Porter Davis homes

WaldorfL · Jun 30, 2019 10:23 am

Why is the warranty only 7 years when competitors like Metricon and Henley are 50+ years/lifetime?

You can get 7 years warranty on a Kia car...

Charly6s · Jun 30, 2019 6:44 pm

Hagtelar

Charly6s

Fongeo

Hi,

We are looking at building the Astor 49 with Porter Davis. It is a pretty new plan and not sure if anyone is building it in this forum. We had asked for a few changes in our ground floor and thought will share this with the wider community to get some feedback.

We have removed the lounge and made it into a guest bed and made the study smaller.

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Thoughts appreciated.

Cheers.

G

Hi G

It's a great plan, I like your changes to the guest suite.
Had you thought about adding a window to your galley, lets in light and out the smell of burnt toast.
Also changing the window in front of the kitchen sink to a bi-fold so that you can create a servery?
I personally like my pantry to have a door on it, that way it stays dark and cool.
Also, don't forget to put a nech in the shower, it doesn't cost that much and looks so much better.
Lastly, get a costing to upgrade the hight and width of your alfresco doors, if you keep the standard style (not boutique) and just get it taller (2250mm) and wider it doesn't cost that much more,
also, ask for fly screens on the alfresco doors, they are surprised cheep through PD.

So much you can spend extra money on! If you get it put on the plan and into the quote now, you can always take it out later at no charge.

All the best.
C.

Hi Charly,

We are pretty impressed with Astor 49 and we are planning to build this house. I love your ideas and I assume you’re building this house too? When you say windows in the galley, are these sliding windows? Did you make some changes in your kitchen too? If you don’t mind, can you post some photos of the outcome of your pantry with the door, window in the galley, kitchen where the cooktop is, island bench, sink, the family room where the big windows are and lastly your staircase? Just want to have an idea on what changes should I do before we sign the contract. Thanks!

Hi Hagtelar

No, my husband and I did not build this house, we built the Forsyth 35 by Porter Davis.

Because they had loaded up their plans, I was able to look and suggest some common changes.

As you are new to this site, I would suggest checking out my Blog, it has a lot of useful information for people building.
The address is https://forsyth35.com

It's great to see that you are taking the time to read back on old posts, and not just asking the same questions that many have answered before.

All the best and feel free to reach out to me via the email address on the blog if you like - I don't come to Home one much these days.

thanks
Charlotte

DanC · Jul 22, 2019 2:32 pm

Hi guys

I'm just completing some research on builders in QLD however I am unable to find Porter Davis (or Barrett Property) in the QBCC Licence search. Has anyone been able to find their QBCC details?

http://www.onlineservices.qbcc.qld.gov. ... ntent.aspx

Much appreciated..

brucefil2011 · Dec 13, 2019 8:41 pm

WaldorfL

Why is the warranty only 7 years when competitors like Metricon and Henley are 50+ years/lifetime?

You can get 7 years warranty on a Kia car...

Just repainted my 18 month old build with them. Paint has been cheap and we definitely did not get 3 coats of paint, but how do you prove that. We complained at 3 months after hand over due to excessive marking (you just breath on a wall and it marks) which we were told was normal.

Our hallway and lounge took up 4lt of Haymes high quality paint and we're very dry reconfirming the poor workmanship.

Saving $50 in paint by not doing the job properly in the first place on a $500k build says everything someone needs to know about Porter Davis and their quality.

Drew01 · Dec 14, 2019 11:10 am

brucefil2011

WaldorfL

Why is the warranty only 7 years when competitors like Metricon and Henley are 50+ years/lifetime?

You can get 7 years warranty on a Kia car...

Just repainted my 18 month old build with them. Paint has been cheap and we definitely did not get 3 coats of paint, but how do you prove that. We complained at 3 months after hand over due to excessive marking (you just breath on a wall and it marks) which we were told was normal.

Our hallway and lounge took up 4lt of Haymes high quality paint and we're very dry reconfirming the poor workmanship.

Saving $50 in paint by not doing the job properly in the first place on a $500k build says everything someone needs to know about Porter Davis and their quality.

Metricon are no different... We paid for wash and wear, and you can't wash anything off without the paint coming with it

TeslaCyberTruck · Jan 02, 2020 3:05 pm

inphaz

Discusses expectation verses reality and also uncovers a little known truth about PD trades. Happy reading
https://forsyth35.com/2018/11/25/the-gr ... %E2%80%8B/

Hey inphaze - very informative blog for those looking to build with PD

hash_nanay · Aug 15, 2021 1:47 pm

Hi there,

We are considering building Astor 43. It has some features similar to the Sanford 42 but Astor has more spaces such as study, theatre, etc. It looked amazing when we first visited the display home in Berwick (Minta farm), specially with the void in the living. Appreciate any advise, recommendations or learning experts can share regarding the experience building Astor 43.

Thanks in advance.

hash_nanay · Oct 01, 2021 4:08 pm

Fongeo

We have a north facing block on which we are planing to construct the Astor 49. Attached are the sitting and ground floor plans for the same.

The challenge we are having is if we need to keep the kitchen on the right (west) facing or change the orientation to the left (east) facing. We have a pretty big fixed window in the kitchen and we are not sure how bad the evening sun would be.

The block on the right (west) is sold and we are not sure if it is a double story or a single story block, on the other hand we have two blocks on the left (east) of which one (528) can be a single or double and (529) can only be a single storey, they are house and land packages.

The builder is okay moving the crossover.

Considering these I would greatly appreciate some thoughts on this.

Thanks. Super confused !!!

Hey Fongeo , hope you are keeping well. I was wondering if you went ahead with building Astor 49. We are planning to build Astor 49 as well. However we couldn't find a facade we like. Particularly given the Astor 49 has nothing over the garage it feels like most of the nice facades doesn't fit well. Which facade did you go with for your build?

hash_nanay · Nov 02, 2021 1:51 pm

Hi all,

I got a question regarding site cost. When we built our first house 6-7 years ago, we were able to get the soil test done at very early stage and were able to a confirmation on the site cost. This helped us to devise whether to proceed with Porter Davis or not as we had short listed few other houses from various other builders.

We had a similar discussion with sales consultant at Minta and agreed to get the soil test done so that we could know the site cost. However after the soil test has been completed, we were told only at the tender they can confirm the site cost.

I was wondering if there are others who were able to get the site cost finalised prior to the tender appointment ?

Thanks in advance!!

fademan · Nov 03, 2021 8:44 am

We did our build with them 3 years ago and confirmed the site costs at tender as you say.

By memory they provisioned an amount of money for site costs based on other homes they built in the area so we had a rough idea. It actually went down at tender so they over compensated initially.

Site costs include engineering of the slab and other factors... They aren't going to go through all that trouble if they aren't going to secure the deal IMO.

hash_nanay · Nov 03, 2021 9:49 am

Thank you fademan. I was under the impression the site cost is mostly decided based on the house model, size, fall / slope in the block, soil condition, utility connections and permit cost. If house model and size is known then changes to engineering diagrams which would impact the site cost would be minimal right? Is that not correct ?

fademan · Nov 03, 2021 2:41 pm

In principle but the work would still need to be done .. depending on the type of soil and the results, including any changes you want to the house, the site costs will change. All this is work... It's not like they have a spreadsheet somewhere with all the house types, soil types etc.. That they can just look up.

What I'm saying is that they aren't going to go to all that trouble to finalise an amount without the commitment to build. Before that point they just provide an estimate, which is what I got.

Even then, during my tender, the site costs included traffic management, which I asked them to remove because we are on a quiet street.... So they didn't get it right even then

hash_nanay · Nov 03, 2021 3:43 pm

fademan

Even then, during my tender, the site costs included traffic management, which I asked them to remove because we are on a quiet street.... So they didn't get it right even then

Good to know. We will certainly keep an eye on the items included in the site cost.

celadon · Nov 03, 2021 3:58 pm

If there are major discrepancies between their sales quote and tender process, it is best to question it through the sales consultant. We had a good sales consultant who was happy to be involved and we found that there had been errors when they were working out the costs. In our case, it was nearly a 17K error (not for site costs but for an additional structure). Luckily our sales consultant was able to find it based on the costs that they have on file for other similar projects and was able to help it being rectified at the tender. All the best.

Xile · Apr 12, 2022 8:03 am

so porter davis never installed my flue, got sick of following them up back then. tried again, old mate could have just left is at. 8 years is abit too long to claim on this. sorry for the inconvenience. but they say this giant non painted box and no flue is the correct install.

cOrrEcT InsTalAtiOn

Waldorf_Grange_Build · Apr 12, 2022 8:10 am

Xile

so porter davis never installed my flue, got sick of following them up back then. tried again, old mate could have just left is at. 8 years is abit too long to claim on this. sorry for the inconvenience. but they say this giant non painted box and no flue is the correct install.

cOrrEcT InsTalAtiOn

I would expect it to be painted at least.