Building Montpellier Grand with Carlisle Homes

Hi everyone,

We are in early stages of building Montpellier Grand with Carlisle Homes. Paid deposit, finalised the quote, added some upgrades before the color appointment and now waiting for it to happen. The color appointment is booked in for 4th July with contract date to be on 1st of August.

Some of the changes & upgrades, we did :

- Hardwick Facade
- Sound Insulation between floor joists
- Soundscreen Insulation to theatre room
- Guest Bedroom downstairs with shower to Powder room
- Grand activity area in lieu of Balcony upstairs
- Doors to Ensuites
- Electrical pack
- Drop down panel to Island bench on both sides
- Brivis Refrigerated heating & cooling
- Niches in all ensuites

Pretty much everything is included in Carlisle Affinity range homes, so didnt have to do much cosmetic changes.

Anyone else here building the Montpellier with Carlisle. Any suggestions and feedback will be highly appreciated.

Hi Libran_59
Glad to find someone building with Carlisle. We are building the Montpelier 51. This is my thread

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=92532&p=1813096&highlight=1813096&mobile_action=posted

You are absolutely correct that Carlisle Affinity has so many inclusions that you don’t need to add much.

Will follow your journey. We can compare notes along the way 😬

Hi HoneyDee,

Sorry for late reply. Didnt send me any notification about this thread . Anyways glad to hear that you are building the 51.

We have our color appointments trow. Any tips before we go ahead. Its always to have some tips handy from the professionals ... lol

Hi libran_59
I am a total novice. This is our first build and that too a KDR. You are ahead of us as your colour appointment is this Saturday. Ours is not until next month.
Is yours a greenfields build or KDR? Which region?
What did your Soil Report come back as?

Ours has come as:
Site Classification: P
Wind Rating: N1
Underlying Site Reactivity: H1
Don't know if this is good news or bad news?
Terrified at what the site costs are gonna be.

How much did you pay extra for-
Sound Insulation between floor joists (what is that BTW- we were never offered that)
Soundscreen Insulation to theatre room
Drop down panel to Island bench on both sides
I thought these are to be added at Colour Selection.

Do you have any idea what you are going to add at Colours. Please do post how you go on Saturday. All the best

Hi HoneyDee,

Our color appointment was today not for Saturday. Was a big hectic day. Lucky we went on last Sunday at Spectra to have a bit of idea what to choose and look for. That really helped. Most of the stuff we chose today was already selected by us on Sunday but still took a lot time to finalise and decide. Had to shuffle few things according to the stuff selected.

Before I proceed further, our land got titled in August last year ( Jubilee Estate in Wyndham Vale ), decided to only built three months ago, so started the finance journey with one of our known and he organised everything for us from finalising the docuemnts and get it approved. We should have gone with finalising the builder first and then finance but we went opposite. Didn't know why. Being a second time builder, should have known this but anyways, that put us in a tight schedule to finalise the builder and get the contracts ready within 3 months as the finance approval was only till 23rd August

Anyways cut story short, ours is a bit of different journey with carlisle as compared to you. Sales assistant James was at Craigieburn display centre was a gem of person. We told him what our story is and he was straight onto it. He organised everything right from the scratch to get the things moving ahead of normal schedule. Paid our initial deposit on 16th June, color appointment booked in for 4rth July and the contract appointment is on 1st of August.

We did 90% of the things on 16th June only as he knew we were on really tight schedule. Had a look on the plan, needed few structural changes done and what ever we needed, did on that day only as James could do it on his end as well. He organised the fixed price cost to be available within 3 days. Received a call from James 3 days after and signed the initial quotation with fixed price cost. That included the site cost, builder & developed requirements and any other options we chose on first day. Signed that quote on same day and received a call from CLE from Carlisle the next day only introducing herself and to book the color and contract appointment. Didn't expect this thing to happen so quickly

In saying that, all the dealings with Carlisle so far is excellent and hassle free. Couldn't be more happier Anyways, to answer all your questions, frankly speaking I am not sure what my soil report came as. Only thing I know was, site cost came up as 19,500. James and I was expecting more being 1.4m fall on our block.

How much did I pay for :

Sound Insulation between floor joists (what is that BTW- we were never offered that) - $2999. This is sound insulation between downstairs and upstairs floor. When we went onto display home, we could hear everything from upstairs if we are sitting downstairs including the walking, talking even flushing of toilets. Didn't like that. Asked James. he had a look and came up with this. Worth spending money on this.

Soundscreen Insulation to theatre room - $399 ( whole room )

Drop down panel to Island bench on both sides - $1370 each as ours is 80mm Island bench

ELECTRICAL UPGRADES

We didn't go for any electrical pack from them. Knew it will be cheaper doing it from outside. Instead fitted all the batten light points downstairs where we wanted the down lights to be placed and power points through out upstairs and downstairs. Didnt go for any single down light with them. Was costing double the price of batten fitting. Can get downlight for around 10 bucks and my electrician mate can fit it for me. So overall was saving $70 per downlight downstairs and roughly around $90 upstairs as new downlight cost supply and fitted $60 upstairs

The stuff we did :

6 x outside junction boxes for future lighting - $570
7 x Additional ceiling/wall batten light point including energy efficient fluorescent globe and shade.- $413
28 x Ceiling Batten Light Point Including Set Out For Future Downlight -$2184 ( as opposed to $149 each for downlight )
4 x Noggin between floor joists to ground floor of double storey house for future light
fitting/ceiling fan.- $140
2 x Panel Square Step light 'C' nickel recessed fixed step light including LED light. - $324
1 x Double internal power point to Kitchen/Butler's Pantry glass splashback ( couldn't provide the powerpoint to the island bench ) - $200
13 x Double internal power point. - $715
4 x Single internal power point. - $204
1 x Double external weatherproof power point. - $128
1 x Two way light switch. - $49
1 x Internal junction box for future light point to ceiling or wall. - $66






We have 4 TV points and 2 data points included in our pack. The positions for those ones are not in this plan. The two data points are in ceiling at ground floor and first floor for WIFI extenders and 4 TV points are in Grand activity, master bedroom, theatre and living.


COLOR SELECTION UPGRADES

Haven't received the price lists for the upgrades we chose. Will be getting it in a day or two, so as soon as I get it I will let you know.


Shoot me any questions you have. Speak to you soon

Hi Libran_59,

Thanks for the detailed feedback.
Our electrician too told us that if the points are there he can do the down lights cheaper. On your electrical plan - what is ‘add nogging’ ?From what I can see on your plan I think you haven’t had any wiring for home theatre done for the theatre room. What about the cctv, video door alarm etc? Did you choose any of those? What about the exteriors? What have you chosen for bricks, roof, down pipes etc

Sorry 😝I got all the dates mixed up. We have our colour browse this Saturday. Any tips at what to note and keep an eye out for so that on colour selection day it all goes smoothly?
.
Apologies for chewing up your brains.😃 You do have experience of building before. So this time it must be easier. We are so worried of over spending & regretting later.

Again thanks for your help.
Will chat soon.

Its all good HoneyDee. No issues at all.

Yes, you are right. We didn't choose any of the home theatre wiring, CCTV or intercom. As I am a registered cabler, I do lot of these stuff for the other builders . I will manage all that during the build. Just need to have a word with supervisor. To give you a rough idea of how much that is If do need to go with Carlisle for this : Intercom is roughly around $1700, alarm system is around $1400, CCTV 6 camera wiring is around $1300 and home theatre wiring is around $1700 ... phewwww Thats bloody expensive. I know the actual costs associated with this type of stuff so it was a big no no for me.

Best tip for you, if you need any CCTV or Intercom done through Carlisle, just get the data points put in where you want the camera locations and that should be it. It will still cost you cheaper than the actual CCTV setup as all cameras are IP based these days and they only need data connectivity. Data point form Carlisle is around $130-140 by memory. Even for the intercom, you can use data connectivity between the bell and monitor. Go with the home theatre wiring from them as well.

In regards to nogging, its a support in the roof to hang heavy stuff like chandelier or fan or any decorative item as the plaster can not hold that weight. See if you have any this kind of stuff and get carlisle to put a noggin for you.

In terms of our color selection, We had carpet and tiles included in our promotion so we went ahead with carlisle for that. Just upgraded to the porcelain tiles with cat 3 carpet. Like I said, I still haven't received the complete list with the prices for the upgrades we did, so can not say what have we upgraded. I will just wait for that list to come and will post it here then. Wifey was more towards all the slection. Mine job was to just open the price list and see how much it was costing us lol ....

Definately It was easier for us to work on this time but you know build is a build, whether you are a nob or an expertise Still took us whole day at our color selection. We did miss few items so had to get back to CLE the next day about same but at the end it was all good. Now just need to wait for the upgrades to come through. As our contract day is on 1st August, they will send us the tender before that and if we need to add or delet anything, we can and then the final contract will be ready on 1st and then we can sign it off. By the way, our site start is in October

Speak to you soon.

Hey libran_59,

Thanks heaps. You are so helpful. Will wait for your upgrade list.

Hi Libran_59
Our colour browse over. Could not go around the electrical section as we ran out of time.
Planning to go on weekends to browse around & make notes.
Did you get your upgrade list yet?

Hi Libran_59
How are you going with your build? Got your final pricing? Tender appointment done? Did you make anymore changes to your plans? I think your contract appt is 01/08. All the best.

Honey Dee, so sorry for not keeping the thread updated. Was so busy with the work lately. Yes, we have been through to the tender and everything. Contract is getting signed in about 4hrs time . We did do lots of changes and that bumped the price to around 555k mark. Still they are missing few items in contract which we asked them to do but they forgot. Thats happening today before contract signing. I will keep you posted once we finalise everything today. So sorry again

Hi Libran_59
All the best for the contract. Did you get the contract signed by a solicitor? How many days in advance did they send the contract?

Exciting times. Let me know what changes/upgrades you selected. Will give me an idea as to what we can go for. Your electrical plan helped a lot. We called our electrician and went through the plan & he marked evrything on the plan for us according to our need. Once again best of luck for today.

Hi Libran_59
How are you going with your build? Slab has been poured? We had our Tender appointment and Contract appointment is on 18th September. Moving out next Sunday from the present home and then Demolition will take place.

Hi HoneyDee and [b]libran_59,[/b]
We too are building a Montpeller - the new design though, the MP_Grand 49. Its our first build and that too KDR. We are building in Ashwood

Been reading all your threads and finding them very informative.

We have so far had our Colour appointment on the 13th of Sept and have our Tender appointment on 3rd of Oct. We are finding that things aren't moving along as fast as anticipated (eg: we haven't yet received the paperwork from our Colour Appointment sent through - and today is a week since our appointment). Did you experience the same? We haven't yet seen our revised drawings either which shows the changes we have asked for.

Some of the changes & upgrades we have asked for are:

- Classique Facade
- Sound Insulation between GF and 1st floor
- Soundscreen Insulation to laundry, powder and WIP
- Guest Master ILO Theatre with en-suite
- Double glazing throughout
- Electrical pack
- Drop down panel to Island bench on both sides
- Brivis Refrigerated heating & cooling
- Larger windows in Living and Meals

How long did it take for you to get your drawings? Would it be right before the Tender appointment?

Hi Krishnakdr,

Welcome to the anxious world of new builders
We got our paperwork emailed on the third day after the colour selection. It sure is unusual for you not to receive your paper work. You should call your CLE and ask why the delay? You need to go over your colour selection many times and make a long list of questions to ask at Tender appointment. That is when you can get changes made. some minor changes can be made at contract. After that it costs I think $500 for every change you request.
Has your house been demolished and second soil survey done? Ours is not demolished yet. The process starts tomorrow. So we did not get the engineering drawings at contract even. At tender we got externals like site plan, demolition plan and elevations. At contract we got final copies of the above and internal plans. The engineering plans will come only after second soil test.
I think mid floor insulation and refrigerated cooling are good ones to get. Did you not get the large picture windows in the living and meals as inclusion? It was part of the promotion when we paid the deposit.
I will surely follow your build. Happy anxious times together.

Sorry HoneyDee,

Its been long, I haven't posted anything here. Hardly get any time to update this thread. Well good news !! Site cut was done and plumbing is getting done tomorrow, following slab on 15th October. Finally the construction was started on 26th September. So far so good.

Hows things with you. Hope yours is sailing smoothly as well

Hi libran_59

I have been off the forum for sometime and was trying to catch up on everyone's builds. How are you going with the build? Slab went well? Are the frames up yet?

Our site cut is scheduled for this Friday. Finally moving to building stage.
Did you appoint a private building inspector and/or private building surveyor?

Hi Dee,

Its been long. I know. Well build is going very smoothly. Slab and frame went well and they finished the roof tiles yesterday. I have brickies starting today and electrical and plaster booked in for 20th and 23rd respectively. When I get time, I will have some pictures and will post it here.

I did hire Dabrecca for our private inspections for slab frame lock up and final stages. They were pretty good. Did a brief report of what needs to be fixed and was done by Carlisle. SS is great too. Kee me informed every friday whats been happening.

Hi libran_59,

Great going!!
Happy to hear positive things about Carlisle. Fingers crossed. Hoping that all goes well from here on. We too will hire an independent building inspector. Looking into who to hire at the moment. Will check out Darbeca.
Have a lovely day. 😊

Darbecca is amazing Dee. Go for it. Dont look for anyone else.