McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread

Hi All,

Looking at building with MJH near Canberra. Requested double glazing of all windows and doors. I note that their window and door supplier is Bradnams. Online reviews indicate that Bradnams windows and doors are poor quality. Has anyone built with MJH using Bradnams double glazed windows and doors that can comment?

Thanks.

Hi,

We have our CT presentation tomorrow. We are just wondering what additional negotiation can be done at this stage?

Kind Regards,
Prasanna

As you know we are also building with MJH and we just signed our CT (Last night) and have now been transferred to the Canberra office like you. As the other office only does up until stage 3.
We are getting double glazed windows and doors too, but had not heard anything good or bad about their quality.

Bradnams supply all of MJH doors and windows so I guess they can't be that bad or they would be flooded with complaints from unhappy clients. Would still be good to get the thoughts of someone who has built with the double glazed windows and stacker doors to get their thoughts on the quality and finish.

Sorry I thought I replied to this a while ago but it doesn’t look like I did sorry.
We are building the garden retreat one in Gunning NSW.
We have been blogging about the process in my personal website and just started an Instagram account which you might like - https://www.instagram.com/buildingthegardenretreat/ which you might like to follow to see how we are going with it.

Anyone else here particularly under the south coast oak flats office experiencing long and extensive delays


I have been patiently waiting for news and development regarding our build and i feel like we aren’t getting anywhere. Is it just me or are others in the same boat ?

Can I ask what colours you have used with the Brampton brick please🧵

Hello Folks, I am in process to get tender to build house in Mid Coast from McDonald Jones. At the moment I am between Panorama 36 and Bridgetown 38 house designs. During discussion, I have been told my McDonald Jones that flooring is not the part of standard offering and has to be decide during internal selection. Does any one have idea how much flooring for 36-38 Sq house McDonald in general charge. I am looking for Laminate throughout the Ground floor except the Bedroom and Carpet throughout the first floor.

Also, how much and what kind of negotiation on price can do with McDonald Jones during tender process ?

Thanks
Vin

We ended up doing flooring after handover, saving a few thousand dollars on a 29sq house. This was a year ago now, so prices could have changed. There isn't much negotiation on price but there are certain things that they can obviously offer and do so without much pushing (like we got a "free" alfresco size upgrade). One thing I will note is ANY and all structural modifications get in at the tender process as they prices seem to jump up once you have signed. Even when it is at preliminary plans stage, we got some really good bang for buck upgrades during tender process.
Was happy overall with the build quality of Mac Jones, within a project home scale.

Thanks IKitto. Have you gone though with Now series home ? Since, in the standard 2 Stroey home they are not offering Alfresco as standard and it is costing almost $10K for 4 m x 3 m size. I am going to have a review with them this week so I will try to see how much they can be negotiated even if this is in form of upgrades, or studio vouchers.

No, ours was not a Now series, and the alfresco at the time fit the floor plan and wasn't really an add-on. They tried to spin the extension as "optional" but I guarantee every house built had it. Not a lot of experience with 2 storey homes unfortunately.
Best of luck.

We decided to do it after handover since it was almost double the cost. However, we are still in the construction phase which is extremely slow and frustrating (It has been 8 months and we still don`t have all the external walls!)

Thanks Fredii, whereabouts your build is happening and which design you going a head with ? How long you spent in Pre-COnstruction and since when the construction is going on ?

Thanks IKitto. You probably right coz if in the standard design Alfresco has not given as optional than it is integral part. Unfortunately for both the designs I choose Alfresco & Grant Alfresco is an optional item and to build Grande Alfresco the cost they have quote is 20K plus

We are building in Sydney Northwest (15-20 minutes from the head office!). Land was registered in Aug 2021. We did tender and contract before the registration. Although it was CDC, it took them until Feb to start. They made a mistake in CDC plans and took them weeks to rectify it. We have a lot of neighbors that had the same registration dates and some of them are 6 months ahead of us. There were some that started after us and are doing internal works while we still are struggling with walls and external works. They are clearly don`t have enough resources to do the jobs that they accepted. Most builders sign more that should but we can compare with about 20 neighbors with same situation and we can tell MJH is one of the worst in construction delays.