Porter Davis homes

It was a little longer than 3 months (by a week or 2 maybe), but we had been called to schedule the inspection within 3 months. Some of our issues had been identified at PCI but not recified, but they were minor things and we were comfortable waiting given we had evidence (the PCI report) that they said they were going to do those things. I know not everyone shares our lax attitude though, and that's fair - these things should have been done. Of course, if they don't get done now we will be more insitent.

Hi All,

I thought I would post on how this all went.

Monday our roof was installed, On Tuesday all the roof capping was completed and the framer had been back and resolved all the frame issues, He had also installed our Entrance doorway of which the side light was smashed (not worried as this can be fixed at any stage) I also had a chat with the SS and he advised that he is trying to organise the plumber to come back and fix issues but they are waiting on tap fittings first. I did ask when he'll be back and he said he wasn't sure at this stage.

We also spoke about the sliding door and the paint being chipped, and he said that they will replace the fascia on it (it easily unscrews I had no idea!). On looking at this the next day I realised that the tilers had dropped a roof tile on the inside of the door and scratched the frame where it can't be easily replaced, the SS has since said that a company called "Bath Magic" can fix this later down the track.

Wednesday the electricians came through and started their wiring and finished up on Thursday, and after having a quick chat to them in the morning they had no issue moving an RF point, and making a few very small changes to where the power points are. We even discussed the best locations for the mains sub board, and C-Bus boards that we will be putting in even thou they could stick it anywhere. The carpenter was also back and fitted the Laundry Door, Garage Entrance Doors.

Today we discussed how the reveals that are split on the windows will be fixed before next Wednesday, and that the fixing carpenter will be out today. All the plaster & bricks have been delivered and I've been told the plaster will be next of next week or Monday week.

So after a crazy week all that is really left is plumbing, fixing of window reveals, sliding door scratches, and concrete dusting.

After I finished my phone call today with my SS the head office called me and had a chat to me about my concerns of this post, that has since been resolved. It was great to get a follow up and they seem generally concerned about me being happy with the build.

Now I have to try and catch up on all my blog posts hehe.

Has anyone installed powerpoints on their kitchen island benches that have waterfall edges? I was just informed that Porter Davis are not able to do so which surprises me

Could one of you lovely PD home owners please explain to me how the Tender/Contract process works? In particular, I am asking in relation to site costs and I'll explain why.

Our land doesn't title until September and we have asked for a November start date. Our Tender appointment is mid April, contract appointment is mid May.

We will get approximate site costs in the Tender appointment, which is fine. The thing is, I'm concerned about signing a contract in May when they can't do the second soil test until the land title comes through in September. Is there a clause they put in to allow for this? I am sure someone must have been through the same process so any advice in this area would be appreciated!

Thanks

If I was in your situation I wouldn't sign anything until I had a full price or a fixed price contract. Everyone is different I guess.

my suggestion is that you wait until the land has been settled before you sign up with any builder...we went through the drama during our build and the land did not settle on time...most builders charge if there is a delay.

A while back I was reading in this thread about people who had poor experiences with their Tender appointment - meetings that went well over time, or were very poorly handled. For the most part I assumed it was a combination of bad lack and bad planning (from the buyer). Boy was I wrong.

Yesterday was my tender appointment. Based on the numerous pieces of helpful information in this forum I had prepared extensively for the meeting - I had a detailed checklist, diagrams of any customisations, cabinet layout reference numbers, you name it. All of this had been provided to my Building Co-Ordinator of course, weeks in advance.

When I turned up though not a single detail had been taken into consideration. The tender was so far from correct that essentially we had to start from scratch!

There are three people involved from the PD side at this phase: the Sales Consultant (SC, the person who sold you the house in the first place), Building Co-Ordinator (BC, who organises your appointments and makes sure all your information is collected) and the tender presenter (who is only involved on this one occasion).

I feel so sorry for the presenter, because she was stuck apologising her way through seven hours of hell. We spent two hours sitting downstairs in the cafe waiting to be called back up while they rewrote the document, then another two hours trying to fix the remaining issues. She did a great job, but was ultimately unable to finish the tender because the person doing the editing left for the night without warning.

After some unpleasant discussion this morning on the phone I managed to get in to see them this morning and finalised the tender. So it got done. But it wasn't particularly pleasant.

We did make one thing harder for them - we changed house designs about a month ago. The switch from a Prestige to a Lifestyle design probably did complicate life for them. That said, I sent through a 10 page PDF of diagrams and detailed notes that covered every change so I'm not cutting them much slack for the layout change.

Some of the things to watch out for (all of these happened to me) include:
- house & land package deal missing (it had reverted to a tear-down/rebuild contract instead of a package, introducing tens of thousands of dollars of inaccurate costs)
- last-minute changes of appliance vendors (we had to make binding decisions on several key appliances without warning or research because they either failed to answer my earlier questions or had given incorrect answers)
- missing customisations
- randomly added customisations (surprise!)
- missing inclusions
- missing packages
- ambiguous descriptions of cupboard layouts (I had to fight to get the specific layout reference numbers documented on my tender)
- items added which won't physically fit (the bathroom mirror was too big, so would have overlapped the window in the bathroom)
- measurement errors (50mm instead of 500mm)
- surprise changes in price when compared to preliminary quote (some items blew out in price significantly compared to the original quote)
- complete lack of oven selection (they offer only one 600mm oven, and it is rubbish)

Despite all of this, yes I went ahead. Why? Because PD builds good houses, even if they struggle to put a contract together. None of these items were hard to fix, but they all took serious time. It will be worth it in the end, of this I'm sure. But the process might not be much fun.

With all that in mind, here's my advice for people about to do their tender:
- document all of your selections yourself in plain english, send it to your BC, send it to your SC and bring it on the day assuming it was ignored
- be fussy. Don't settle for "near enough", stick with it until everything is right
- walk away if you aren't comfortable with the wording, you can always come back another day and finish it
- take a copy home to review before signing if you're uncertain (they will say you can't, but to the best of my knowledge that isn't legal - I'm pretty sure you can't deny a person the right to have a contract reviewed)
- bring a laptop, iPad, or similar with 3G Internet access so you can do emergency research
- remember that if they can send you to the cafe for two hours, you can make them wait while you check something
- expect it to be a full day, regardless of what they say (better safe than sorry, my partner and I missed work because it ran overtime)
- don't take your frustration out on your presenter, they only just received the file. Your BC is probably the one to talk to about problems, or possibly your SC
- remember that budgets and allowances aren't on the tender contract (don't get excited when you see a smaller number than you expected)
- read every single line. Twice
- bring a second set of eyes to help out
- remember that it can be fixed, it'll just take some time. The mistakes aren't unfixable until you've signed the document
- keep thinking of the end result, you get a nice shiny house in exchange for these painful meetings

At the moment I'm seriously considering insisting on a change of BC because my experience so far has been awful. Maybe it'll pick up, or maybe somebody else behind the scenes let me down, but the impression I have is that my BC isn't giving this build the right amount of attention.

Wow! Thanks for the heads up and all the info. We have our tender meeting on Monday.

We have sent several emails to our BC requesting quotes and such and have today had an email stating that they'll have those prices for us at our tender meeting on Monday - but now I wonder I'm sure she could have sent those prices to us in today's email esp if they supposedly have them ready for Monday's meeting. It would have been great to have them before hand - they certainly had plenty of time to get the various prices for us. I'm actually amazed that it has taken weeks (yes weeks!!! - as in I asked at the start of December) to give us a quote to up-grade the kitchen from standard kitchen cupboard doors to the colonial style. Our SC was going to get back to us, when we were appointed our BC I asked her and she said she was waiting for the estimations people to let her know. Surely it's a matter of putting "Drysdale" and "Colonial Square" into a database and there you go ! It's not like we are changing the layout or anything in the kitchen - it would take less time to actually make the kitchen that what it has taken to find out how much it costs.

So thanks for all the tips Lurgen! We will go on Monday better prepared for the day.

I agree with tstr1a and J & C, we delayed signing contract until the land titled which was just as well as it ended up being seven months late.

Thanks all for your advice. I think you're all right, so we will sign the contact after settlement. Can prices change between tender and settlement or does tender lock in the pricing?

Sorry for all the questions, feeling a bit overwhelmed!!

Hi guys,
we have just bought on Hargrave Av in Kingsford estate in Point cook, which will get titled in April 2013. so i just wanted to know some answers from some of you who have built with Porter Davis. we may sign up with them or Simonds...

1)PD they have given us a 20 week buildiing completion and fixed price guarantee. i am not sure how that works when the land is not titled. do they stick to this...
2) did anyone put a penalty clause if things went haywire?
3) has anyone used PD in Point cook and if yes did they stick to finishing on time....

please let us know

cheerios

The 20 weeks is from site scrape I believe?

Hi guys, Just a quickie here... has anyone gone through an upgrade cost from cat 1 to cat3 caeserstone? just for reference I'm building the Baldwin 27 with the stimulus kitchen package.

In the process of discussing what I want in a quote, my sales contact showed me plans of the standard options for the Marina 41; I photoshopped the ones I want into a plan and it's on my blog if anyone else wanted to know how they do the ensuite options for the Marina 41 as opposed to the Marina 42, which is shown on the PD website.

Lurgen - great summary and similar to our experience.
Inglewood - all the best for tomorrow.

We had our contract appointment on Friday. Similar frustrations as Lurgen in that we had discussed information and options at Tender (3 weeks prior) and the information was not available on the day at Contract. This is the most frustrating part where PD need to fix their processes and attention to details. These prices should have come to us prior to the actual contract day so we can discuss and make a decision prior to entering their office. This would help their staff's time also. Our presenter was supposed to be doing another appointment that day in the afternoon with someone else, however we were there from 9am to 5pm! We first saw our specific plans at our colour appointment and we noted that there were quite a few issues. So I made a big list throughout the day and followed up with email to our BC that night. Some things were updated prior to our Contract day, but others weren't. Some of the issues are still outstanding but we can make a decision with a Post Contract Variation. Annoying though that some was purely waiting on pricing. It can't take 3 weeks to get a price!!!!

Advice for others - also double check through the specifics of your Colour option selections and make sure that is fully accurate - I found some errors.

Anyway, we have signed and I will update our blog shortly with more information...

Haven't directly, but check out this - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=54817&hilit=Porter+Davis+Upgrades and others have listed their Cat 3 prices. Note also PD are changing across to Essa Stone, so don't know how this effects their pricing.

1) Only if you make NO changes to the plan and make no upgrades at all from Cat 1 / Standard. This is near impossible, so the 20 week build thing (if you are counting on hard dates) is rubbish. Having said that, the actual build may well be finished within that timeframe, however your contract will not mandate handover occurring 20 weeks after site scrape - it will be longer.

2) There is a standard liquidated damages clause in the HIA contract, if handover does not occur by the committed date. The default figure is $250 / week (from memory), deducted from the final payment. You can negotiate this to a sum that will cover your costs incurred if they do not meet the contract date. If you plan on needing this, get prepared now. Know your build, know registered wet days, ensure you can not be deemed to have contributed to the delay in any way, and pay every invoice immediately.

3) PD have built many homes in Point Cook. They finished ours 2 months ahead of the contract date, but it was anything but standard, so the contract date allowed for approximately 8.5 months to construct.

Good luck... plenty of info on here to get you through the process. Well worth it in the finish.

Thanks so much for that.... very helpful indeed.

There is one post that says upgrade to cat 3 in lieu of standard.... (would standard be Laminex?)

Reason I ask is because if it is Laminex then my upgrade should be a bit cheaper as its from cat 1 caeserstone.... either way I think cat 3 is in reach

Once again thanks for the reply.

this was our and cat 1 was standard in kitcken but not bathroom and ensuite was our standard but to cat 2 i believe cat 3 was quite abit more and depending on thickness you want aswell

Provide 20mm caesar stone cat 2 to bathroom in lieu of standard $241

Provide 20mm caesar stone cat 2 to Ensuite in lieu of standard $504

Provide 20mm caesar stone cat 2 to kitchen island in lieu of standard $1162

Provide 20mm caesar stone cat 2 to kitchen benchtop in lieu of standard $2307

Thanks MummaDJ! How frustrating! So glad this forum is here so we can be prepared. Thanks for letting us know about the Caesar stone.

We went to Hopetoun yesterday - we haven't been in since before Christmas. As well as the Caesar Stone, they've also changed the colours available for window frames - White birch and Dune are now available in the lifestyle range - Primrose is no longer available at all (for any of the ranges) Surfmist and Paperbark are only available in the prestige range now.






Not 100% decided on our brick (typical me!!!) - now tossing up b/n Jarrah and Rouge



I want to try to get a colour chip of the white birch - does anyone know where I can get one? I've emailed one of the window companies and hopefully they'll be able to help. The girl we spoke to at hopetoun on Saturday didn't seem to understand that White Birch is not a colourbond colour