Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 07, 2011 8:27 pm Today I have decided to come here for help. I've been silently reading some topics when I started looking for information on our builder (Perth, northern suburbs). At that point I couldn't find anything serious on them, not in a bad way, not in a good way. According to our neighbour, who had build several houses in Queensland, it seemed like a good builder because off the way their display home was build. And so we signed the contracts a year ago and started working towards pre-start. We had already done a lot of changes on the design, so we needed to see some preliminary plans, that toke weeks of begging. We had to make some minor changes at prestart because the plans were not how we intended them to be. And there we had the first mistake, in our advantage fortunately. They send our preliminary plans to shire for approval! We had a building licence before our final plans were ready and they had to pay to get the plans changed at shire. Just before christmas they started building. The slab went down! It was to big, so they had to make it smaller when they started with the brickwork.... And there were more problems: The brickworks looked sloppy, almost done without mortar (thank goodness we have rendering on the whole house, because I could look from one side of the house to the other through the walls), the window in the WC was in the wrong place (the plan said centered, it wasn't, it was on the left side), the opening for the sliding door is to small (6.5 instead of 7.5 on the plan), the gasbayonet was in the wrong place (almost directly under the TV point) and the ventilation hole is on the wrong wall. Which brings me to my big question. Is it me? Am I just a terrible controle freak? Do I not understand that people make mistakes? Are my expectations to high? Is this the way an Australian builder/contractor works (build in Europe several times, sorry)? Or did I just make a mistake by picking the wrong builder? They did solve most of the problems, but not all (yet). But they only start working on the problems after I give them a call and tell them what is wrong. Is that not the reason why they work with a supervisor? Is he not supposed to see what is wrong and have it fixed before I come in and have a look? Or at least tell me that he is aware of the problem and that it will be fixed? Please help me by giving you opinion, you ideas or any advice you can give me. Thanks, Sacha Re: Is it me, or my builder? 2Apr 07, 2011 8:47 pm Some things are the builder. I have certainly not had any problems with getting sizes wrong. One thing that is fairly common to a lot of builders is ordinary bricklaying if the house is going to be rendered. Often they also use up all the bricks from previous jobs which although it doesn't really matter does make it look even worse. Its not how they build the show houses (which should be good) its how they build the houses for the typical customer. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Hi Mofflepop, I would recommend finding a building designer to prepare plans, they should design to your specified budget. The benefit is you can tender the project out… 9 20416 Hi, did you get any money from insurance? if you did, does it match what you've already paid the builders? 3 9565 |