Building the Waldorf Grange by Porter Davis

I certainly hope so. It would be great to go to site and have smooth sailing after that as much as possible. I will be showing our site supervisor the notes on your blog to hopefully avoid some of the things you had to go through. If they know in advance it may make our build process smoother.

Bummer babe that sucks It's even more frustrating that they don't elaborate on WHY they reject things instead of just saying 'no good' with no explanation of what they actually want, you'd think it'd be common sense to tell people what's wrong so they can amend it to their liking. Fingers crossed you get an answer quickly and get on site ASAP.

I emailed a tried to call a few times today but couldn't get through to the council. Will try again tomorrow.

Hello Folks, I am looking for some tips on inspection companies. I saw the name Darbecca here and I wrote to them (thanks!). They have quoted me a seperate price for each stage and I have asked them to give me a total package price.

Question1: Are they some sort of an expert for Waldorf Grange 50 houses? That would be good, if they are.
Question2: Do you have other inspection companies you can recommend?
Question3: Don't you need to inspect all aspects of the building? Or you make choices, lets check the roof but not the slab? Question4: Can the inspection company help you check the contract?
Question5: I also saw that you could ask the inspection company to liase with PD directly to fix defects. Is this what they normally do or its a special request or a favour?

I am working overseas and by the time I return home for good, it will be Oct. I think the site start is estimated to be June - we can also expect delays. But the point is that we won't be able to go and check on the site regularly. My wife does not drive and even if her friends give her a lift, it won't be that too often that she visits the site. Therefore getting a reliable inspection company is important for me and that they provide the full package of services and if possible even more. At least they can act as my eyes on the ground. What do you think? Looking forward to some tips for my questions!

Hey Obi.wan,

I will answer your questions to the best of my ability

Question 1 - Darbecca are not Waldorf grange experts they just very thorough and well known for being very good as such most people on this forum seem to use them. They give very very detailed reports and provide photographic evidence and the relevant building

Question 2 - other companies are out there... I wouldn't go with them, pay the money for Darbecca and you will not be disappointed. For example porter davis provide "included" inspections they found 11 items on our house, Darbecca found over 40.

Question 3 - This is your decision and come down to how many inspections you want done... We have employed Darbecca for the following

Slab
Frame
Lockup
Fixing+ waterproofing
PCI (haven't had his one yet)

These are the main stages that "most people get" and include a thorough going over of the whole building.

I hope this is an answer to the question you asked.

Question 4 - Waldorf_grange_build is the best one to ask about the contract inspection with Darbecca as they got them to inspect the contract

Question 5 - The process goes like this
You get Darbecca in, they inspect the house
You then get an emailed copy of the report (usually the night of the inspection)
You then send this report to your site supervisor wth a formal request to fix all the defects listed.

Finally, we have used Darbecca and I would 100% recommend them my site supervisor even told me that he recommends them to his family friends because he knows how much of a pain in the *** they are about what he calls "little" issues.

Any more questions I'm more than happy to help

We have council approval! Have just updated the blog https://waldorfgrangebuild.wordpress.co ... -approval/

Congrats!! Wonderful!! How exciting!!

Won't be long now till you get on site, looking forward to seeing your build progress, if all goes well we could possibly be neighbours by xmas :D:D woooooooohooooooooooooooooooo

We have only used Darbecca so far for the contract inspection as we have not yet started our build. But in saying that we found them to be very thorough. They met and went through every page with a fine tooth comb for approx. three hours.

We will definitely be using them for the other stages of the build as bd3watson has done.

Once we are appointed a site supervisor we will be sharing the information from bd3watson's blog so as to try to pre-empt some of the things that needed fixing/changing.

We're getting inspections through Darbecca as well, going to have all stages inspected as I feel it's money well spent.

I really hope we are in by Christmas. We have a big Christmas every year with four generations coming together. I'd love to host it at the new house this year.

How exciting. When do you commence building?

Yes a small price to pay really in comparison to the value of the house. Good for peace of mind and saves problems popping up later after you've been living in the house for a while.

Not sure yet. I will touch base with the builder Monday to see if they can give me a site start date.

Great news, Happy Friday!

How long is your build time in your contract? Ours is 196 days, this includes allowance for wet days, holidays, Tradie RDO's etc.

I just looked up our contract and it says 266 days.

Seems about right, ours is single storey so shouldn't take as long.

So 266 days from now puts us towards the end of November. So hopefully we are still in by Christmas. I suppose if it is a dry winter then we may be in sooner.

And that also includes around 15 days for the Christmas break which obviously they won't be using as you should be finished before then.

Just read the fineprint and it allows 28 days for Christmas break in ours so should be even earlier