Hi Normad, Have sent you a PM.
An inspector will pick up things we are not trained to see. No issues with MJH. Will keep you all posted.
Woodduck
Is it possible for you to send me details re a private inspector and the cost
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 603Jan 01, 2011 11:18 am riccathome taki Hi 1155, How terrible that this has happened with your bricks, since you've paid so much for them. This is what I fear, choosing carefully and then they don't end up looking good. Hopefully they find a solution for you. I received the colour folder today and brick section only has standard range bricks from Austral. Nothing about other categories, let alone upgrade prices. And letter says to choose brcik before colour appointment. Ours is booked for 26/1, and hopefully they'll respond to my e-mail asking about more brick choices. None of the standard ones are exposure grade. A bit confused with other things, such as no photos of door handle selections, Actron brochure instead of Darby, not sure if I can choose from either Laminex or Formica for cupboards/vanities and Ceaserstone/Essastone for benchtops, also no colours of glass splashback. Glass splashback/stone benchtops are included in Impression package for us. Question for all who got free upgrade from 22.5 deg to 26 deg roof pitch? I can't find this in my preliminary tender, should I mention this now or wait till colour appointment? Hi Taki, We did our colours back in April but heres some tips: With the bricks - check the paperwork with your colour folder, we could look at PGH, Boral and Austral, I think it does say you can choose from any of them, but MJH do prefer Austral, thats all. The door handles - are on display in the colour selections, go look at display centres anywhere and you will see different ones around, take a photo of handle you like and take it with you. The kitchen - Laminex or Formica, caesarstone or Essastone, both of these you can choose either. Glass splashback sorry cant help you there. Hope this helps Riccathome [/quote Hi Taki We are the same no pics of door handles etc. no glass splash back photos and we do not have the pitched roof in ours either and we got the impressions package. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 605Jan 01, 2011 12:14 pm Hi all, We managed to squeeze in a walk-though before colour office holiday shutdown. Got some verbal price upgrades, also Austral Symmetry Asphalt is $2900 upgrade. Did not manage to find anything about any other brick despite numerous e-mail. How do they expect us to finalise external choice, don't even know what to choose from as no info. We will be having are colour appt 12/1. Some prices and probably not that accurate: upgrade to lever forn door lock $240, upgrade to all internal door handles $680?, all internal doors (including wardrobe and sliding if any) $1340, adding draws to kitche $300 something per set and to bathroom vanity $280 I think instead of glass splashback as per Impression package, you can choose from any tiles they have and they would tile behind rangehood as well flyscreens $48/window We visited Austral brick dispplay centre and these are most probably the external colours: Roof tiles: Monier Horizon Barramundi (didn't see these yet so could change) Gutters: Woodland Grey Fascia: Woodland Grey or Surfmist Eaves: some dort of white Garage door: Surfmist Windows: most likely Pearl White Gloss (worried if this colour would get dirty quickly)-any comments on window colour appreciated All in all, a bit dissapointed in MDJ'S lack of communication and mistakes, still don't have the plan drawn as it took a while to get Deposit variation right. Also not happy with having to have rainwater tank in the backyard. Hope everyone is doing well. Building Havana Elite with side HT with MJD 20/04/11 DA approved by council 06/06/11 cut/fill 08/06/11 piering 20/6/11 slab 11/8/11 frame complete 18/9/11 lock up 28/11/11 handover booked Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 606Jan 01, 2011 8:04 pm danana They can be. We have got one for our final inspection only, but you can get them to oversee the construction, they will come out and check the house at various stages of the construction. Thanks and yeah we were thinking we would get one for final inspection only. Looking forward to having a new house sometime this year and congrats to all who have recently moved into their new homes. Building The Monte Carlo with PR-MJ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 607Jan 03, 2011 9:22 pm Hello Everyone, We recently signed on with McDonald Jones to build the Milano 15m at Glenmore Ridge. We originally picked the Milano 16m but after seeing the 15m on display at Gregory Hills we were happy with that. We have just received our colour selection book and was wondering if anyone has price lists for our colour selection meeting in January. I have seen the electrical price list but was looking for anything on the kitchens. We are interested in the costs of upgrading to polyurethane or to vacuum form. There also appears to be a new laminate door in a high gloss which we like as well - just trying to get some idea on costs so we can have most of our decision made prior to attending. We are also starting a blog soon and will post that up to track our progress. Thanks in advance. Building with Fairmont Homes NSW at Glenmore Ridge Lot 1007 Our Builder http://www.fairmonthomesnsw.com.au Our Blog http://drewandrenee.blogspot.com/ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 608Jan 05, 2011 8:05 am FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! We have council approval and are guaranteed to go to construction before the end of this month!!! Cant wait to finally see some dirt turned!! Gav Building the Monte Carlo with side activities in Mt Annan MY BLOG: http://gavsfirstbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 609Jan 06, 2011 10:51 am Hi All It's been a while since I've posted on here (or on my own thread). This post is basically just a rant and to give an alternate timeline to that posted by woodduck. We started dealing with McDonald Jones in the first week of November 2009. Our tender was accepted and our deposit paid in December 2009. At that time we were told the usual time to finalisation of the build was 10 months in normal cases and 12 months in exceptional cases. After a great amount of delay, and stalling on the part of McD Jones, we finally received a contract on 29 April 2010 (a Thursday). This was after numerous promises and following a phone call by me to say I would be at the office at 3pm to collect the contract and I expected it to be ready. Our initial CSO was effectively useless and thankfully he was away on that day and another CSO took the job on. Upon collection of the contract I received a letter stating we must sign by 3 May 2010 (the following Monday) or be subject to a price rise due to delay. Given the delay was in no way on our part I refuted any entitlement to the price rise. The contract contained a number of errors and the plans failed to comply with our Council's development control plan (building standards). After numerous calls the contract and plans were altered. Our plans were submitted to Council in June 2010 and were approved in a speedy 16 days. Construction commenced on 27 July 2010 with the site scrape. Since that time the build has progressed well although the communication with the builder has been dreadful and we feel as though we have been continuously * to. Throughout the build our supervisor has stated "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". The supervisor refused to provide a date. It was in late November 2010 that one of the tradesman mentioned to me that it was unfortunate that we had not made the Christmas list given how close we were to completion. I again asked the supervisor when would we be in and the reply was again "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". When I put to him what had been said to me by the tradesman the response was that I should not be talking to the tradesman. He finished the phone call with "you're right, you won't be in by Christmas." I've now not had any communication with our supervisor since late November. I subsequently phoned the Construction Manager who informed me that we should have been told we did not make the Christmas list in October. I am still waiting on a return call with an estimated date of completion. Our house is now almost complete - we are waiting on our bath to main bathroom, door handles to interior doors, carpet, connection of the water tank, flyscreens, shower screens, final electrical and plumbing. All other jobs, including installation of the kitchen appliances, are complete. We are very happy with the quality of the build although other than that I have few good things to say about the builder. Communication is dreadful as is the builder's ability to give any realistic timeframe for works. Anyway, just an alternate view for those of you considering building with McDonald Jones. I'll post some photos in my thread shortly. Building the Monte Carlo with McD Jones View my building thread @ viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37255 Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 610Jan 06, 2011 11:37 am bon Hi All It's been a while since I've posted on here (or on my own thread). This post is basically just a rant and to give an alternate timeline to that posted by woodduck. We started dealing with McDonald Jones in the first week of November 2009. Our tender was accepted and our deposit paid in December 2009. At that time we were told the usual time to finalisation of the build was 10 months in normal cases and 12 months in exceptional cases. After a great amount of delay, and stalling on the part of McD Jones, we finally received a contract on 29 April 2010 (a Thursday). This was after numerous promises and following a phone call by me to say I would be at the office at 3pm to collect the contract and I expected it to be ready. Our initial CSO was effectively useless and thankfully he was away on that day and another CSO took the job on. Upon collection of the contract I received a letter stating we must sign by 3 May 2010 (the following Monday) or be subject to a price rise due to delay. Given the delay was in no way on our part I refuted any entitlement to the price rise. The contract contained a number of errors and the plans failed to comply with our Council's development control plan (building standards). After numerous calls the contract and plans were altered. Our plans were submitted to Council in June 2010 and were approved in a speedy 16 days. Construction commenced on 27 July 2010 with the site scrape. Since that time the build has progressed well although the communication with the builder has been dreadful and we feel as though we have been continuously * to. Throughout the build our supervisor has stated "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". The supervisor refused to provide a date. It was in late November 2010 that one of the tradesman mentioned to me that it was unfortunate that we had not made the Christmas list given how close we were to completion. I again asked the supervisor when would we be in and the reply was again "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". When I put to him what had been said to me by the tradesman the response was that I should not be talking to the tradesman. He finished the phone call with "you're right, you won't be in by Christmas." I've now not had any communication with our supervisor since late November. I subsequently phoned the Construction Manager who informed me that we should have been told we did not make the Christmas list in October. I am still waiting on a return call with an estimated date of completion. Our house is now almost complete - we are waiting on our bath to main bathroom, door handles to interior doors, carpet, connection of the water tank, flyscreens, shower screens, final electrical and plumbing. All other jobs, including installation of the kitchen appliances, are complete. We are very happy with the quality of the build although other than that I have few good things to say about the builder. Communication is dreadful as is the builder's ability to give any realistic timeframe for works. Anyway, just an alternate view for those of you considering building with McDonald Jones. I'll post some photos in my thread shortly. Hi Bon, Where are you building?? I hope your in soon.. Lizzie Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 611Jan 06, 2011 11:59 am Hi Lizzie We are building in the Hunter Valley NSW. Hopefully for everyone else my issues are relevant only to the Thornton office. I'm hoping we'll be given a handover date when the office opens next week - not knowing is the worse bit because we can't make any plans. Building the Monte Carlo with McD Jones View my building thread @ viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37255 Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 612Jan 07, 2011 7:54 am Hi Folks, I'm just another one frustrated by the delays. Understandably nothing has happened over Christmas but they have had about 3 1/2 working weeks before then to do the frame and it still sin't finished! Here's hoping that things pick up next week when they are all back. Did anyone pick up some good bargains in the sales? We went looking for lights but nothing was on special. When we get a bit closer we are just going to go into the one store and ask for a package deal, I already know what I want anyway. Dtechstr, congrats on starting the building journey. It's good to see another one in outer western sydney! We are building on an acre about 20 min south of you. Unfounetly you don't get a list of prices for colour upgrades, you basically have to go through each one individually at the appointment and get the prices, but here is a sample of what we paid. Upgrade to polytech kitchen doors - $4200 (I think, it was definelty over $4000), we aksed for a price for a timber ktichen also but all they could tell me is that it would be upwards of $9000, which is just rediculous, I can get a whole kitchen built for that, and this was just an upgrade! Upgrade to stone benchtops - $3500, I have mentioned this before but just double check the price because we were quoted this price in our tender but not told that was a choice of only 4 colours. To chose from the whole range costs upwards of $400 extra. Drawers in kitchen - $300 a set Hope that helps you Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 613Jan 07, 2011 4:59 pm Hello vpeewee Thanks for the reply. Did you put in soft closing draws in your kitchen? If so I was trying to find out what they charge for that. Also are the Polytec doors you used a painted door i.e polyurethane? And was $4200 for the whole kitchen in those doors? I have seen a new door which is laminate but has a flat gloss finish to it. P.s - Our Blog is up now - the link is below Building with Fairmont Homes NSW at Glenmore Ridge Lot 1007 Our Builder http://www.fairmonthomesnsw.com.au Our Blog http://drewandrenee.blogspot.com/ Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 614Jan 07, 2011 6:19 pm dtechstr Hello vpeewee Thanks for the reply. Did you put in soft closing draws in your kitchen? If so I was trying to find out what they charge for that. Also are the Polytec doors you used a painted door i.e polyurethane? And was $4200 for the whole kitchen in those doors? I have seen a new door which is laminate but has a flat gloss finish to it. P.s - Our Blog is up now - the link is below Polytec is polyurethane but a different brand, $4200 is the whole kitchen. the gloss laminate is alot cheaper maybe $1000 for the whole kitchen - but i think limited colours (or they had limited samples not sure which) Hope this helps lizzie Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 615Jan 09, 2011 8:51 am bon Hi All It's been a while since I've posted on here (or on my own thread). This post is basically just a rant and to give an alternate timeline to that posted by woodduck. We started dealing with McDonald Jones in the first week of November 2009. Our tender was accepted and our deposit paid in December 2009. At that time we were told the usual time to finalisation of the build was 10 months in normal cases and 12 months in exceptional cases. After a great amount of delay, and stalling on the part of McD Jones, we finally received a contract on 29 April 2010 (a Thursday). This was after numerous promises and following a phone call by me to say I would be at the office at 3pm to collect the contract and I expected it to be ready. Our initial CSO was effectively useless and thankfully he was away on that day and another CSO took the job on. Upon collection of the contract I received a letter stating we must sign by 3 May 2010 (the following Monday) or be subject to a price rise due to delay. Given the delay was in no way on our part I refuted any entitlement to the price rise. The contract contained a number of errors and the plans failed to comply with our Council's development control plan (building standards). After numerous calls the contract and plans were altered. Our plans were submitted to Council in June 2010 and were approved in a speedy 16 days. Construction commenced on 27 July 2010 with the site scrape. Since that time the build has progressed well although the communication with the builder has been dreadful and we feel as though we have been continuously * to. Throughout the build our supervisor has stated "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". The supervisor refused to provide a date. It was in late November 2010 that one of the tradesman mentioned to me that it was unfortunate that we had not made the Christmas list given how close we were to completion. I again asked the supervisor when would we be in and the reply was again "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". When I put to him what had been said to me by the tradesman the response was that I should not be talking to the tradesman. He finished the phone call with "you're right, you won't be in by Christmas." I've now not had any communication with our supervisor since late November. I subsequently phoned the Construction Manager who informed me that we should have been told we did not make the Christmas list in October. I am still waiting on a return call with an estimated date of completion. Our house is now almost complete - we are waiting on our bath to main bathroom, door handles to interior doors, carpet, connection of the water tank, flyscreens, shower screens, final electrical and plumbing. All other jobs, including installation of the kitchen appliances, are complete. We are very happy with the quality of the build although other than that I have few good things to say about the builder. Communication is dreadful as is the builder's ability to give any realistic timeframe for works. Anyway, just an alternate view for those of you considering building with McDonald Jones. I'll post some photos in my thread shortly. Hi Bon, It sounds awful and has gotten me a little worried. we are building in the Hunter and going through Thornton office. They stuffed up our colour selections and we were told dont call just email any changes. And we didnt hear back from them and this was just before Christmas. What happened with your 150 days thing, as it would of gone over since construction started 8 months after you signed up? We are worried as we're not sure if we go over how much they would jack up the price I hope everything goes well with the rest of the build. Dani ___________________ Initial deposit - 31 Oct 11 Signed Contract - Apr 11 Released to Construction - 03 Jun 11 Site Start - 05 Jul 11 (Advised) Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 616Jan 09, 2011 1:34 pm Castlevania bon Hi All It's been a while since I've posted on here (or on my own thread). This post is basically just a rant and to give an alternate timeline to that posted by woodduck. We started dealing with McDonald Jones in the first week of November 2009. Our tender was accepted and our deposit paid in December 2009. At that time we were told the usual time to finalisation of the build was 10 months in normal cases and 12 months in exceptional cases. After a great amount of delay, and stalling on the part of McD Jones, we finally received a contract on 29 April 2010 (a Thursday). This was after numerous promises and following a phone call by me to say I would be at the office at 3pm to collect the contract and I expected it to be ready. Our initial CSO was effectively useless and thankfully he was away on that day and another CSO took the job on. Upon collection of the contract I received a letter stating we must sign by 3 May 2010 (the following Monday) or be subject to a price rise due to delay. Given the delay was in no way on our part I refuted any entitlement to the price rise. The contract contained a number of errors and the plans failed to comply with our Council's development control plan (building standards). After numerous calls the contract and plans were altered. Our plans were submitted to Council in June 2010 and were approved in a speedy 16 days. Construction commenced on 27 July 2010 with the site scrape. Since that time the build has progressed well although the communication with the builder has been dreadful and we feel as though we have been continuously * to. Throughout the build our supervisor has stated "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". The supervisor refused to provide a date. It was in late November 2010 that one of the tradesman mentioned to me that it was unfortunate that we had not made the Christmas list given how close we were to completion. I again asked the supervisor when would we be in and the reply was again "you'll be in by Christmas but no promises". When I put to him what had been said to me by the tradesman the response was that I should not be talking to the tradesman. He finished the phone call with "you're right, you won't be in by Christmas." I've now not had any communication with our supervisor since late November. I subsequently phoned the Construction Manager who informed me that we should have been told we did not make the Christmas list in October. I am still waiting on a return call with an estimated date of completion. Our house is now almost complete - we are waiting on our bath to main bathroom, door handles to interior doors, carpet, connection of the water tank, flyscreens, shower screens, final electrical and plumbing. All other jobs, including installation of the kitchen appliances, are complete. We are very happy with the quality of the build although other than that I have few good things to say about the builder. Communication is dreadful as is the builder's ability to give any realistic timeframe for works. Anyway, just an alternate view for those of you considering building with McDonald Jones. I'll post some photos in my thread shortly. Hi Bon, It sounds awful and has gotten me a little worried. we are building in the Hunter and going through Thornton office. They stuffed up our colour selections and we were told dont call just email any changes. And we didnt hear back from them and this was just before Christmas. What happened with your 150 days thing, as it would of gone over since construction started 8 months after you signed up? We are worried as we're not sure if we go over how much they would jack up the price I hope everything goes well with the rest of the build. Dani We are going through Thornton office also. Took a few weeks to get our colour selection right - Colour selection should only be final when they have emailed through an updated selection form and you return it signed every page with no pen. Lizzie Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 617Jan 10, 2011 8:17 pm Hi Dani The price rise based on the 150 days was not relied upon by the builder - to be honest if they had of insisted we probably would have walked away at that stage. As Lizzie says your colour selections are not finalised until you sign all of the contract documentation although I would pursue them to ensure this is rectified as soon as possible. Just phone and email continously until you get a satisfactory response. There were some issues that I wanted to vary following our contract documents being sent to us but the builder would only make those variations if we paid the variation fee ($1000 or $1500 from memory). Needless to say we didn't bother. One thing that I failed to add the other day was that I believe the progress payment schedule is completely unfair. For example, as at 30 November 2010 we had made payment of 95% of our contract price. There is merely the balance of 5% to be claimed yet the builder still can't give a handover date. When I raised the issue of delay with the builder the response was that they are running ahead of time and that our contract doesn't require completion of the house until March 2010 - on that reasoning we should have only paid about 50% of the price by 30 November (being about half way through the projected time). While I appreciate that the progress payments are staged based given the cost of 2 properties (mortgage repayments etc) one would hope for a more cooperative approach to see us in our house sooner rather than later. Building the Monte Carlo with McD Jones View my building thread @ viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37255 Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 618Jan 13, 2011 6:08 pm Hi Bon and everyone else, I was looking at your building time line and it sounds familiar. We paid initial deposit mid November 2010 and are still going through interim consolidated tender stage. Not signed on it as still incorrect. MJD have told me (in not exactly thoise words) that I'm holding things up and should sign it as soon as possible??? Needless to say, I'm furious and have expressed this to them accordingly. Could anyone tell me if this is the same for them...after deposit in display office our 'case' was handed to a person in the head office. Has anyone had success changing their sals consultant to someone else? If so, who did you escalate this too. Bon, I'm curious who was your useless consultant, maybe we have the same one. Please PM me if you are comfortable with it, initials would suffice. Also, if anyone has the manager's e-mail, I would really appreciate it as it's getting extremely frustrating and stressful. Thanks for reading, taki Building Havana Elite with side HT with MJD 20/04/11 DA approved by council 06/06/11 cut/fill 08/06/11 piering 20/6/11 slab 11/8/11 frame complete 18/9/11 lock up 28/11/11 handover booked Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 620Jan 16, 2011 6:26 pm Hi all, Could anyone please tell me which company do MDJ use for tiles. There was not much choice for bathroom tiles, probably 10 or less from standard range and only one that is grey (going for grey/white theme). We had to choose the tiles at colour selection appointment at Norwest Baulkham Hills. From what I've seen, tile appointment should be separate and actually done at the tile place. taki Building Havana Elite with side HT with MJD 20/04/11 DA approved by council 06/06/11 cut/fill 08/06/11 piering 20/6/11 slab 11/8/11 frame complete 18/9/11 lock up 28/11/11 handover booked Hi AKG, We had a base tender of $592 for 31 squares from MC Donald Jones. It looks relatively cheaper than other builders. 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