see if Alkira provided steel joists or timber joists ? Re: Are you building with Alkira? 80Jul 13, 2016 1:54 pm SoftEng, it was all timber underneath, excepting long spans with brick walls above. Sorry I've got no photos from between the start of the Hebel-install until after the ceiling was installed downstairs. Looking to start the journey of becoming an owner builder in SA. Feeling pretty (overly) confident on the building and construction details, but really struggling to find… 0 8366 No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6587 A question. Im in Queensland and building a new home. We managed to reach practical completion 6 weeks ago but we haven't heard any date for handover yet. Who should we… 0 5733 |