Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 14, 2011 10:52 pm Hi There, This is the first time we are building. We have a large block in Aubin Grove (800+sqm) and have designed a large home with Home Builders Advantage brokers and have received some quotes back of which Kerdels seems to be by far the best. Has anyone else built with Kerdels in WA and did you find their quote covered most items, or were there lots of additional extras that you didnt account for? I am worried we will sign up for this build only to find down the track we havent budgetted for everything! Your comments are appreciated. Thank you. Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 2Mar 15, 2011 12:43 am Hi there, I am building in aubin grove also, aubin gardens stage 10. Where are you located? 800 is huge, that should fit a hug house!. I must say i have never heard of kerdels. throw some plans up if you get a chance. just remember these things when you build a new house - soakwells - crossovers - pavings - letterbox -gates - clothelines - tv antenna - flooring - window treatments - landscaping - painting Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 4Mar 21, 2011 10:47 pm DebtheBuilder Home Builders Advantage brokers and have received some quotes back of which Kerdels seems to be by far the best. Hey there deb the builder! When we decide to build we were thinking of going through a broker in Perth... how did you find the Home Builders Advantage Brokers, ie were they any good, easy to work with/contact etc? and how many quotes did they provide in your price range. Did you do your plans or did they? Could you PM me with details of which builders they got quotes for.... I am trying to get as much info as possible before we decide to build. Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 5Mar 21, 2011 11:01 pm Hi There Wrexter, Thanks so much for your comments. There is really so much you can forget about when building, cost wise isnt there. Appreciate your notes and will add them to our budget! Are you in yet? We are in the final Aubin Gardens subdivision, stage 11 i think it is. Looking forward to moving into the suburb and hoping it doesnt take too long to get there! Cheers Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 6Mar 21, 2011 11:25 pm there is someone on the forumn building with kerdels. (brendonperth) viewtopic.php?f=31&t=42274 i think his build has been very fast and so far good. im sure he would be happy to help you with advice. there is also another person building with kerdals on this topic if you read through happy building When times get tough build a house...Our second build Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 7Mar 26, 2011 4:15 pm Hi I am also building with Kerdels they have been quick to build but beware of their drafting department. Check your plans over and over and over as we had over 70 errors. (They are useless on that front) If you don't pick them up and a mistake gets though they will not change it without a cost to you. (Even though there Drafting dept made the error) I can speak on that from experience as even though we got most errors a couple got through. So get the plans right and accurate. Build has been OK and I am happy with quality and build time. Admin has been below average and is slow to respond. They were also slow in getting all the plans etc into council. Took far longer than it should have. I also cant speak to Site Supervisor direct which is annoying going through admin girls as it is another cog in the wheel. So would I build with them again? - Maybe. Price was good, quality (so far) good but admin / drafting poor. I rate them a 6/10 And lastly everything you do do it in writing email or letter. They turn over Admin staff frequently so if not written down forget about it. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 8Mar 29, 2011 1:19 pm Hi Deb We are building with Kerdels. They have just started our site works. We had absolutely no problems whatsoever with their drafting dept, there were only 5 errors on our plans and they were all fixed with no problems at all. Our Plans went to council and were slightly rectified to comply and returned all in a 4 week period. Admin is their biggest problem IMO, our contact is very slow to correspond if at all, and also kept making the same errors over and over, very frustrating. As Docker Rob said, staff turnover is high, get everything in writing. I think you should do that with any company though. We did alot of research before we signed with anyone, and expected the Admin side to be bad, so it is not really too much of a problem for us as we knew what to expect from the beginning, just very very frustrating. In the end we chose Kerdels as I believe every builder out there has problems in one way or another. Kerdels have the problems that we were the most happy to deal with. Their pricing is good, some of their standard items are items we would of had to upgrade to get from another builder. I am yet to find anyone who has had problems with the quality of the build and at the end of the day this frustrating part will over and it's the quality that counts long term. But I will be checking every single nut and bolt It depends on your spec as to what you are getting from them. A TV point and phone point were not included in ours, which I thought would be standard. As with all builders I think if you can get as much as possible from the rep, before you sign, you will get the better deal. Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 9Mar 30, 2011 1:33 am I am sorry as this is probably a bit off topic and sorry Dee this is not specifically geared towards you but more towards the building industry. Dee2010 I am yet to find anyone who has had problems with the quality of the build and at the end of the day this frustrating part will over and it's the quality that counts long term. But I will be checking every single nut and bolt According to the terms or use for the forum found here. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29877 Particularly this section "Furthermore, in Australia, even if you only state the facts, but the iteration of facts is damaging then you are at high risk of being threatened with a defamation suit." The question is, why would you hear anything bad about a company? Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 10Mar 30, 2011 9:04 am Tabor sorry Dee this is not specifically geared towards you No Problem Tabor, one of the great things about this forum is you get to see so many different perspectives! Tabor The question is, why would you hear anything bad about a company? Isn't the first rule of finding a builder to ask around? Whilst it may be difficult to find someone who outrightly defames a company especially in writing, it doesn't take a lot to be able to figure out whether a building journey was a good one or not. When it comes down to it an unhappy customer is likely to tell many more people, than a happy one, it's human nature. Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 11Mar 30, 2011 8:03 pm Well I just lost another Contract Administrator from Kerdels today. That's my 5th one now since starting this little project with them. And seems I am up to Site Supervisor # 3 as well. CA's turning over doesn't bother me as all my correspondence is in writing, but chopping and changing of Supervisors throughout the build does. I have noticed the consistency in getting things sorted change with each new Supervisor. To start with it was "Yeah no problem we will fix it" To then getting narky that "You signed the plans like that so that's the way it's staying" (Although the plans were contradicting each other with errors, but that's another story in itself) Anyway good luck Dee and Deb. I hope it goes well for you. As stated for me it has been OK but could have been so much better. And as for only 5 errors on plans, just keep looking out for things as you go as sometimes drafting errors don't become apparent till you see it built with your eyes (Like a Shower head being off centre by 50mm. Not big but enough to be a pain) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 12Mar 30, 2011 9:36 pm OMG Docker_Rob another change over in staff , that makes it so hard Dee2010 as for only 5 errors on plans, just keep looking out for things as you go as sometimes drafting errors don't become apparent till you see it built with your eyes Dee2010 (Like a Shower head being off centre by 50mm. Not big but enough to be a pain) Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 13Mar 30, 2011 10:46 pm Dee2010 OMG Docker_Rob another change over in staff , that makes it so hard Yes since we moved to the point of being allocated CA's we have had a new one on average every 7 weeks! Something is wrong there in that office for that to happen. docker_rob Dee2010 wrote: (Like a Shower head being off centre by 50mm. Not big but enough to be a pain) That would annoy me so much, I have to have things centred and symetrical...maybe I should get my gloves on you can't really see those sorts of things on the plans Yeah it is annoying. We have an ensuite and Main bath both with 900mm wide shower recesses. Main bath shower is centred fine. On the ensuite though instead of showing 450mm for the centre of the Shower head, the drafty typed in 405mm. Obvious typo got the 5 and 0 around the wrong way and an honest mistake no harm done I thought. But Kerdels argued black and blue it was my fault as I signed the plans and "I wanted it that way" (although no correspondence or any request by me to ever have an off centre shower head) To rectify they wanted to charge a $350 variation fee plus Plumbers fees plus renderer fees to move it 45mm All up probably over $1000 to fix their mistake. This was all before any tiles on or any finishing work was done as I alerted them straight away as soon as I saw it. The actual cost for them to organise to move it would have been maybe $100 - $150 tops. Plumber in , move the pipe, cement over done. In the end I was going to get my own plumber to move it and not tell them but decided to put in one of those shower rail type showers with a flexible hose and be done with it. The most annoying thing though was it was their error, a legit and accidental mistake, but they got their backs up and were not prepared to fix it. I even spoke to the Builders Rego Board and they agreed with me, but said to lodge a dispute would stop work on site so I had to weigh up if that was worth it. For all the wasted time and energy it would have been easier for Kerdels to just do it and keep a customer happy. (And not have me write about it here) If this had of happened when I first signed up with them I don't think it would have been an issue but I have noticed this hard nosed approach creep in more and more over the last month or two, which is a shame as the Company I first signed up with was not like that, and IMO has changed of late. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 15Apr 02, 2011 11:38 am I have just finished a build with Kerdels... No problems at the start but went downhill quickly... Not that i have been counting but since the start of the project I have seen 8 different supervisors, 4 pre-start and maintenance staff, 5 different girls in accounts and I’m even sure some of the senior management has left... We were promised completion in October did the PCI late November and it was completed in March... If only they listened, replied back to emails and cared, a lot of the issues could and should have been avoided.. Strongly suggest looking elsewhere and the cheapest price is not always the best option.... Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 16May 01, 2011 11:17 am Just an update as to Kerdels. We have another new Site Supervisor (Number 5 I think) and things have really dragged to a halt over the last 4 weeks. Very little done (Guess new SS coming up to speed?) That said they seem to have some new staff on board, who IMO are very good. They are finally looking at the problems such as drafting errors and are fixing them for me. (I think the last drafting manager got the flick as a new guy in there too) Hopefully this positive trend continues but I will be hassling them to get back on track and stop dragging their feet. Handover was supposed to be in 2 weeks and they are no where near it at the moment. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 17May 01, 2011 12:22 pm Here is our update : Our brickwork has finally started, almost one month after slab down, their website says this should be 5 days. We are still yet to hear from, meet, talk to a SS? Haven't heard from our CA in almost a month either. Communication could be alot better. Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 18May 06, 2011 9:58 pm Hey guys I'm building with Kerdels in Gabbadah. So far have found the office staff frustrating at times and a complete lack of communication on their part, my build so far seems to have gone well, so far. we have most external walls and about 2/3rds internal walls done. Have just noticed 1 door frame is in the wrong way and just hope it doesn't become too big of a drama to fix. we had 1 ss but when i tried to email him, i think he's decided not to be ours anymore coz now i think we have someone else, so now not sure who, if we have anyone and think i am up to my 3rd CA. the office side of things there has me quite baffled. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43238 building with kerdels in gabbadah, wa block purchased april 2010 signed with builder oct 2010 papers signed jan 2011 prestart done 17/01/2011 Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 19May 10, 2011 4:33 pm This has turned into a bit of a Kerdels thread but need to give credit where credit is due. Finally I have a CA and Supervisor that are on the ball. Fixing all the past mistakes no questions asked. Seems they now have a new construction manager who cares again about quality and the customer. So my experience over last 4 weeks has been very good Hopefully it continues for me and others building with them as well https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Building in Aubin Grove, WA 20Jul 10, 2011 7:44 pm Well after 463 days since signing on the dotted line for a basic 150m2 - 3 x 2, level block and as easy as it gets build with Kerdels (For my Retired Mum to live in) we are finally at handover! I was expecting when I signed 9 - 10 months form start to finish (And so where Kerdels) All up just under 16 months later we get the keys. It's been a long frustrating process but at least its over. The finish from Kerdels is Ok. Not prefect but OK, the standard inclusions are good compared to other project builders, (Especially for the price) They fixed up most build errors but others we just had to compromise on. In summary now it's over I am happy with the result just not the path it took to get there. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Thanks for your reply. I will just wait and see I guess. Trying to get some more information from our builder. 9 30235 go upvc window frames ensure insulation under colorbond. not just sarking, lighter color roof also not sure if you have seen this viewtopic.php?t=5823 last couple of pages… 4 110524 |