Retired Builder /engineer and designer/project manager.

Our last two homes have been total remakes, but we thought we would build one last home on a block we fell in love with (South Sunshine Coast). Upfront I have to admit we are far from the easiest clients. We know too much. Plus we made a lot of changes, but happy to pay for those.

After walking out on two incompetent companies, we finally settled on a third, due mainly to the fact that the plan was close to our needs. Even then, we had to speak with two sales people before coming across one who had the professionalism to get answers.
There have been several wranglings, mostly regarding over-engineering, even in excess of their own companies engineering specs, which we obtained.

Still unhappy, Jan, but about to finally sign the contract. We intend supplying our own oven and induction cooktop to replace the cheap standard products.

Now at the eleventh hour, I have been informed that we would only be getting a rebate of $250.00 on the products they were supplying. Apparently we would have got back $500.00 but 50% of that was needed to cover the cost of installation. Apparently the original price of the house did not cover white-goods installation!!??

We are struggling to come to terms with just how far the building industry standards have dropped. Sloppy, fuzzy contracts, cannot talk to anyone beyond the sales rep who is not from the industry. A sad way to end a Stellar career, but it's not over until the fat contract is signed.

I hate to think what first home owners are put through. My next project a blog disclosing on the foibles of building.

Good luck with the blog. . . . that's how I started mine.

Your right on with the appalling practices of our building industry today, not anywhere near enough people go into building a home with only a few display home visits, and no building industry learnings.
Volume builders love today's no knowledge home builder, a home owner who is looking at stone while happily not knowing the rubbish materials and or poor trades and or non compliant below or border line work quality, it's one thing to have poor almost dishonest builders and another for consumers to constantly get suckered, there's no excuse with the information available today, but people are choosing luxurious they really can't afford, and turning a blind eye to what's firstly most important in a new build, quality of structure, what you can't see.

As a first time builder, who has no knowledge at all about building, I found that even with trying to research (which is actually a strong skill of mine) I have struggled to understand quite a lot, in the application. Now, I'm not an idiot, I am a well educated individual who just does not have the aptitude to understand construction. Particularly, when working a very stressful and demanding full time job, and struggling with health issues.

I have paid for an independent inspector because of my lack of knowledge but I found the reports stressful. I have been lucky to have a family member who is much more knowledgeable and they have been assisting with the inspections/resolution of defects.

In regards to building rather than buying established, for me it ended up being my only option. I could not compete with investors or those who can make offers without subject to finance.

My personal opinion, it makes sense to do research beforehand but that does not mean the builders don't have the responsibility to ensure that their houses are constructed according to the building standards. If I required an operation from a surgeon, I would not expect to understand more than the general concepts before undergoing the procedure. What I have noticed with building is that there is a broad lack of pride in ones work and the buck stops at the builder as they are the ones being paid to provide a service.

People don't want to wade thru OP's essays in blogs or on facebook, they want their own project specific data on mobile devices
Goodluck

It's very important to get your builder choice right, I firstly interviewed three builders, before even any pricing was talked about, chose builder project manager with the most honest traits and knowledge, worked a treat as no matter how much or little time you have, you need a good builder who's honest and knowledgeable, I made time even though I run a small business and work 60 hours a week, unfortunately easy targets are not well protected by our regulations, you only have to look at the disgraceful illegall cladding on many apartments and the Victorian government ruling that owners must pay and fix their cladding, it's buyer beware or risk loosing out, have a look through VBAG website, horror builds everywhere.

An unseemly but ineffective attempt at scent marking...

By the way, reading sentences and paragraphs may seem like an insurmountable task for the three word slogan crowd, but the rest of us manage just fine.

Hey in case you missed this post
...Core renovation by our team
Itool keep up with the technology

1) Responds to the thread, thereby bumping it back up to the top of the page and providing the OP with greater exposure and sabotaging his own efforts to scent mark in the process.
2) Intimates that blogs and Facebook aren't accessible on mobile devices.
3) Hosts a blog himself (clearly doesn't have a sense of irony) on a soon to be deprecated platform.

But please, tell me more about how you're down with "the technology". This should be fun. Make sure you vacuously link to an unrelated post and throw another transparent attempt at a straw man in there for good measure.

In case you haven't noticed G-Plus (Bloggers) is winding up , It's what's replacing it that has punters excited.
I am always happy to put up Data content that You Can See
Itool, now that's Irony,?
Do tell what is it that you do, another retired Engineer?

Oh, Gawd, it's on again......

...and as expected, he demonstrates my point.

Thread views up 35% since last night, I'm sure OP appreciates the bump. I'm not quite sure how the techno-predilections of gamblers is relevant to the discussion - feel free to keep bumping the thread though.



Sadly yes, but I'm sure you'll have noted the common "element". Thankfully there are plenty of other professionals on this forum who provide valuable advice rather than vapid self promotion wrapped in white noise - bashworth, building-expert, SaveH2O and Geo1 come to mind.