Porter Davis homes

EX DISPLAY HOME FURNITURE SALE – SATURDAY 16 MARCH, 2013

The much anticipated Coco Republic display home furniture sale is on at the Estuary Estate in Leopold this Saturday!

You’ve got to love designer furniture at discount prices!

Display doors will open for the sale at 9am – 2pm this Saturday 16th March but remember to be there early as sales are on a first come, first serves basis. We’ll also have barista made coffee on hand to help you make your final selections. Payment can be made via cash or card only on the day.

Don’t forget to bring your trailer of ute on the day to collect any large items purchased between 12pm and 2pm or alternatively you can have your items delivered on Monday by Coco Republic for a fee.
So if you’re after a new couch, dining table, chairs, outdoor furniture or something else to finish off your new or existing home, come along to find your own special Coco Republic piece.

Click on the link below to go to the Porter Davis Blog for more details, including pricing.
http://blog.porterdavis.com.au/index.ph ... le-prices/

This is good advice.

As a first home buyer/builder I found myself accepting things I should probably have resisted. If I were to do this again (and I might very well a few years down the track) I would refuse to sign the contract document until all items had reasonable estimates, and would refuse to attend the contract meeting without a complete copy of the document to review before hand. I'd probably also try to make this a condition of tender, as I doubt I'd ever go into something this big so blindly again.

Most builders will refuse to give you the information before the meeting though, and all will claim that you cannot take the information home until you sign. Again, I'd reject this if I had my time over and insist on taking it home to review more thoroughly.

In retrospect there were at least three points in this process with PD that I should have walked away, if only temporarily to review things more deeply. I didn't though, however I think I'll end up with a great home despite the bad process. Which is sad in a way... the process should be as positive as the product in my opinion.

It's very easy to get caught up in the excitement of buying a house, but it's also easy to get dragged down by the horror of the process to the point where you'll sign almost anything just to have it over with. No doubt some builders capitalise on these two responses at least a little bit.

My advice to everybody is to take the documentation home for review and hold off on signing until you're happy it is complete. It'll delay your start, but at least you will minimise your risks. You might get told you can't but something tells me that's a bluff... I'm pretty sure nobody can force you to sign a document without giving you time to review it properly.

I am pretty sure that they won't let you take the Contract home, however, to have some finalised pricing, for example window prices, isn't too hard to ask - really. Excuse - the estimator had gastro. Well, why wasn't this done prior to the eleventh hour, the day before or the day of our contract appt!!!!

My SC did the same as well. He pretty much went "I will allow $xxxxx for Electricals and $xxxxx for selections since in the area you are building in you will want a certain standard of finishes". He is very experienced and most of the things I told him I wanted and he made an allowance for was pretty accurate.

I wouldn't hold my breath on PD getting the info to you. They will prob do it at the last minute anyway... At my contract appointment, outstanding pricing for items from tender still wasn't ready...

Honestly... one thing PD should let us do is take the contract drawings home and give us maybe 48 hours to check them over. There are soooo many mistakes on the contract drawings...which get transferred to the construction drawings. It is just crazy inefficiency.

My advice to people going for contract? Check EVERY dimension on the floor plan. Windows, doors .. check every page ...Even the heating ducts / staircase / external elevations.. don't just check the dimensions, check the location of every single item. My contract plans were riddled with mistakes on every page. If you have changed anything from their standard plan, check and triple check...

If you notice an error and they fix it... check the entire page again when they show it to you...For example... At my appointment, I noticed error A, B and C on a single page (original).. pointed it out to the presenter, she fixes error A and B .. forgets to fix C but shows me the updated page.. pointed out to her error C is still there.... she goes to fix error C and shows me the supposedly revised edition (that is supposed to have fixed error A,B and C) .. only for me to realise later (at home) that they fixed error C but ...they used the original page (which had error A,B and C) and forgot that they had to fix error A and B .. so my so called "latest revised copy" had error C fixed, but the original error A and B.

My contract presentation took 8 hours.. yup.. 9:30am till about 6:30-7pm .. and when I took my contract home.. checked every page all over again (drawings and pricing)..... HUGE number of errors (my PCV came up to almost 10 A4 pages long...) .. I was SO angry I wanted to tear up the contract and take legal action against PD if they refused to refund my $$ .. thankfully my BC and SC (yup he had to get involved) was efficient in fixing up other people's mistakes. If it wasn't for them, I would have walked away from building with PD..

Some great advice above from people who have gone/going through the the contract stage. As contract is coming up for us next week we would love to hear from anyone else who has some tips on getting through the contract stage 'unscathed'.
Thanks

I would like to try to clarify this business about not being allowed to have the contract reviewed independently. Perhaps someone from PD could help clarify? The recommendation from Consumer Affairs:
"get a building lawyer to review your contract before you sign. The Law Institute of Victoria has a referral service that can help you find a building lawyer." and "you’ve had enough time to thoroughly review the contract." Would PD really prevent people from doing these things?

Hi Meowsy, my understanding in lay mans terms is that you will receive a copy of the Standard HIA contract that you can have reviewed and then what is added to this on Contract Day is your Fixed Price Tender, copies of Standard Inclusion Lists, Contract Specification Document (I didn't see this beforehand - you may ask for this. It details how everything will be performed and finished off), Your Energy Rating, Soil and Survey Reports, Insurance Certificate and then all your Drawings. We fully reviewed the HIA contract and asked any clarifying questions as we went through. So effectively most things are reviewed before the day, it is then just all put together on the day to your variations etc.
Hope this helps. This was our experience.

We had our contract appointment today, so far our experience has been great and today everything went very well. A few minor things needed changing but easily fixed and nothing was too much trouble.
Our initial salesperson slightly over quoted and was very realistic in costs, so we had no suprises, it actually came a little under what we had expected. So that's our experience so far.

Wow, it’s amazing to see that so many people have so many issues with their tender and contracts with errors that turn into incorrect construction drawings and many PCVs. Having talked to my BC and understanding the process a single variation has to go through it’s amazing that they have time to do anything. It should serve as a wakeup call as for PD that their process and or systems need some serious attention to address customer satisfaction and the wasted work load this places on the consumer and staff due to inefficiencies. I'm sure there are more people that just simply walk away from the process as they are unsatisfied from the start due simply to process. There is no real reason there should be this many mistakes during the administration process.

I found I was so exhausted by the end of administration I was almost over building, which is not a good start because you really need to be on top of your build especially during slab/frame/pre-pre-plaster stages as this is where alot of things are "sure sure we'll fix it" but in reality this is not always the case and you have be on top of it and push for it.

Exactly what happened with me too! Except there were a couple of minor things I didn't manage to pick up after they 'amended' the drawings and they got transferred to my construction drawings.
Come building time, PD moves SO quickly you don't even get a chance to blink and BAMM! the mistake from the construction drawings become a reality. SS will not budge because you've signed a 'contract'.

Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone knew what is the exact showerscreens that PD use when they say that they include a "semi-frameless showerscreen" from the PD prestige Inclusions 2012. I know the suppliers are Stegbar, but does anyone know what is the exact model used? Is it the Softline series or the Grange series? Is the Standard included - Softline and the semi-frameless prestige inclusion - Grange series?
On the Stegbar website, both softline and grange look very semi-frameless to me.

Also, my master ensuite bathroom is located on the ground floor. Is it a building reg to have at least the shower a ducted outlet for the air ventilation? At the moment, we have a fan above the shower and the air is just going to circulate between the joists. I don't see any outlets for it. I know for the upper floor, the builder is allowed to let the air into the ceiling space, but im not sure about ground floor toilets.

Hi, I'm trying to get ball park figures on a couple of electrical items if anyone can help me..... I want to add a dimmer switch to the theatre room, add under cupboard lighting to the kitchen, add a sensor light to the portico and add a double para-flood light to the rear roller door. Also I want to add wall lights to the portico including the light fitting, so if anyone knows how much (roughly) to add for any of these items would be great. BTW I have uploaded my tender costs to the Porter Davis Upgrades and Costs thread if anyone is trying to find prices on items.

the lights outside i wouldnt bother with just have junctions put in the do the lights after handover some of the flood lights where 160+ and one with sensor over 200 from what i remember. cant help with portico and under cupboard though.

on another note off to check out our frame today can't wait

I know the single flood was $77 and the double flood $88, but don't have a breakdown of dimmer switch costs or under-bench lighting.

I do recall the lighting options being pretty reasonable in price, and was quite happy with their under cupboard lighting options. Since it was something I'd hate to have to retrofit we didn't really hesitate on these.

Edit: Fixed a typo, the double flood price was wrong.

Hi Neil
Electrical team told us to just put junction boxes for outside lights and get them fixed later. Something about occupancy certificates I think and if they install exterior lights they all have to be on sensor lights.
To put the junction box on pillars is $132 and junction box on brickwork is $70
Dimmer lights - they don't do LED downlights with dimmers. Not sure about Batten lights.
Kitchen under cupboard light - Triangle - $130.90.
Single Parafloods are $92.40
Hope that helps.

I agree here.. the amount of things during the build that you have to keep an eye on is RIDICULOUS. Like look what I just found today. My SS asked the people responsible for the plaster to seal up the fireplace areas (provision only) as it was to be a straight plaster wall. Guess what the "geniuses" did?



They sealed in boxes of rubbish!! WTH? The only words to use to describe such work is "lazy, can't be bothered, hope nobody finds out" attitude. How hard is it to just move the boxes (left by other tradies) out of the area before nailing the plaster in?

My SS is trying really hard to get things done properly but there are so many things beyond his control.. I have to keep annoying him about things like this unfortunately....

LOL, I just read this same post from your BLOG and I must admit it made me pretty angry, because I know exactly what you’re going through, how it happens, and how ridiculous it is that our country’s workers can't do any type of decent work.

Add all this together and you end up with a pizza box plastered in your fire place, a stacking sliding door that has been sent off to get fixed only to return more damaged than it was sent, 2 extra load bearing walls than what your construction plans were drawn with and plumbers who can’t seem to read a building plan even after 5 attempts at installing a mixer and a spout.

I don’t remember paying peanuts???

And then my wife tells me today that her cousin in Japan is building a house.. I asked when are they starting she said next month, I asked when will it be complete and was answered in MAY this year, and it isn’t a KIT house, and when I had a think about “how” I realised, it’s because they care about their work and they do the job right the first time.

Drill 20mm hole in the top plate either side of your range hood where your kitchen cupboards will be drill another hole in the nogging in the wall where you want the switch. Get an extra shelf in your overhead cupboards then get an electrician after handover to wire up some Clipsal 1.1W Led L507WH cabinet lights, one per door section usually works as the triangles look terrible. Unfortunately the cabinet lights don’t dim.

I have been put in that EXACT same position too.. for example.. my staircase detail plan clearly shows glass balustrades all the way to the top of the stairs.

http://i1327.photobucket.com/albums/u67 ... 17455c.png

But when the stairs were built, they just added a dwarf wall to the top of the staircase. Their argument was "Oh the mistake was made by the draftsperson in the Staircase detail plan and all Waldorf staircases comes with a dwarf wall on the top of the stairs due to the stairs extending over the fridge space, as shown on the construction floor plan, which is the correct one, so we are going to ignore the staircase detail plan because we are saying it is wrong" (which I have attached and highlighted the area in question)

http://i1327.photobucket.com/albums/u67 ... 6ee1b5.png

So now its going to cost me $$$$$ (and quite a lot of it) just to have the stairs redesigned and rebuilt to have the glass all the way to the top. I can't help but wonder, if they just want to blame me for signing a plan that is EXTREMELY hard to notice one small detail there and pass the costs on to repair their mistake to me. I argued that the detailed staircase plan should over-ride that floorplan but they refuse to concede.. bottom line... PD seems to just pick and chose whatever is in their favour when it comes to a mistake in the plans.... so I am left with no choice but to fork out more $$$.

I made sure the draftsperson drew a vent on the elevations for my bathrooms on the ground floor. But after my drama with external vents not meeting up with internal vents (see my blog under DEFECTS), which is still yet to be fixed (although in fairness my SS says he will make sure it is done), I am not 100% confident the internal bathroom vent will meet up with the external vent!