Well said Yellow,
& it helps a lot if the SS does something straight away to fix whatever defects there are before further work is done.
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Porter Davis homes 341Oct 20, 2010 8:48 pm Yellow It might me easy to add and drop at contract but this has an affect on your build later on. For example say you wanted an external tap at one location. On Contract drawing that you found it is on the wrong location. You tell the CSC to change the location on contract and on the drawings before you sign it. She would says PD will not allow you to change the drawings or contract to the correct location before signing the contract. So you sign the contract knowing it is on the wrong location. The CSC will tell you don't worry we can change it as post contract variation. A Week before you build you will get your final drawing and the tap will be on the correct location. When the build start the tap will be installed as per oringal contract drawing (wrong location). It is ok for them is it our bricks that has to come down to fix the issue. PD might want to seriously think about when to send the drawings to their trades people. Only send it once the drawings have been signed by the customer a week before the build otherwise there are unwanted issues hanging around. Wrong things are getting installed. Things would get fixed in the end but don't want to pull the plaster down or bricks down to fix the mistakes the admin department makes. Well said Yellow, & it helps a lot if the SS does something straight away to fix whatever defects there are before further work is done. __________________________________________ Built Camberwell 29 with PD - Hand Over was on 22/12/10 http://ssazcamberwell29.blogspot.com/ Re: Porter Davis homes 342Oct 20, 2010 9:25 pm Hmmm I think you have a lot more un-happy clients than happy ones Team PD... maybe something needs changing I was chatting to an inspector a while back and he said that PD don’t install insulation in the walls if the star rating reaches 5 stars. CRazy!!! Re: Porter Davis homes 343Oct 20, 2010 9:28 pm bicko123 Hmmm I think you have a lot more un-happy clients than happy ones Team PD... maybe something needs changing I was chatting to an inspector a while back and he said that PD don’t install insulation in the walls if the star rating reaches 5 stars. CRazy!!! You mean they don't install voluntarily but you can add it as extra? My house's star rating is easily 5 & I added the wall insulation as optional extra. __________________________________________ Built Camberwell 29 with PD - Hand Over was on 22/12/10 http://ssazcamberwell29.blogspot.com/ Re: Porter Davis homes 344Oct 20, 2010 9:35 pm SSAZ bicko123 Hmmm I think you have a lot more un-happy clients than happy ones Team PD... maybe something needs changing I was chatting to an inspector a while back and he said that PD don’t install insulation in the walls if the star rating reaches 5 stars. CRazy!!! You mean they don't install voluntarily but you can add it as extra? My house's star rating is easily 5 & I added the wall insulation as optional extra. Depending on the house orientation PD sometimes they get 5 stars without the insulation and leave it out. wall/roof insulation SHOULD be STANDARD!!!!! regardless of star rating Re: Porter Davis homes 345Oct 21, 2010 6:29 am bicko123 Hmmm I think you have a lot more un-happy clients than happy ones Team PD... maybe something needs changing I was chatting to an inspector a while back and he said that PD don’t install insulation in the walls if the star rating reaches 5 stars. CRazy!!! I think the saying is true, because you have a lot more to say if you are upset, If you are happy there is not much more to say. So far I think PD has been great. A few hiccups but because I was vigilant in checking everything was correct everything has been fixed and is now on the way to frame stage very quickly after land settlement! Re: Porter Davis homes 346Oct 21, 2010 7:12 am bicko123 Hmmm I think you have a lot more un-happy clients than happy ones Team PD... maybe something needs changing I was chatting to an inspector a while back and he said that PD don’t install insulation in the walls if the star rating reaches 5 stars. CRazy!!! Another happy PD home builder here. People are alot more vocal when things go wrong then when things go right. I am impressed that PD actually have someone on the forum attempting to reassure and fix things for their customers Re: Porter Davis homes 347Oct 21, 2010 7:16 am very well said yellow...CSC dont always manage to ensure the correct plans are in the SS hands when needed. im off to sign a contract today i dread the suprises that PD will have in store for me. I got a sneak peak of the working drawings at the colour selection appointment and it looks like they have done changes to what we agreed... all will be revealed this morning ! Re: Porter Davis homes 348Oct 21, 2010 7:17 am I'm with mdzzj, how many other builders are on here trying to make things right. For anyone who reads my thread will know the dramas we have been through and PD have always done the right thing. Compare how many complaints PD have with the other volume builders on H1, the difference is huge. It is impossible to please everyone and to always get things right, the real test is how or what they do to try and please the customer or fix the issue and lets face it, PD have to get a near perfect score Current status: Busy making the house our home Built PD Francis 29 on our 576m2 block at Reflections in Tarneit Reflections Estate Thread Our Build Thread Re: Porter Davis homes 349Oct 21, 2010 10:25 am wizard I'm with mdzzj, how many other builders are on here trying to make things right. For anyone who reads my thread will know the dramas we have been through and PD have always done the right thing. Compare how many complaints PD have with the other volume builders on H1, the difference is huge. It is impossible to please everyone and to always get things right, the real test is how or what they do to try and please the customer or fix the issue and lets face it, PD have to get a near perfect score Hi wizard We are not trying to put PD down. We are building with PD too. We all chose PD because we love their houses. We are trying to help PD improve their admin process. Our build is progressing well. The issues in the build is not by the tradies. It is that there are cases like mine that the tradies are given wrong sets of drawings. What I was trying to say is that PD should change their drawing process by either don't give any drawings to the tradies unless it is the final drawings. To do that they might want to consider sending the final drawings earlier than a week before build starts. Then everyone will work with the correct drawings. We have been planning to build for the past 6 years. So my research started then. At our first sales appointment we knew up front what we wanted. We didn't try and add new things later on at colour or after contract stage. What I am saying is no matter how organised you are there are still issues. There are people with perfect build and there are people who don't have a smooth build. We are helping PD improve their admin process so the build would be much smoother. If they build as per the final drawings no complaints. Our CSC did give the final drawings to the estimation department. Someone didn't pass those on to the tradies. Now it is all sorted out with the drawings. Now waiting for the fixes to be done. No fault of the tradies. Re: Porter Davis homes 350Oct 21, 2010 10:26 am We've just had our first appointment for our Foxley 29, all went well although it was interesting that the 20 week build time is for the normal house, without customer variations. I would have thought that a customer variation would be something custom, rather than adding an alfresco to their specification, (as per display homes). Just a little confusing. Site starts are also a little strange. PD are unable to give us a date, rather they give you a month, so I plan for 2/10/11 and in the end they may start 31/01/11. Overall the process seems a bit overwhelming, but we are enjoying it at the moment. It's a shame that the demolition and abolishment of services with Power Gas & Water isn't anywhere near as effective. Strange that they cannot commit to a date to turn off the power, rather at 20 day window. This just means that I need to be out even earlier. Initial Deposit 05/09/2010 Tender 21/10/2010 Contract 26/11/2010 Site Start 11 Feb Bricking underway 28/03 Fitout commenced 20/04 PCI 08/07 Settlement 15/07 build Blog http://foxley29.blogspot.com/ Re: Porter Davis homes 351Oct 21, 2010 10:35 am George's We've just had our first appointment for our Foxley 29, all went well although it was interesting that the 20 week build time is for the normal house, without customer variations. I would have thought that a customer variation would be something custom, rather than adding an alfresco to their specification, (as per display homes). Just a little confusing. Site starts are also a little strange. PD are unable to give us a date, rather they give you a month, so I plan for 2/10/11 and in the end they may start 31/01/11. Overall the process seems a bit overwhelming, but we are enjoying it at the moment. It's a shame that the demolition and abolishment of services with Power Gas & Water isn't anywhere near as effective. Strange that they cannot commit to a date to turn off the power, rather at 20 day window. This just means that I need to be out even earlier. Hi George We done demolition and build. For Gas you need to give 20 working days notice and have the house empty for that 20 days. Electricity they might come a bit earlier. Well that's what they did for us. For gas I had to keep ringing. With site start if PD says just say November (that means anytime by 30th Nov) then they will start sometime in November probably on a last friday of that month. If your demolition and underground power pit is already done (you need 20 days notice for this as well) then they might start earlier in November. In our case as underground pit was ready before our site start so PD started first friday of the site start month. Good luck with your build. Regards Yellow Re: Porter Davis homes 352Oct 21, 2010 10:40 am Team PD DeeEss Hi all, I am going to build a double storey with PD (not yet signed) and am getting the usual smoke and mirrors on pricing. Would it be possible for any of you to share the price charged by PD for Timber Laminate in lieu of Tiles? Also, How much do they charge for a Cat 2 or 3 upgrade to carpets? Total or just the rate per sq mtr would be enough. Thanks. Hi DeeEss, I know it's frustrating when you aren't given a final price list on an item. It's difficult for us to provide you with a pricelist because we have different supplier contracts across the business and prices change regularly. We can however provide you with some price point estimates at your colour selections appointment to help with decision making on the day. These estimates are indicative only and are subject to change so during your selections we encourage you to make your number one selection and also a 'back up' selection if the original comes in over your budget. We then send your colour selections to your local office, so the Estimating team can provide you with the most current price - and usually the best! Final pricing is then presented to you at your contract signing, as per our Procedure of Purchase. I hope that helps answer your question. Let me know if there is anything else you wish to know. Cheers, Jess. Porter Davis, I bet your "Estimating team" don't call up every single supplier for the prices when a customers send his selections. They must surely have the price record for the current date. How hard would it be for you to provide it to the customer as they walk in for their color selection ? Maybe print on top that it's just a guide and prices can vary ?? Mate of mine is building with another big builder and they got a 6 page price-list of options on their color appointment, based on which they made their selections. It was house specific list and had the exact price for all the little upgrades like every door type, brick category, tile category, carpet category etc etc. It also has printed on the top that the prices were valid till so and so date. They just selected the options once and that was it. How good does that sound ?? We are building with Porter Davis and I believe that if you are not providing the prices upfront or at least a guide, then that's definitely not because of the price fluctuations. I find it very frustrating the way your pricing structure works ! If I have a guide, then I don't have to select "number one selection and also a 'back up' selection", I would just select the one ! It just adds to the stress as you don't know if the final costs will be substantial with the current selection and you have to make changes multiple times. Re: Porter Davis homes 353Oct 21, 2010 12:42 pm I had my Colours & Electrical consults yesterday. On the whole, I am rather disappointed (to put it mildly) with the colours and electrical consultations as we were squeezed for time having to decide everything for a (almost 60 sq) home in a few hours. A lot of questions were left unanswered and I have a feeling we missed out on a few important things. A classic example was our speaking to another client (during our 10min lunch) and finding out that we need noggins in the light fittings in the alfresco if we want to put fans later on otherwise the fans might fall off. We were never told this and would never have known. We were made to sign off on selection sheets without any time to peruse them, just because it was late. According to them, we need to sign off to confirm that we chose the items and it is our onus to check and confirm within 48 hrs and get back to them if anything is incorrect. I understand the lack of time on that day but wow, for what we are spending for this house and the fact that we will be in it for the next 20 years, this is ludicrous. It never cease to amaze me how no one knows the prices of anything or the answers to questions and keep passing the buck around. They don't even know whether I will be getting tiles or carpet in my cloak room and laundry store room. National Tiles insists it is carpet and Hopetoun is adament it is tiles (as the cloak room is considered an entry area and entries are tiled, and the storerm is off a wet area). As such, none of them included it in their selection sheet. Who knows, I might just end up with concrete in a few months time because I signed off on it. Re: Porter Davis homes 354Oct 21, 2010 12:47 pm Hi JPZ, did you visit Hopetoun before your colour appointment? Current status: Busy making the house our home Built PD Francis 29 on our 576m2 block at Reflections in Tarneit Reflections Estate Thread Our Build Thread Re: Porter Davis homes 355Oct 21, 2010 1:11 pm wizard Hi JPZ, did you visit Hopetoun before your colour appointment? Hi Wizard, Yes, we did. Electricals wasn't available for viewing then. We had a good idea of the fittings we liked, just wanted to confirm at colours. I don't know why it took so long but it did... What is frustrating is the lack of information given beforehand and the fact that no one knows any prices. It is very hard to choose upgrades without knowing what it is going to cost. Re: Porter Davis homes 356Oct 21, 2010 1:33 pm I think the mistake a lot of people make is they don’t go to Hopetoun before their appointment, there is no way you can pick everything on the day. Our colour appointment lasted about 20 minutes. We sat down with our person she asked what we wanted and we told her. Didn’t need to see anything on the day as it was all decided long before then. I understand the pricing frustration but like I said, we just added everything we wanted and then just removed anything on the day we signed our contract, actually I think our contract appointment went longer than our colour appointment which was good because there was a greater amount of time allocated in our contract appointment anyway. As for electrical, once again, we knew what we wanted and where we wanted it to be, the time spent on electricals was less than the colours. But then again we didn’t add much, just changed positions on a few things so ours was easy anyway. All I can say to anyone yet to have their appointments, do your research! And that goes for everyone, not just people building with PD Current status: Busy making the house our home Built PD Francis 29 on our 576m2 block at Reflections in Tarneit Reflections Estate Thread Our Build Thread Re: Porter Davis homes 357Oct 21, 2010 4:21 pm wizard I think the mistake a lot of people make is they don’t go to Hopetoun before their appointment, there is no way you can pick everything on the day. Our colour appointment lasted about 20 minutes. We sat down with our person she asked what we wanted and we told her. Didn’t need to see anything on the day as it was all decided long before then. I understand the pricing frustration but like I said, we just added everything we wanted and then just removed anything on the day we signed our contract, actually I think our contract appointment went longer than our colour appointment which was good because there was a greater amount of time allocated in our contract appointment anyway. As for electrical, once again, we knew what we wanted and where we wanted it to be, the time spent on electricals was less than the colours. But then again we didn’t add much, just changed positions on a few things so ours was easy anyway. All I can say to anyone yet to have their appointments, do your research! And that goes for everyone, not just people building with PD I can assure you Wizard, our research was well and truly done! You're told to select bricks first. So you get the booklet with the categories, you go to Boral and then choose a couple that you like. You get addresses from their sales staff and spend weekends driving around trying to match lot numbers with actual addresses of the list they give you, and compare this colour brick/roof/gutter/fascia/window/garage colour with that. All this time is spent not knowing whether the category 6 brick you like will cost $1,200 or $12,000. If they gave you a ball park range, you could make an informed judgment. The way it is now, you do all of this leg work, get to tender, freak out at the price, and then have to repeat the process or just throw your hands up an accept it. It's not like you can just copy a display home and keep upgrades under control either coz as you know, standard inclusions and display standard with PD (and some of the other bigs) are WORLDS apart! Building Carlisle Homes "Monaco" @ The Avenue at Casey What's happening?... Handed over July 28, now making it home Follow our progress:: http://destination3977.blogspot.com/ Re: Porter Davis homes 358Oct 21, 2010 5:44 pm Hi to JPZ. Nice to meet you and your family yesterday We managed to get through electrical, but we are changing our minds a bit about colors. We're reviewing these now. Largely, this came about due to the lack of info about what category each brick was, and how much the category upgrades were etc. Even at Hopeton during official selections, they give rough approximate prices only. The explanations posted above about price variations from suppliers etc. are just excuses. Any major builder such as PD would be negotiating prices, and to some extent, setting price lists in agreement for periods of several months. If they don't, then maybe they should be paying me, yellow, barnox and you some big $$$s to sort this stuff out for them. The way the AUD$ is going, I actually expect reductions on any of the imported items (like I'll see that happen). Glad that Robyn mentioned the noggings to you. Our consultant insisted on fitting them where we'd asked for fans to be placed. We have a nagging feeling that we've left out something as well. We were well prepared, and had drawn our own diagrams etc - it still meant that some items were added, moved or changed on the day though. The thing that has annoyed us the most is that our CSC promised to send us plans by email and express post over a week ago. She has since insisted that they have not been completed by the drafting team. But, the plan was available to the electrical consultant at Hopetoun yesterday. So much for customer care. Re: Porter Davis homes 359Oct 21, 2010 8:17 pm GoKangas Hi to JPZ. Nice to meet you and your family yesterday We managed to get through electrical, but we are changing our minds a bit about colors. We're reviewing these now. Largely, this came about due to the lack of info about what category each brick was, and how much the category upgrades were etc. Even at Hopeton during official selections, they give rough approximate prices only. The explanations posted above about price variations from suppliers etc. are just excuses. Any major builder such as PD would be negotiating prices, and to some extent, setting price lists in agreement for periods of several months. If they don't, then maybe they should be paying me, yellow, barnox and you some big $$$s to sort this stuff out for them. The way the AUD$ is going, I actually expect reductions on any of the imported items (like I'll see that happen). Glad that Robyn mentioned the noggings to you. Our consultant insisted on fitting them where we'd asked for fans to be placed. We have a nagging feeling that we've left out something as well. We were well prepared, and had drawn our own diagrams etc - it still meant that some items were added, moved or changed on the day though. The thing that has annoyed us the most is that our CSC promised to send us plans by email and express post over a week ago. She has since insisted that they have not been completed by the drafting team. But, the plan was available to the electrical consultant at Hopetoun yesterday. So much for customer care. Hey Gokangas, Drafting of your final plans isn't necessarily complete prior to selections (we're building with Places (the other other other PD chain ) but still did selections through Hopetoun whilst our electrical plans had the right shape its just that a shape with minimal adjustments from a base design. Drafting would only be considered complete once the whole lot was done, engineering for any structural changes, roof truss design, and construction measurements. TBH there is a lot more to it than just simply changing a drawing. Equally consider what promises your CSC can make vs what is actually happening in terms of the drafting teams workload. My advice fwiw, is to keep in contact with your CSC to keep you in their mind as something to follow up on. The average person can only keep track of 5 or so things at any one time, so make sure you're in their top five, with what contact you have always remember its another person on the other end of the phone/email and remember someone is always more likely to go out of their way to help you if you have a positive relationship with them, that if they just consider you the #1 pita. Yes its frustrating when things don't happen the way you expect, especially when you're waiting on something that wasn't delivered on time. Look at us, our kitchen was MIA for 3 Looooooooooooooooooooooong weeks but it finally arrived today. Showing a little bit of understanding can go a long way in our experience, and its a good opportunity to move forward, rather than complaining that they haven't delivered try to work out when they realistically can so you don't get disappointed again due to being offered an unrealistic time line just to placate you. That said there is a time and circumstance for becoming the #1 pita, but why play that card unless you need to? The cynical approach is also to consider that while for the vast majority of the buyers this is a HUGE undertaking and a step into the unknown, for them its just another day in the office and you're just one of the several clients their dealing with at any one time, so balancing their workload whilst (hopefully) trying to get a good outcome for each client individual, but i'm sure anyone can attest or draw from their own life experience at times everyone makes compromises to achieve something, its making sure your not always the one at losing end of those that is the difficult part. Just a few thoughts now we're nearing the end of this journey ourselves, take it as its offered or ignore it as you will. Hope it doesn't sound tooo holier than thou Our Build - Places Fairhaven 23+ - https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28045 Our Landscaping - Belial's Backyard - https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=45375 Re: Porter Davis homes 360Oct 21, 2010 8:47 pm After reading everyone's comments and finally having a chance to write something, Belial has pretty much said what I wanted to say... And YAY for a kitchen dude! Three options 1 Ask the liquidator 2 Find another PD customer and ask the source of their report 3 Pay for new report 3 12954 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 76106 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 106772 |