Browse Forums General Discussion Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 2May 26, 2009 9:45 am There has been a few topics on this. The topics have good and bad comments but I mainly found bad too. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=9460 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=711 Hope this helps. Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 4May 26, 2009 1:56 pm I can give you mostly positive From deposit to contact four months, from contract to site start two months (we had land settlement inbtn there too!), then took five months to finished the house, two months ahead of schedule and that was with delays due to no brickies. s*monds worked around it. We paid deposit Australia Day we were in our house on 5th December 2008. We are happy with the quality of the house, wouldn't recommend getting the driveways done from them, ours is cracking pretty badly i dont think its just 'movement'. Rest of it is pretty good, few little things we need fixed for maintenance talk about that later! Customer service, well i wouldnt brag about it but for us it wasnt so bad, yes we contacted them, but 9 times out of 10 they were good at getting back to us with our concerns. We did have two CSO and two supervisors, but the move for another supervisor was actually good, the other one lets say no longer works there and i can see why! Overall we were very happy with the building progress, we were in earlier then expected even with delays, customer service wasnt the worst it could be especially reading some post here! they delivered everything per contract. No price stuffing around either. Basically 'no surprises' and no real dramas! Now the only real complaint l have is how they were after the final cheque was handed over, it started with the applicances taking two weeks to be totally installed, excuse was too close to christmas! i dont know maybe that is real reason and not just an excuse! But when you have no hot water or can't cook for the first weekend your in. Then no heating and cooling till a week and half after then you finally get your dishwasher and alarm in two weeks maybe just over after you move in! wasnt a good experience! Then when we had an issue with some guttering for our render coming loose do you think we could get someone to come out and fix it, NOPE got to the point where the SES came out to secure it cause it was that dangerous, THEN they came out! we have been in 6months and well still waiting for things to be fixed on the maintenance check YES it was a short list and yes nothing major, but do you think we can get them to come out and fix it NOPE! So like i said, mostly positive, the build, the customer service through-out the build wasnt that bad for us, the price, the quality of the house def recommend Simonds to anyone based on our experience, also very much give the WARNING dont expect things will be easy once you get those keys and you want things fixed! Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 5May 26, 2009 10:34 pm Woodsey, I don't know all the ins and outs of your house but if that was my experience I wouldn't be very happy at all. You seem to take things pretty well. Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 6May 27, 2009 9:12 am I think its properly to do with the fact we didn't have problems till the end/ after handover, plus reading stories here i def think i have nothing to complain about cause we got into our house within a reasonable time with no real delays and no real problems, house is great quality few 'little' issue inc the render cap, nothing major so l see myself as very lucky compare to some of the pain others go through! Especially with this builder! l never knew they had such a bad reputition before building with them, if i did l think i properly still would have risk building with them cause we LOVED the house soo much, no other house compared to it! i was lucky enough to not experience any problems where others were not so lucky! yes l've had issues now, but reading what l've read since joining l see our build as great compared to the heart ache this builder has put others through! l dont know how many other ppl are like me have had next to no problems, l guess i want to re-insuring others who build with them, you may be lucky like us, l def do see myself as lucky each time l read updates on that s*monds problem topic! Guess we all know once you fall in love with a house its hard to fall out of love with it most will still continue to build with a builder despite what they hear so i want to give a bit of hope its not all bad you might be like us pretty reasonable journey with a few bumps but def no where near as many bumps as others Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 7May 27, 2009 8:43 pm woodsey From deposit to contact four months, from contract to site start two months (we had land settlement inbtn there too!), then took five months to finished the house, two months ahead of schedule and that was with delays due to no brickies. Woodsey, I'm glad things have worked out for you ...I'm just curious about whether you were given an explanation as to why there were no brickies available? You're not the first one I've heard of who was given that particular excuse for delays. It seems odd, when no other builder is having issues... I'm not involved with this builder, but I've been watching the progress of five of their houses nearby with interest. Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 8May 28, 2009 7:24 pm woodsey wouldn't recommend getting the driveways done from them, ours is cracking pretty badly i dont think its just 'movement'. yes we contacted them, but 9 times out of 10 they were good at getting back to us with our concerns. We did have two CSO and two supervisors, but the move for another supervisor was actually good, the other one lets say no longer works there and i can see why! But when you have no hot water or can't cook for the first weekend your in. Then no heating and cooling till a week and half after then you finally get your dishwasher and alarm in two weeks maybe just over after you move in! wasnt a good experience! Then when we had an issue with some guttering for our render coming loose do you think we could get someone to come out and fix it, NOPE got to the point where the SES came out to secure it cause it was that dangerous, THEN they came out! we have been in 6months and well still waiting for things to be fixed on the maintenance check YES it was a short list and yes nothing major, but do you think we can get them to come out and fix it NOPE! Sorry Woodsey but your story alone would be enough to put me off and this is supposedly positive feedback!!! There are just too many stories - none of them good. Wouldn't touch at all personally. JL Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 9May 29, 2009 9:03 am Like I have previously said in other topics we were going to build through Simonds but them we gave up on them because of all their mistakes and terrible customer service. We are now in the process of planning to build with a private builder. CAN'T WAIT Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 10May 29, 2009 11:59 am I'm building with Simonds in Melbourne's NE suburbs (Bundoora). So far, it's been fine. They've taken a long time to do things, but everything within the actual timeframes provided at the start (I'm just impatient). We've had two CSOs (the current one is fantasic) and three site supervisors (again, current one is great). I speak to my SS at least once, if not twice a week. I get the schedule for the week on the previous Friday, then I follow-up after a site visit on Saturdays. Perhaps I'm just used to herding cats at my day job, but I don't take excuses from anyone. I keep asking questions of my CSO/SS until I'm satisfied with the response. So, according to the SS, we're on track to finish in the next 8 weeks. I'm not personally sure of that, but Simonds have at least 12 weeks contractually, so again they have some time. Every item that I've seen while doing inspections has been rectified within two weeks of notifying my SS. I've only ever gone to voicemail for my current SS once -- he even answers my calls on Saturday mornings, as he knows that's the only time I get to visit the site. Overall, I love the house we're building (the Milan 2900MKII, with some modifications) and I've been happy with Simonds. Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 11May 29, 2009 2:07 pm kek woodsey From deposit to contact four months, from contract to site start two months (we had land settlement inbtn there too!), then took five months to finished the house, two months ahead of schedule and that was with delays due to no brickies. Woodsey, I'm glad things have worked out for you ...I'm just curious about whether you were given an explanation as to why there were no brickies available? You're not the first one I've heard of who was given that particular excuse for delays. It seems odd, when no other builder is having issues... I'm not involved with this builder, but I've been watching the progress of five of their houses nearby with interest. This was back i think august- september last year, so i should explain better they did have brickie available, but not good brickies (so we were told), they gave us the option to go ahead with a brickie of our choice (which we didnt know any!) or as soon as a good one was available we would be the first to have them, it was only like two to three week i think (trying to remember seems so long ago ) but they continue to build around it and didn't cause a lot of problems to the timeframe of completing the house. houseofl woodsey wouldn't recommend getting the driveways done from them, ours is cracking pretty badly i dont think its just 'movement'. yes we contacted them, but 9 times out of 10 they were good at getting back to us with our concerns. We did have two CSO and two supervisors, but the move for another supervisor was actually good, the other one lets say no longer works there and i can see why! But when you have no hot water or can't cook for the first weekend your in. Then no heating and cooling till a week and half after then you finally get your dishwasher and alarm in two weeks maybe just over after you move in! wasnt a good experience! Then when we had an issue with some guttering for our render coming loose do you think we could get someone to come out and fix it, NOPE got to the point where the SES came out to secure it cause it was that dangerous, THEN they came out! we have been in 6months and well still waiting for things to be fixed on the maintenance check YES it was a short list and yes nothing major, but do you think we can get them to come out and fix it NOPE! Sorry Woodsey but your story alone would be enough to put me off and this is supposedly positive feedback!!! There are just too many stories - none of them good. Wouldn't touch at all personally. JL See like i said in my other post i dont see what happen to us as this big major problem, yes we had problems but we still have the house before contract finished AND we are very happy with it. l guess each person see different things as important to us we focused on the end product and the end product was on time and to our satisfaction. We do have a few maintenance issues now, but nothing we don't think others wouldnt have on their three month maintenance. l think you'll find each and every builder has their horror story, my sister works for Porter davis and my DH boss build with them, lets say i could tell you a few horror stories about them, l also know from my sister working in the industry problems other builders are having like long delays due to taking on too many contracts, their bigger scale builders, and l can also tell you horror stories from our neighbours who have built with other builders. Thats why i think for me l thought well it could be worst, and reading this forum, it def has been ALOT worst for some! l Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 12Jun 03, 2009 6:29 pm i built with Simonds in country Victoria. They started off good but now we have been in our house for nearly 3 months and still trying to get things fixed. Out site supervisor was a nightmare and didnt wont to get things fixed. i ended up emailing the office to get some things done. Customer service was shocking and i was always chasing them up to find out what was going on. We were to get a Tv as part of our deal but are yet to receive it. Be careful Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 13Jun 11, 2009 9:36 pm From what I gather, the poor feedback relates to specific area's where Simonds build. I've just finished building with them in Geelong and they have been great. Contract signed late Feb, site was cut a few days later (still in Feb) and I have settlement tomorrow - no issues experienced, SS always answered his phone, any questions/variations/etc always answered promptly. I've spoken with a few of Simonds tradies during the building phase and they reckon that Point Cook is a joke to work for (mainly due to some problem vendors and tradies). Personally, I couldn't be happier with Simonds in Geelong - feel free to contact me if anyone in the area has questions. Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 14Jul 01, 2009 9:43 am We have just finished building with Simonds. The admin staff have been terrible to deal with. We don't get answers to our questions or responses to emails and our CSO seemed to go out of her way to make things difficult with the support of her supervisor. She has now left so there may be some improvement. House is good and our site supervisor was wonderful and went out of his way to assist us. We have escalated our issues to senior management (John Thorburn) and in spite of several phone calls and several emails there is still no response. Make sure you read your plans thoroughly. We have written into our plans that a door is supposed to face a certain way, however it is drawn differently in the plans. Because we signed the plans, they refuse to do anything about it. A similar issue with a problem in the bath - we have built a shower over a spa and were told the spa had to butt into the corner but was drawn and built with a ledge. The water pours around the ledge and onto the floor - we are still awaiting their response but are again expecting them to hide behind their plans. We have since noticed that the bath has not been sealed and can be lifted in one corner. Consequently the water from the shower runs inside the bath hob through to the adjoining bedroom, damaging walls, skirtings and carpets. After having an independent plumber look at the roof, it has been brought to our attention that the roof tiles do not overlap and in some places there are re 3mm gaps. Our bathroom now smells very nasty. Not sure whether this is caused by wet insulation or the water inside the bath hob. If anyone wants to view a Simonds home, feel free to respond to this message and I will invite you around to show you some of the poor workmanship.l Good luck!!
Re: simonds homes victoria- feedback 15Jul 07, 2009 6:32 pm Before you build with Simonds, please read the reviews about this company at productreview.com. Be warned about this builder! Hi, I am looking into doing a KDR in Melbourne and am contemplating using Kialla Homes. I am looking for feedback on them from others who have built with them. 0 13437 First time poster long story short we are planning knocking down rebuilding a house in Wavell Heights We are thinking to go with Omni built homes as they are but flexible… 0 16267 |