Who's building with Clarendon??

Hey Guys;

I'm so excited about starting our build. I think there is only one other person on here building the Sherwood 42. Disappointing! Has anyone else built it yet? If you can post some pics that would be awesome!

We're just about to start our build on the Sherwood 42 (face brick). We're demolishing on 10th June. Hoping to start in early July. The docs are all with the bank at this stage. Sending final contract over to Clarendon tomorrow.

Our experience with Clarendon has been pretty good. Our CSC is great - NM.

I pretty much went with all the internal comapnies - ARK - Plantations through-out (very reasonable -$15K incl. Flyscreens) + you need not worry about it and it's will be guaranteed with the building. Same for Accent Carpets (Carpet upstairs, Bamboo as per Sherwood @ Parklea = $22K). Again, I'm more interested in the finish & don't want hassles after handover.

How did you all go with your electrical appointment?
How long did it take?
Do you do Networking etc there?
What about Solar? How much was solar?

regards
RJG

Hi RJG,

I am building with Clarendon as well and have had no issues yet. We have also used the internal companies for most things like flooring and blinds. The prices quoted were reasonable and give the bonus of being done prior to handover.

We have not done the electricals yet so am not much help but will be watching with interest to see the responses you get.

Cheers
Mel

Hey mel; good to find another clarendonite. Not sure where everyone is as they are a huge builder. We're doing our demo this week.. We start on Friday - it's so exciting - I can't wait..

Demo Friday/Saturday.. We're using State Demo. They are very friendly & reasonably priced.

Electricals & Tiling soon I'm guessing. I've put in a PA of 10K for our Sherwood 42 for electricals - hoping it comes in a lot cheaper.. but I know that I have something like 85 downlights..

You're right abt the internal companies, they seem very well priced & you cna get it all done before handover which is definitely a bonus. Sentinel are OK; but there intercom system was not for me. I prefer something more modern.

Thanks for sharing.. will try to keep you posted on this thread of our progress

Hello! Welcome! Another Clarendonite here.

We are building the Kenthurst in Rouse Hill.

So far so good...no complaints about anyone or any experience. Any hiccups we did encounter were dealt with efficiently and to our satisfaction.
Up to internal colour selections stage...

Keep us updated on your experiences!

Carol, we really enjoyed the colours but it really does take the full day and was very tiring - we went for lunch to the centre nearby.

We did our a/c, sentinel and staircase appt at our external colours time. The kitchen (yhk) guys are pretty good. With respect to colours with the Clarendon lady - ours was really nice - Melinda. She was great - we got heaps of quotes and they seemed to be quite reasonable.

I didn't like the STD toilet suite - but when I asked to upgrade it was like $800 a toilet to my preferred option.. decided to leave as is. The shower screen upgrades were expensive also - $2k to convert from semi-frameless each.

The people who do the flooring (accent) and the plantations (ark) are quite reasonable. Note flyscreens are not included for our 2 storey they were $600 for the lot - includes alfresco ones. I found the backsplash also quite expensive $2k for those laminex splashbacks, glass are just as expensive, so we decided to skip and go for large tiles - which seem to be free

Let me know if you want to know some of the costs we included ... I got called abt my tiling appt today no idea how much this will cost.. My demolition was approved - so we're good to go for friday also Now hanging out for the final approval from the bank.

Boy o boy am i glad to hear someone is also building the Sherwood 42.

I have been looking around to Homeworld, Metricon, Clarendon twice over and each time have have to struggle with deciding what and who to go with.

We're gonna knock down and rebuild also.. Wife loves the Sherwood 42, but i like the Sunnydale 38. Problem is with the 2.1 ratio that are allowed (Bankstown council) I don't think we can do the S' 42 and i don't think i can change my wife's mind to go with what i wanted.

But for now let me ask these questions.

1) Did you guys go with the optional 'as' displayed version or the standard version? What was the tender price of the house?

2) Did they allow for deduction of price from house, if you go with your preferred items?

Good to hear from you.

We've pretty much gone with their plans - except for the fact that they need to 'break' the wall out at the media room + upstairs (as it was a single long wall council doesn't like this). We have also gone with grand alfresco + extension to meals as per the display. We just loved it ..

Tender was $373k. This does include changes as per the above. We did also go with the Gallery Facade. The base house price was $241k. This includes A/C as well. We also went face brick for $8k+

Deductions? I guess you mean removing things like semi frameless and doing your own? i.e. do not put shower screens in - we'll do it after handover? Yes, you can do this. I was pleasantly suprised by their quotes for changes. My advice to you is not to change the house much unless you need to. This is where costs add up. In total, including almost everything - demo, flooring, a/c, kitchen upgrades to miele/smeg etc, plantation shutters through-out, downlights (80+) etc = $510k+. The house will be amazing though.

House semi kocked down on the weekend. Will be finalised tomorrow.
Bank approval complete.

Keep following + posting ... why are there no other Clarendonites?

I tell you why there aren't many clarendonites, cos these house are contempory living with modern colours and styles. Most people i guess don't like that.

Anyway, i will pass on you infos to my wife.

I did saw you wrote the base price was 241k, i'm looking at the list in fron of me and the base is 258K (Designer 270k). How did you get 241k?

Can you also tell me about the council rules, does Clarendon negotiate for you if it's tough going with the council?

We signed up in Sept 2010 (they were just about to raise prices - I'm guessing they ahve done 2 since then - I'm doing designer also for $1495.). We also had some delays/change of staff/council delays etc - they ended up extending our tender by 3 months. They were nice about it. We expire at the end of the month. However, we'll be ready by the end of this week...

Council - Clarendon basically know all the rules + generally, they get it right when you go to council.. we're building in the Sutherland Shire. I guess the annoying bits are organising your own demo/demo approval with council.. paying fees to council for the bond (for the gutters etc).

Clarendon also are only open on weekdays.. M-F 9-5pm. We're doing electricals and tiling next week.

I read somewhere that if they extend the tender, or are late in finishing your home, then they pay for your rent till it's done or something. am i way off by saying that?

So it's taken them 9 months till the first brick is layed?

Can you explain the difference between the base price and the designer price. Why do we have to add a facade cost?

RE: extend the tender date; I am sure that they'd need to compensate you in some way. But i'm not in that situation as we have had it rented out for a year whilst getting approvals done So in some ways it's perfect timing. We

Base Price vs Designer? I think it's all the extra inclusions.. like benchtops - Should be all covered within:
http://www.clarendon.com.au/wpdata/files/5561.pdf

I think you'd have to pay the extra $2k. Definitely worth it...

RE Facades - the Gallery is 25k extra or something. It's basically the largest balcony you can have. The Chilton (the display) was 21k or so.

You don't have to add a facade cost if you are keeping the traditional facade - it's only if you are changing the way the front of your house looks to a different facade that cost is then incurred.

Yes, this is true - should have pointed that out.. so the basic house is $241K then, if you decide to change the facade then you need to pay extra.. You also then need to pay for render/moroka bag & paint etc. This is again an extra .. that's why we went with Face brick. It's more in line with where we live + render is not cheap. Just to render the front costs like $10k. Face brick for the entire house (other than the cladding is $8k total).

No ongoing maintenance costs etc. You also need to pay extra for adding height to the lower floor etc. This was $6.5k. This is part of the amount I mentioned in my first post about the tender. The tender includes all structural changes.

No demo day 2 today - too rainy apparently.

I don't like rendering, i would also prefer face brick but can the face brick be of different colour?

Do you mean two different colours? I think so, but there would be an additional charge.

You can choose any brick in the std range at no additional cost....any other brick is at an additional cost and some Clarendon don't usually deal with (usually for labour reasons). If it's on the sheet they give you - you're usually ok. Check at brick yards for brick availability before becoming sold on a certain one. Sometimes there is a hold up adn they are out of production.

As Carol said, you can probably go for two bricks or more one one house. They use PGH or Austral Bricks. Both have an OK std range. There are heaps of colours.... if you want face brick expect to pay upwards of 6k, but there will be no rendering etc, so you wll save that way ......

Personally, I thought the std range was terrible. Australs std was a bit better than PGHs, but it all comes down to personal taste. We chose a PGH brick that is not std and it is costing us about 5k extra.
A big price but our justification was we had to be happy driving into our driveway and looking at it every day.

I have a friend who also built the Kenthurst and chose a non-std brick and hers only landed up costing $900 more. It's really hard to work out until Clarendon does the pricing for you so you're best off making a list of your favourite to least favourite and going from there.

Any pics of the bricks you guy went with?

What are the standard at no cost types?

We went with Blue Steel Flash.

The classic ranges are yellow, browny textured crappy colours.. sorry I should say OK = Average.
The main thing is that those are plain bricks.

Then if you want to spend a little more you get bricks that are 'slurried' - i.e. panted on. This means that when they bricklay and hit them on each other and chip etc, you'll see underlying colours.

Some of the more expensive ones are baked through - e.g. Bowral Blue.

I think Austral's free range = Everyday Life. Also, note you have to pay more for having better roof tiles etc. I got a free one.

juxt1n - Have you started the process with Clarendon? They give you a list of the std bricks for each location (or you can ask at the brick yard) in your ext colour pack. In the colour centre they are all on display too in Norwest.

PGH had a lot of 'fritted' bricks in their std range...the ones with black tar looking chunks coming through or with the white patches on them - my parents called them the bird poo bricks when I showed them. I'm sure that gives you an idea.

But you will have to go and see yourself - it really is all about personal taste.

Our brick was called black & tan - PGH