Time off work for Builder meetings

bmp · Jul 05, 2007 9:21 pm

Just wondering if anyone has found a builder that understands you work too? Both my husband and i work full time - which is how we can afford to build a house - but all of the meetings have to be between 9-5 on a weekday and they are all scheduled for around 4 hours. We have already had 3 days off work each and have another 3 meetings to attend equalling another 3 days off. They aren't even at times where you could just leave work early. We have had days where we have managed to put two meetings on the one day i.e colour selection and contract signing, but it is still adding up to a lot of time off work.
Plus the meetings never take as long as they say. They schedule you for 1pm to 5pm but you are done at 2pm and you could have organised something else for the afternoon.
We are really happy with the builder but the inflexibility has suprised me - surely they realise that all this time off work just isn't practical?

How have others experiences been?

clath · Jul 05, 2007 11:18 pm

bmp know what you mean. i had to ask for days off a month in advance to be able to attend appointments for contract signing tiles and colours. hated asking my employer but what can you do. thank goodness they are easy to get on with. last wed i had to go to national tiles in port melb for a nine am appoint to choose tiles . bad weather traffic late 45 mins rep wasnt happy. then back to dandenong in the arvo for colour selection. all this took all day. then in the arvo last friday another half day off work to sign contracts. thank goodness thats it now just have to wait for site start :lol:

sneakersss · Jul 05, 2007 11:43 pm

Ah yeah, it's kind of like most things. They're open when you're at work and closed when you're not. Like...well everything. If it wasn't for the internet I don't think I'd ever get anything done. My bills would never be paid and I'd never know what was going on in the world!

But we also had to take days off. One for Tender, one for electrical and colour selections and one for contract signing. We did tiles on a Saturday. But yes, it all adds up. The only person willing to accomodate our work schedule was the sales man at the display home who did our walk-through with us. We made an appointment for 6.30pm and they closed at like 5-5.30pm so he waited for us. He just said if we were going to be later than 6.30pm to just call him and let him know. How nice, ey? If only everything else was like that.

spalen · Jul 06, 2007 12:16 am

This wouldnt be adenbrook?

I must've taken 6-7 days off in total with all the re-work they did to correct mistakes etc , and their hopeless estimates of how long meetings would take.

I also got a bit frustrated at calling you in to go through stuff that you could easily have read at home. Really irritating.

northlakes · Jul 06, 2007 9:29 am

Spalen,

Don't get me started on their internal processes. The good news is, once you get to site things move very fast and smooth....well so far anyway.

Cheers,

Casa2 · Jul 06, 2007 9:45 am

Maybe this is all a ploy to get you to act quickly. By getting you in on a work day they know you're more likely to make quick decisions.

sneakersss · Jul 06, 2007 10:10 am

Casa2

Maybe this is all a ploy to get you to act quickly. By getting you in on a work day they know you're more likely to make quick decisions.

Oooh, never thought of it that way! You are quite possibly onto something. They also do that whole part guilt-trip thing where if you hold up something along the process it then holds up or puts back the next appointment. Which then could possibly delay everything else especially the much anticipated site start.

From when we had our first Tender appointment to when we eventually signed the damned thing there was something like a six week period that passed. And that obviously ate into their preparation time for the contract. So they gave us the whole 'We have to see if we can still make your contract appointment' line. Now if they had only gotten the thing right and understood my plain english instructions then the six weeks passing wouldn't have been necessary. *sigh*

I just keep telling myself it's a big learning curve!

vanderlay · Jul 06, 2007 10:29 am

Very good point...we were lucky that we both have flexible workplaces, or things would have been very hard to organise if you had a painful boss...!

They're very happy to sell to you on a weekend, but after that its all during the week when it suits them!!

vpande · Jul 06, 2007 10:51 am

We have both been fortunate to have flexible work hours. never had to take a whole day off. we also divided the roles. He stayed longer for the electrical visit and I stayed longer for the colour selection visit. The most annoying thing was the electrical where the lady ran 30 min late to start us and then rushed and rushed and was not happy as she ran into the next client's time... cant they provide a better information brochure beforhand? or at least have 30 min of backup time... as everywhere... overwork.. underpay... and expect productivity...
vp

Vlad76 · Jul 06, 2007 11:32 am

We only had two of those 4 hour meetings. (Colour selection and electrical appointment) The rest was done either after hours or early in the morning.

So we've only had to take 2 half days off prior to commencing building.

mek · Jul 06, 2007 11:43 am

We did all selections on Saturdays. The builder came to our house on many occasions to discuss things, at a time that suited us. I did have to go see the builder's cabinet maker on a weekday (just because I'm so fussy) and the builder came to pick me up & drove me there. I think taxi fees are included in our final price

mattwalker · Jul 06, 2007 12:07 pm

Vlad76

We only had two of those 4 hour meetings. (Colour selection and electrical appointment) The rest was done either after hours or early in the morning.

So we've only had to take 2 half days off prior to commencing building.

Same!

We had a tender that took 3 hours 9:00-12:00 and a colour appointment that took 4 hours 8:30 to 12:30. The contract and tenders were worked out via 100's of emails prior to arriving at the appointments.

The contract signing was at 8:00 in the morning and lasted 45 mins!

The guys at Carlisle Homes made this a really smooth process...

ahuang · Jul 06, 2007 1:17 pm

As the builder's workers can only do their work during their normal working hours, so I don't think there's any other option for this...

Cheers
Allan
http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/
Current stage: old house demolished, contract signed, fence ready, waiting for excavation to start...

perryr · Jul 06, 2007 3:34 pm

Funny though - the SALES people are available on the weekend! Once they've got you....

Imagine how we felt after taking time off work for Tender Appointment, Colour appointment, electrical, tiling.... only to pull the pin on the project.

It wasn't a complete waste - we will go with similar colour scheme once we decide on what we want, and it was a pretty good learning exercise.

Perry

Casa2 · Jul 06, 2007 5:33 pm

perryr

Funny though - the SALES people are available on the weekend! Once they've got you....

Imagine how we felt after taking time off work for Tender Appointment, Colour appointment, electrical, tiling.... only to pull the pin on the project.

It wasn't a complete waste - we will go with similar colour scheme once we decide on what we want, and it was a pretty good learning exercise.

Perry

Yep, that's it. Make the sales people available on weekends to get your business and then switch everything to weekdays to make it difficult for you to take your time with selections and hurry the process to signing you up. And you think that's bad enough, once you've signed they don't want to know you ... except for progress payments.

If a builder can offer real customer service they will get alot of business, which I would say is essential in the eastern states if you want to survive.

bmp · Jul 06, 2007 6:52 pm

i like the sound of mek's builder. We will do that next time.

I agree that there isn't really another option - things must be done during the week, but surely better coordination with timing etc could cut down the number of days required??? We always preplan and discuss options before we go to any meeting so they never last more than 60mins. There should be a short meeting time on offer for those that are prepared and longer times for those that have more questions/decisions etc.

Then EVERYONE would be happy

off2theburbs · Jul 06, 2007 7:17 pm

Homebuyers Centre were really good, the finance and sales people are available 24 hours 7 days and they really are very flexiable with appointment times. I think it was easier for us as well though as we bothe work shift work jobs full time.

clath · Jul 07, 2007 1:07 am

be good if the display homes had a display of all the different arrray of tiles colours ect (that you would normally see at their selection centres) you would get a better idea of what everything would look like. pick there. save a lot of time and travelling . i think ive seen this done before

perryr · Jul 07, 2007 8:26 am

I saw this done at a Kitome display during the week. Seems to be a good idea, although having the Rumpus Room stuffed full of bricks and tiles does take something away from the overall look of the home.