Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 28, 2007 9:55 pm Hi all,
As many of you know, we are building with H3nl3y in Melbourne and for the most part (aside from some slow patches) all has been progressing very well given our praise for them on this forum. I just posted this update (below), on my blog and wish to share with the group. Also, if you don't want to read all of that, quick poll question for those of you building a double story. If you have built or are nearly done building a 2 story house, how long did it take to go from Lock Up to hand over or what is the anticipated time to hand over from that point if you haven't completed your build yet? Here's the update: Yep, that's a picture of a ghost town, posted to honor how desolate, quiet and vacant the work site has become this week! Why are we a ghost town? Great question! I'll provide some insight, but certainly not an answer. Last week finished off with the trusses to the garage being installed. As we understood it the next parts of the house to be completed needed to happen in a certain order to get to lock up stage, and they were the following...fascia and gutters installed to the garage, roof tiles installed to the garage, theater room and alfresco area, architectural cladding installed to part of the back of the house and the start of plastering (drywall) to the interior, pretty much in that order. Additionally the bricks were to have been cleaned somewhere in the middle with the majority of this work beginning, if not being completed, this week. I was off work Friday and this past Monday for Thanksgiving and on Monday took a stroll with the family down to see what work was going on at the house. Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo! We were bummed, but figured we wouldn't worry too much about it as we had a site meeting scheduled with our Site Supervisor the next day (Tuesday) at 2:00 PM. The better half went to the site meeting, but had stopped by the house to see what was being done in the morning. Again, nothing. At the site meeting, the supervisor seemed perplexed, stating that the fascia and gutters were supposed be put on that day, with the roof tiles to follow shortly after and the insulation which had been delivered Monday morning was supposed be installed with the plaster starting that day as well! That's a lot of trades people either not showing up or dropping the ball. I'm not a builder, but I'm guessing the responsibility falls to our site supervisor to ensure that the necessary trades people are ACTUALLY showing up to do their work and if they aren't, he would find out why. We had written a number of specific questions for the visit mainly asking when the aforementioned items of work were scheduled to be done. Despite most of them originally being scheduled for this week and despite our site supervisor giving this information to our administrator and that information not being passed on, there was a LOT of "ball dropping" going on this week, which started at about marble size and has quickly become a bowling ball! The big shocker came when the better half asked the site supervisor when he thought we'd be in by. The answer? "Ahh, well hopefully, maybe by the end of April!" Bzzzzzt. Wrong Answer! Originally it was going to be around February. This was the guess at our first site meeting shortly after frame stage was completed. Now it's um, maybe by the end of April. Our baby is due May 8th and we will absolutely need to be in at least a month before then. That prediction would mean that it would take five months from lock up (we are nearly there now) to hand over! Seems a bit long to me. At the end of the business day, we finally got an email with an update to our questions as to when the work will be started and/or completed to get to lock up. All of it is due to start with some of it to be finished by next week, so we are hopeful (given a good experience so far) that a LOT of work will happen next week to get us back on track, otherwise the ball may start to get too big and too heavy to drop! We invite you to follow the journey of our home building experience here: http://fundingthedream.blogspot.com/ Power of the Forum - Again! 2Nov 29, 2007 3:04 pm Despite my long winded diatribe that has seen (at last count) some 57+ views with NO reply's (thanks a lot guys), we had work on the house again today which was quite unexpected as the update we were given late yesterday said that any of the work we had expected next would begin next week.
So as always to be completely fair, I must give credit and praise to Henley for organising the work so quickly after the ball had been dropped the past couple of days and getting some trades in to do the remainder of the roof tiles today! Whether or not this action plan was in place before or after my post, doesn't matter to me, just nice to see them pick up the dropped ball! Well done Henley. **Just kidding you all in regards to lack of reply's. After all it's the 'views' that REALLY matter when it comes to the forum! Cheers, Bry&CBear We invite you to follow the journey of our home building experience here: http://fundingthedream.blogspot.com/ Re: Quick update & Poll Question 4Nov 29, 2007 3:11 pm [/quote]...i think that was the original question![/quote]
Yes, actually it was! Thanks for that vanderlay, I think it's a good one to poll on and then add up all the answers to try to get some sort of average. We'll come back and add ours once we have a better idea of what the hand over date will be. We invite you to follow the journey of our home building experience here: http://fundingthedream.blogspot.com/ Re: Quick update & Poll Question 5Nov 29, 2007 4:37 pm Hey Bry&CBear, I know that H3nley watch this site each day so your comments won't go unanswered. Hope all works out well - can't exactly keep the legs crossed until they decide to finish now can you?????
So be on their back. Visualise that goal!!!! H@nley - How long did the building process (to settlement)? 6Nov 29, 2007 5:45 pm Hi there,
I was so glad to see this topic, its always a comfort to see there are others on here having the same issues / or with the same questions as us. Though of course I really hope Bry & Cbear that your house gets finished in time so you can be settled when bub arrives. We are also building with H@nley and have had the site scrape, cement piers and pipes put in this week. Next week is the slab (hooray!). Have to say we are really impressed with the speed that things are happening at the moment. I asked our CSR for an estimate of the completion date today and was told it would be 1 Aug next year. This seems such a long time! I know they have to cover themselves but this seems such an overestimate. We need to juggle selling our current home before settlement and its so difficult trying to work out dates. So how many out there have finished building with H@nley and how long did the building process 'really' take ? Re: Quick update & Poll Question 7Nov 29, 2007 5:52 pm Hi Trina, welcome to the forum, we are building with H3nley too. If you perform a search within the discussion tools area you shoul dbe able to see some interesting threads.
What area are you building in? And what house are you building???? August next year sounds so far away.... We have site start in December for our place and i want to be in around May next year. Single storey - but still we were told that some houses are being finished within 4-5 months???? Hope we fit into that category.....without any issues.....i'm being very optimistic aren't i??? Re: Quick update & Poll Question 8Nov 29, 2007 6:04 pm Hi Phoenix,
I have been following your progress on the forum, we are only just ahead of you so I can really relate to your excitement (and impatience waiting for things to finally really start) We are building the Carinya at Point Cook. I really liked the house you chose as well and spent ages tossing up between the two. We went with the Carinya only because we were trying to cut our costs - we had extra costs of $15000 because of an easement at the back of our property so needed to have piers put in. Like you I've been told 5 months for a single story so we had planned on selling our place now. I really cant believe it will take much longer than that. Good luck with your building, I will try to get organised and start a blog too. cheers, Trina Re: Quick update & Poll Question 9Nov 29, 2007 6:07 pm Fantastic Trina, i will look forward to checking back with you and see how you are going. Love to see some pics and insights into your colour selections etc when you have a blog too. Re: Quick update & Poll Question 10Nov 29, 2007 6:35 pm “H” still watching?
Must be better than a good movie!!!!! Internal and External Building and Colour Consultant Online - Worldwide http://www.denovoconcepts.com Re: Quick update & Poll Question 11Nov 29, 2007 6:48 pm I don't care who watches the forum as long as everything moves along just fine with our house... Re: Quick update & Poll Question 13Nov 30, 2007 2:57 pm Thanks for the talk and the feedback in relation to this topic. We sure hope to be in well before the baby arrives as well and I'm curious to know how much lag time there REALLY is over the X-Mas period. I'm sort of expecting about 1.5 - 2 weeks of not much happening, but then again I'm sure it really comes down to different trades, what needs to be done first, second, etc. and their availability during that period. I wouldn't expect anything to happen the week between X-Mas and New Years, but believe it or not, our ducted vacuuming was installed the morning of Cup Day!
Phoenix, thanks for the moral support. We're well aware of the power of the forum, as I had an issue once prior and posted about it and the next day we had action, explanations, etc. I knew it was a direct result of the forum being 'watched' but I take that as a good thing. At least the company (H3nl3y in this case) is actively interested in their customers experience and feedback and are ready to act on it! This is something I'm happy to report and more than happy to praise them for! As I posted previously, there was action on site yesterday and today it appears that the carpenters have arrived to straighten the remaining studs before plastering (which hopefully will begin early next week), the insulation was being installed and another contractor was there to install the architectural cladding at the back of the house! I couldn't be more pleased with the response to our initial disappointment! Hopefully we'll avoid any future disappointments, be kept well informed and keep on buildin'! As soon as I get a more solid hand over date, I'll post it here. We were told initially that single story houses were taking 4-5-months to build and double story 6-7 months. Stay tuned! We invite you to follow the journey of our home building experience here: http://fundingthedream.blogspot.com/ Re: Quick update & Poll Question 14Nov 30, 2007 4:00 pm Hey guys, we collected our construction dwgs today and have been told that H3nley's office will be closed from 21st Dec until the 7th of Jan.
But the tradies have the option of working through the X'mas period. Those that don't want to work are allowed up to 3 weeks off from the 21st of Dec. Hope that helps. Where are the ultrasound pics????? 1. Roof cleaning and paint - which colour do you recommend? I often see black/ dark grey in use these days but I would prefer… 0 8313 thank you! do we need to get this or our builder before we commence new build on the block? 2 10404 You can really use anything you want the main consideration would be how it looks once painted/finished - or the look you want. Cabinetmakers use MDF because its cheap… 2 9948 |