Hurrow gavrookHi all, read a lot but first time posting here but hoping to get some advice. We're building a Vancouver 33 with PD and so far it's been a bit of a nightmare. Land scrape happened August 15 so going by contract they had 196 days from then to complete it after counting 28 days down for Xmas and 10 days for rain, meaning it should be finished February 26. That is approximately 4 weeks away and as the house seems like it's barely past lockup stage.
They have already claimed for fixing stage just before xmas but there are still things outstanding that we let slide and paid but in hindsight shouldn't have, still a few internal doors to go on, architraves and skirting bords missing and even plaster missing in our skylight tunnel and on a couple of sliding door frames.
We literally never see any tradies at the house and we're lucky to see even the tiniest bit of progress every couple of weeks, yet houses that started well after ours in the same street are already finished, they seem to have trades there every day and even working well after 6pm and even on weekends. I'm not suggesting PD tradies should be doing those hours as standard but when it's a month away from contract end date i'd think they should be getting their hurry on but nothing's changed.
The thing that i'm worried about when it comes to contract end date is we were vandalised twice, our power cables were cut throught the whole house, it took them 2 weeks to get the electricians back out to re-wire it (they just junction boxed most of it) then a week or so later after it was fixed it was vandalised again! Then another 2 or so weeks again to get the sparky's back in to fix it again with more junction boxes! Not really happy about that either, doesn't feel like i'm getting what we paid for.
I think they'll use that to extend the contract end date out 4-6 weeks even though technically it was their fault, the house was meant to be at lockup stage, we'd paid for the lockup payment over a week before but they still had the front doors off the house so anyone could just walk on in. If it was "locked up" as it was meant to be then they wouldn't have been able to get access to cut the cables.
Communication has been a major issue too, we almost never hear from them, very very rare updates or news and it's usually only after we hassle them. It was only when we were chasing them all for updates that we were told out Site Supervisor no longer worked for the company, no warnings or anything so i'm guessing he quit or was sacked on the spot. Took a couple of weeks til they assigned a new SS then a couple of weeks for him to get out to site and get up to speed with the job so not a lot happend for those few weeks at all.
They've installed galvanised steel downpipes to be painted later despite the contract quite clearly stating colourbond downpipes. My BC is now claiming that only double storeys get colourbound and all single storeys get galvanised steel showing me a flyer highlighting the fact that they use wattly paint for downipipes depite what the contract clearly states and even after our SS said he would get them replaced with colourbond.
They've also installed the wrong window to our kitchen servery, we bought it to their attention at the start of December, they've just told us that the right window will be installed next week, 2 months later. As this window sits over the stone benchtop that still hasn't gone in and i'm thinking they'll try to use the supplier delay on the window as another excuse to avoid paying penalties and drag out the completion date despite them being the ones ordering and installing the wrong window.
We've very much regretting not going with Carlisle homes, we were very close to pulling out of our PD contract due to the horrible tender process and going with Carlisle. Three of our new neighbours are Carlisle homes and i've spoken with all 3, they all started the building proccess with PD and all pulled out at the last minute due to the terrible process and all 3 have said they had an amazing experience, I wish we weren't more persitant than them! One said they even let him run his own data cabling as he's a licensed cabler, my best mate's licensed and PD said there was no way in hell any work was getting done by anyone else during the build, argued it for weeks but they wouldn't give in. Wouldn't even install conduits for cables that I offered to pay them for claiming it ruined the structual integrity of the house, rubbish!
At this rate i'd be amazed if we're in by the end of the financial year, seems like they're barely half way done with the build and we're almost 6 months since the build started with no sign of it picking up any speed. The last thing that has happened was the front facade was rendered on Monday 15'th, was due to be painted on the 18'th but never happened and still hasn't with no progress inside since the end of December. I think it all stems for poor organisation and not being able to manage the trades effectively. Any pointers on how to manage this? Especially the contract end date that i'm expecting to blow right out with excuses? Thanks very much for reading my novel, Let me know if i'm better of starting a new thread.
They have already claimed for fixing stage just before xmas but there are still things outstanding that we let slide and paid but in hindsight shouldn't have, still a few internal doors to go on, architraves and skirting bords missing and even plaster missing in our skylight tunnel and on a couple of sliding door frames.
We literally never see any tradies at the house and we're lucky to see even the tiniest bit of progress every couple of weeks, yet houses that started well after ours in the same street are already finished, they seem to have trades there every day and even working well after 6pm and even on weekends. I'm not suggesting PD tradies should be doing those hours as standard but when it's a month away from contract end date i'd think they should be getting their hurry on but nothing's changed.
The thing that i'm worried about when it comes to contract end date is we were vandalised twice, our power cables were cut throught the whole house, it took them 2 weeks to get the electricians back out to re-wire it (they just junction boxed most of it) then a week or so later after it was fixed it was vandalised again! Then another 2 or so weeks again to get the sparky's back in to fix it again with more junction boxes! Not really happy about that either, doesn't feel like i'm getting what we paid for.
I think they'll use that to extend the contract end date out 4-6 weeks even though technically it was their fault, the house was meant to be at lockup stage, we'd paid for the lockup payment over a week before but they still had the front doors off the house so anyone could just walk on in. If it was "locked up" as it was meant to be then they wouldn't have been able to get access to cut the cables.
Communication has been a major issue too, we almost never hear from them, very very rare updates or news and it's usually only after we hassle them. It was only when we were chasing them all for updates that we were told out Site Supervisor no longer worked for the company, no warnings or anything so i'm guessing he quit or was sacked on the spot. Took a couple of weeks til they assigned a new SS then a couple of weeks for him to get out to site and get up to speed with the job so not a lot happend for those few weeks at all.
They've installed galvanised steel downpipes to be painted later despite the contract quite clearly stating colourbond downpipes. My BC is now claiming that only double storeys get colourbound and all single storeys get galvanised steel showing me a flyer highlighting the fact that they use wattly paint for downipipes depite what the contract clearly states and even after our SS said he would get them replaced with colourbond.
They've also installed the wrong window to our kitchen servery, we bought it to their attention at the start of December, they've just told us that the right window will be installed next week, 2 months later. As this window sits over the stone benchtop that still hasn't gone in and i'm thinking they'll try to use the supplier delay on the window as another excuse to avoid paying penalties and drag out the completion date despite them being the ones ordering and installing the wrong window.
We've very much regretting not going with Carlisle homes, we were very close to pulling out of our PD contract due to the horrible tender process and going with Carlisle. Three of our new neighbours are Carlisle homes and i've spoken with all 3, they all started the building proccess with PD and all pulled out at the last minute due to the terrible process and all 3 have said they had an amazing experience, I wish we weren't more persitant than them! One said they even let him run his own data cabling as he's a licensed cabler, my best mate's licensed and PD said there was no way in hell any work was getting done by anyone else during the build, argued it for weeks but they wouldn't give in. Wouldn't even install conduits for cables that I offered to pay them for claiming it ruined the structual integrity of the house, rubbish!
At this rate i'd be amazed if we're in by the end of the financial year, seems like they're barely half way done with the build and we're almost 6 months since the build started with no sign of it picking up any speed. The last thing that has happened was the front facade was rendered on Monday 15'th, was due to be painted on the 18'th but never happened and still hasn't with no progress inside since the end of December. I think it all stems for poor organisation and not being able to manage the trades effectively. Any pointers on how to manage this? Especially the contract end date that i'm expecting to blow right out with excuses? Thanks very much for reading my novel, Let me know if i'm better of starting a new thread.
Gavrook I'd be raising it all with your BC and SS via email so you have a written record and telling them you want a response in the next couple of days, again via email. If they don't respond to your satisfaction then ask to speak to their manager and get everything in writing there as well.
I'm pretty surprised by them only having 196 days to build your Vancouver 33, we are building at Kew 28 which is slightly smaller and they have about 260 days in the contract for ours. Nikil is building a Vancouver 33 as well, not sure how many days they have in there for that but 196 including Christmas seems pretty low.
Thanks i'll definitely be drafting them up a big email, not expecting much of a reply though.
That's strange, I thought they'd all be pretty standard build time? This is straight out of our contract https://imgur.com/2hBU5u7
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