Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Provincial Homes 442Jun 04, 2016 5:00 pm ![]() For those that have gone through selections, is it crucial to have it COMPLETED before council approval? Having scheduling issues with work to be able to go and do selections with Vicky H. The best thing is complete all your tasks before expiry of your tender, than you are in save hand, other wise will ready for increase in base home price. Re: Provincial Homes 444Jun 05, 2016 11:31 am Hi guys, back with a belated update. Everything has started now, Provincial excavated the block, didn't look too much different to what I'd imagined, there was a scare that it could be a huge drop off on the right hand side, but it looks fine as I suspected. Only real drama here was a massive concrete rock uncovered at the back of the excavation area, which is probably from previous work on our former house. Still there, so looks like we'll need to remove that. Concrete pier estimates were a bit short. From what I can tell, estimates can vary a lot, because each pier has to hit hard ground, which might be 700m in some spots, or 2100 in others. We were about $2K worth of concrete above the PA, which I'd more than budgeted for, so not too bad. Slab went ahead nicely from there, it was pretty much as stated, the 4 weeks from them taking over the site. Once that was done, this house is high! It will be more than 3 steps to normal ground level from the front porch from my estimation. Not ideal, but it's the fault of our block. Retaining walls will likely be fine, another big concern of mine, we haven't had any quotes on that yet. The good news is we get city views, and they should be pretty amazing from our high house ![]() Tiling! When we went through internals we upgraded the ensuite and bathroom to full wall tiling with the idea that we'll then need to stick to normal range tiles. That plan fell through. We upgraded the floor and wall tiles here, and pretty much left the lower floor tiles in the standard range. A note for others here. Standard tiles are 200x200 for internal tiles, with 3mm grout. This means a lot of tiles, and a lot of grout, which is not overly attractive. But... updgrade at all, and you need underlay at $25/m2. You also need to add labour @ $18/m2. That is still the standard tile range, but bigger tiles. Go to 600x600 tiles (which we will in the ensuite probably) and it's $36 labour. Then nice tiles start around the $75/m2 with a $26 allowance. We made all the selections, and to my calculation all these costs will add up to roughly another $3500 on top of the $3000ish for fully tiled walls. Hopefully there is no rude shock when we get the real quote in a couple of weeks. This was our last selection through provincial. Next, comes the frame, hoping for a reversal of the current weather. Re: Provincial Homes 445Jun 12, 2016 6:10 pm ![]() Hi Everyone, We are waiting for final tender after contract. It's been smooth so far, hope it continues! I was wondering if you know any good tradesman for flooring. Appreciate if anyone had good experience and would like share their contact details. We are not doing flooring with Provincial so looking for external contractor to do it. Hi, saw your post. If you live in the Hills area try Carpet Court at Castle Hill. We're building the NuCaprice and have been to them for flooring quotes. They are excellent - helpful with great advice. Also happy to look after us as they'll be doing our whole house. We're a long way off that stage but had to decide floors before doing colours with Vicky so visited the early on. Good luck! Re: Provincial Homes 446Jun 12, 2016 6:19 pm ![]() Hi niknandy, just had a look at your blog - your house is beautiful and not long to go now! Regarding contracted completion date, I have queried Provincial on this and been told that 25 rain days are being allowed for, effectively giving them another month, when of course there is no way their trades were actually affected on that many days (maybe 10 at the most). On the rest of the days, it may have rained, but no one was going to be at our site anyway. Again just checking if this has been the norm for others? Thanks! Hi, just wondering how you went with the rain days query? We thought they had to give you notice within 10 days of any delays? Did they do that or did they just tell you towards the end? Interested to hear. Thanks Re: Provincial Homes 447Jun 14, 2016 8:31 pm ![]() Hi, just wondering how you went with the rain days query? We thought they had to give you notice within 10 days of any delays? Did they do that or did they just tell you towards the end? Interested to hear. Hi zippy, we didn't dispute the rain days figure, even though we felt it wasn't fair. When I asked about the 10 days notice clause in the contract, V-S said she didn't know what I was talking about and they'd never given notice like that before. Again, I just accepted it.. gotta pick our battles. Re: Provincial Homes 448Jun 16, 2016 5:11 pm I think it's pretty much up to yourself to calculate rain days. In reality it's not the rain that delays, it's the endless weeks without any activity happening. Living in an estate with new homes going up the builders who storm ahead seem to be the larger ones who just want to get the job done. Just keep tabs yourself. In the meantime I'm still chasing up the last few maintenance issues that I have had. I was told the bathroom door had been taken off and painted underneath, but low and behold it swelled again and inspection revealed it hadn't been done. Our portico roof is still leaking. Some things they have been great with fixing, but others not so much. I'm giving them a little longer to actually act and come and actually fix without me having to constantly call the SS (who has now left I hear). If I don't hear back I guess i'll have to kick off the fair trading process and see if I can get it done that way. Getting maintenance sorted has been just as stressful as the build... if not more as you have to listen to all kinds of stupid excuses from trades. My neighbors who built with the bigger builders have had much better experiences from what they say. Re: Provincial Homes 449Jun 22, 2016 7:54 pm Tiling quote is back, there is no huge shock, but.... They made us sign a sheet saying they would cut the tiles around the floor waste if they were greater than 200x200 (which is pretty much any tile you can choose), meaning the waste is in the middle of the tile, and there are 4 grouted lines from the waste to the corner of the tile. This is to get a fall to the waste on supposedly bigger tiles, which makes sense. It really wouldn't look good on a 600x600 tile we were thinking of, so we were thinking of changing to a 300x600 or 300x300 to avoid this. Only, Di Lorenzo said they will still need to do the cut the way they quoted if it's over 200x200! Fine, except... every photo we see (and other bathrooms we go in) tiles in front of basins are not cut and the waste sits nicely between two tiles, which looks far better. Major example is the display home itself, the Nu Caprice, which has 300x300 tiles. Am I to believe Provincial had to sign this stupid agreement to say it's not to Australian standards, on their own display home? They said they would do it how we want, but then we need to sign another sheet saying it won't be to Australian standards, so any related problems will be on us. Has anyone got any advice, it feels like our options are to put up with them cutting up the tile around every waste, or signing off on them doing a "sub-standard" job, allowing them to do whatever they want. Re: Provincial Homes 450Jun 27, 2016 11:04 pm Hi guys, for those who extended to have a third garage, did you have to pay/quote separately to get it with a motor rather than manually opened? While I took the third garage option on the Woollahra, I fear it might be that it does not include an automatic garage door opener. Thoughts? Re: Provincial Homes 451Jun 28, 2016 10:40 am ![]() Has anyone got any advice, it feels like our options are to put up with them cutting up the tile around every waste, or signing off on them doing a "sub-standard" job, allowing them to do whatever they want. I would just let them do it as they want, the cut's they made on ours aren't even noticeable. The gap is less than 1mm on ours where they made cuts. I actually think it looks quite good the way it was done. Fingers crossed our roof gets finally fixed today. Waiting at home for someone to come today. I put in a case with fair trading but on the same day heard back from Provincial (funny how that works), so the case is on hold. It's odd that every supplier they deal with has come and fixed issues i.e. caroma rep replaced the faulty toilet, Bradnams fixed the windows, but getting this roof leak fixed has been a mission. Re: Provincial Homes 452Jun 30, 2016 6:34 pm ![]() Hi guys, for those who extended to have a third garage, did you have to pay/quote separately to get it with a motor rather than manually opened? While I took the third garage option on the Woollahra, I fear it might be that it does not include an automatic garage door opener. Thoughts? Hi Nav12c, yes, we added a third garage. Didn't even think about it coming with a motor (which it didn't) though the double has one. Vicky H offered us the option but we figured it's a spare so will mainly be opened from the inside for airflow. However we did add the powerpoint in the ceiling in case we want to motorise down the track. Vicky also offered the idea of adding a door handle on the 3rd door, and a fake matching handle on the main door. We didn't do that - figured we are happy to only open from the inside and keep the outside clean. Re: Provincial Homes 453Jul 07, 2016 4:10 pm ![]() Hi guys, back with a belated update. Everything has started now, Provincial excavated the block, didn't look too much different to what I'd imagined, there was a scare that it could be a huge drop off on the right hand side, but it looks fine as I suspected. Only real drama here was a massive concrete rock uncovered at the back of the excavation area, which is probably from previous work on our former house. Still there, so looks like we'll need to remove that. Concrete pier estimates were a bit short. From what I can tell, estimates can vary a lot, because each pier has to hit hard ground, which might be 700m in some spots, or 2100 in others. We were about $2K worth of concrete above the PA, which I'd more than budgeted for, so not too bad. Slab went ahead nicely from there, it was pretty much as stated, the 4 weeks from them taking over the site. Once that was done, this house is high! It will be more than 3 steps to normal ground level from the front porch from my estimation. Not ideal, but it's the fault of our block. Retaining walls will likely be fine, another big concern of mine, we haven't had any quotes on that yet. The good news is we get city views, and they should be pretty amazing from our high house ![]() Tiling! When we went through internals we upgraded the ensuite and bathroom to full wall tiling with the idea that we'll then need to stick to normal range tiles. That plan fell through. We upgraded the floor and wall tiles here, and pretty much left the lower floor tiles in the standard range. A note for others here. Standard tiles are 200x200 for internal tiles, with 3mm grout. This means a lot of tiles, and a lot of grout, which is not overly attractive. But... updgrade at all, and you need underlay at $25/m2. You also need to add labour @ $18/m2. That is still the standard tile range, but bigger tiles. Go to 600x600 tiles (which we will in the ensuite probably) and it's $36 labour. Then nice tiles start around the $75/m2 with a $26 allowance. We made all the selections, and to my calculation all these costs will add up to roughly another $3500 on top of the $3000ish for fully tiled walls. Hopefully there is no rude shock when we get the real quote in a couple of weeks. This was our last selection through provincial. Next, comes the frame, hoping for a reversal of the current weather. Hi guys, I am a new member of this forum. Still not sure how to write a post. We are building a new house with Provincial home. We are building Woollahra. We got our DA approved and still waiting for the certificate of construction. Our site is on the high site of the land. Before the demolition, the slope looked a bit steep. The provincial home said there would be 2 steps between the living and the kitchen. However after demolition, we see the land was flatten and quite level. I couldn't imagine we still need those 2 steps in the ground floor. Can anyone please let me know if there is any chance for us to reduce the steps when they don the concrete slab to best accommodate the existing land level? I was told by Adam that it will be decided by the construction manager when they excavate the land. We really want to remove the steps. Is there any chance for us to talk to the construction manager to express our willingness? Re: Provincial Homes 456Aug 12, 2016 8:37 am Similar phase mate. We're finalising selections to get final drawings. This phase is frustrating as it took over 4 weeks to get quote for our requested kitchen changes (purely cosmetic). However, fingers crossed it now moves more swiftly. Re: Provincial Homes 460Aug 26, 2016 7:06 pm Hi ProgD Building with provincial too. Did you end up getting any good recommendations when you posted the below? ![]() Good afternoon Everyone & Happy new year. We have been patiently waiting for the final document to arrive (Construction Certificate) to initiate the actual build process. Still no sign of it, even though Provinicial expects to come soon.. ![]() I have though one query with all the blog followers, need to get following quotes as my bank is asking them for the add ons to be done after the hand over. I need to take some quotes, if any one has got some business names that are good (and cheap) please provide them. 1. Carpet & Tile flooring 2. Blinds 3. Driveway 4. Fencing 5. Electrician (in the Hills district, preferably). Any names, contact will be good. Thanks in advance. The Dulux colour consultants are awesome. If you show them the photos they should be able to figure it out for you straight away 1 2011 ![]() I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 109964 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 26756 |