Porter Davis homes

So have we..

Both sides of us are PD homes, so its the one supervisor across all three which I like.

Thanks for the welcome Pup & Ebony, I do love the Cayman kitchen although we won't be having extended to the alfresco. It looks fabulous in the display but there's not much room to squeeze between the bench and the door when it's closed! We're also not having the big doors like that as I know how bad we are at maintaining timber etc and I hate bugs!

We've added the standard alfresco to the Kitchen but not the Grand Entertainer as it adds over 4 metres to the house and we want to put a pool in that corner and have the deck/paving come through the alfresco along the back of the house. It's funny it's only $10K for the Grand Etertainer and $7K for the standard alfresco....value for money is definitely in the Grand Entertainer but I think at close to 50sq by the time we're done it's big enough!

We're asking to fill in the void above the entry way - just waiting to see if they can. My theory is if they can do it in the Waldorf they might be able to in the Cayman. Whilst I love the entry way, we'll have views out the high internal wall so we'll put a big window in there and hopefully floor space to form a little sitting area.

Other variations we're doing are the spa to the master bedroom and ensuite to Bed 2.

Now just to figure out which facade! Decisions decisions. Choosing between the Illinois and the Kingsford. Love the look of the Kingsford windows but worry that there's too many windows to the Master right at the front of the house on the other hand we like the Illinois on the Master but not sure if the windows upstairs are too plain?

Although we learnt alot from our first build about what we do and don't like in a home, it's always different with each company. We built with Henley last time and had no drama. My theory is to expect some issues but hope that they aren't too big!

Congrats on your toilets Humble & Eli-Kate, very exciting LOL!


JLD

That's great humble. You and I will pretty much be neck and neck with our build process. I hope you go thru the build with little or no problems. All the best!!! Don't forget to post pics throughout you building process, love to see how it's all going.

Hi Wateman,

I see that there have been a few people offering their suggestions which is great, thought I'd offer some helpful advice as well! Each BC will have their own preference as to how they'd like to be contacted. Some find it more convenient to be contacted by phone, some prefer by email. Like Rups said, the benefit of emails is that everything is documented.

Don't forget you also can contact them through your online construction portal24seven.

It might be best to send them an email asking them for the best way to get in touch with them, and then go from there! Hope that helps a bit Wateman!

Cheers, Ebony.

SS assigned and Site start 22nd Aug (depending on the weather). Excited

Now on praying for the rain god to stay away

All,

I am a newbie and am seeking advice in regards with PD..

I am a potential customer of PD and Im disappointed by the lack of response and traction from their Sales guys. I have now engaged a 3rd sales person to see if they are interested in building the Heathmont 40 on my block. Again after countless phone calls and messages nothing.....
I'm now begining talks with M3tr1con as I feel if they cant bother responding to my calls at the sale phase, how will they be in the building phase when there are issues?

Did anyone else experence the same issues? And are they worth the trouble?

Appreciate anyones advice

Cheers - Alpal

not me.. my sales guy was meeting with us after hours and call and sending quotes at 9pm.

Call Dennis at PD (Prestige) on 0408 223 384

Hi Guys,

I've been reading this site for a while now (swear by it!) and decided it was time I put my hand up for some advice! HELP!!!

We've signed up to build our first home with Porter Davis, formerly a Places Homes home (gordon 19). We chose to build through a house and land package, and now our land developer have rejected the floorplan! The front facade requires another window... minimum dimensions 1800x600mm.. in our ensuite. Are we alone in not wanting to have a fairly lengthy window leading into our bathroom facing the roadside?!?! PD's solution has been to rearrange the entire bathroom so now the shower will be in the ensuite entrance and will only leave us a gap of 15 odd cm's to walk through!!

I find it hard to believe this could happen regularly, but has anyone else had this issue?? Our customer service rep claims nearly every home on our street has had an issue of this sort.. but why?! Surely PD having the house and land package knew before hand of the estate window requirements if they managed to account for all of the other covenants! And now we're just left in a hard place.. trying to make any changes will ultimately delay our build start (due to be sept 1st) which is simply not ideal!

Any comments will be much appreciated
Cheers,
Trudy

thanks tstr1a, appreciate the prompt response.
Will see if my current sales person (katrina) returns my messages on Monday - if not will contact Dennis (this will be no 4!)
I find it hard to believe they dont want my business or money.

Im on a sloping block and I have asked if they can make the house plan work - it seems in the too hard basket.
All I want is an answer if they can it work - would sign a depoist tomorrow if someone would respond...

Cheers - Alpal

A little note to pick your brains. I must say this is an awesome thread, so much useful information for us. I have just caught up to date having read from page 1.

We are planning to build with PD and just wanting to be meticulous with our organisation of the build. We have cut and pasted so much great info from these posts, but wanted to ask a few extra questions that we didn't notice answers for:

Anyone building with PD in the Geelong area? Can you please let us know how things went for you. How long did it take for your building permits, who your SS was and if you had a good experience.

Other companies have been quoting us no additional cost for Colorbond roofing but PD seems to be a few $$K. Anyone with any more detail on that?

Of course any other recent news, tips and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Pip.

Hi Pip,


We're in Geelong region too but still very early in our process. $1,000 down and yet to have our variation appt.

Have you been dealing with the Sales office at Leopold?


JLD

A big welcome Alpal, trudyx & thebigbuild
This thread has been fantastic for us....we have even knocked some $$ off our price due to the price comparisons we do on here.


We got price for Colourbond and it is about the same cost as Cat 2 roof tiles. We are building the Sandpiper 33 (which is a Prestige) and the price we got was around 3k.
Hope this helps.....feel free to pick our brains and also look at our blogs.
Rups and I have posted all the upgrade prices for our build on ours.


Alpal: We have a fantastic relationship with our sales consultant, Joel at Prestige in Saltwater Coast. He met us out of hours, and we had almost everything priced and laid out before our tender appointment. We probably spent about 7 hours with him before tender getting things right (we kept adding things).
Friends of our were looking to buy an already built house and we suggested they think about building. We introduced them to Joel and they are just about to start their frame and are also very happy with him.

Alpal, i too recommend Dennis (PRestige East). Dennis has a strong real estate background and i found he used his contacts in the industry to his advantage. He came out to our block on two occasions and as T said was really good at following up info and providing costings for us. Sometimes its the luck of the draw of the ppl you get when walking through the display villages (and we trawled alot of displays and can count on one hand the number of sales ppl who actually were forthcoming with answers to questions regardless if we were signing up or not) More often than not we would ask a question and just get handed a brochure which doesn't really cover everything. What swayed my other half and I to go with PD instead of carlisle was the sales rep in the EAST office who actually engaged us in conversation and was able to answer questions (as well as ask us what we were actually after and then took the time to offer different solutions that would work for us) The staff in the PD West we found to be very unhelpful and not very forthcoming with information but we had to go out that way to view the Waldorf display. We decided to go see the East display in Lyndhurst just on a whim and are glad we did as Dennis was our man I hope you get the answers you're looking for...Good luck with your build!

Cheers,

Mel

Hi. We're also building a Cayman, and to be honest, we should be living in it by now. Instead, we have a frame, and are about to raise yet another complaint with PD due to serious build errors. So far we've had a countless number of CSCs, we've been told we are PD's most "difficult" customer ever, and we're totally unsatisfied by the experience.

After finding all of the errors in the plans, some of which were significant and greatly held up obtaining a planning permit (we ended up paying several $,000s to a consultant to draw a correctly scaled and contoured Autocad of the block due to "drafting" errors) we've discovered today that the builder did not use the plans we signed off, but instead, they used an old version that had variations we had never requested. How could that possibly happen?

We'll sort it out, but it should never come to that. The errors and inconsistencies, poor version control of plans and variations, failure to follow up and so on are really getting my goat.

I'm sure PD will be just as glad to see the back of us as we will be of them.

Do you have to go through planning?

Hey Trudy ,

Estate guidelines can be hard to understand and cause undue pain. Something builders find it hard to understand take mirvac harcrest estate. Even the builders a struggling to understand the requirements

MelNRob,

As the plan I have picked (Heathmont 40) is a "lifestye" - can I see a "Prestige" sales guy?
The last 2 sales guys I have dealt with have stated they would check out the block and I have not heard from them since.

Will wait until Monday afternoon and if the latest does not respond then I will contact Dennis. Can I confirm hes at the lyndhurst estate?

In the meantime have noticed a new M3tr1con design (Pheonix 38) which seems OK. As its not displayed in VIC thinking of flying the wife to check it out in NSW as a fallback sometime next week incase PD cant build on the block.

Appreciate your response

Cheers - Alpal

HI! thanks for your response

I understand the developers are a tricky bunch! And I'm ok with that. Our issue is PD's solution of recreating the bathroom so a 1.6m shower is now placed in the entrance of the ensuite seems ridiculous! Having looked at the plans myself I'm sure there are far better alternatives that I'll probably have to fight over for a while. In the mean time, we'll just wait and see their drawings and hope they aren't as awful as the PCV makes them sound!

Thanks..

@JLD: we are dealing with Lifestyle in Williams Landing just because the house we are thinking of is not in the Leopold display range. We did deal with their guys via email during the week but it was a huge going up to WL.

If you care to share, where is your land and what house are you thinking of?

Pip.

Hey everyone,
My house is coming along nicely
My SS emailed on Friday & said that fixing should be complete by the end of the month!
We are currently at wk 26 in our build & building a 42 sq dbl storey!
How long for those of you that have built should I expect my house to be finished?
Mel

Go Kangas that all sounds terrible! I really hope that you're able to sort it out to have a house you love. When you ask if we have to go through planning, do you mean Council planning?



Fair enough Pip, we are building the Cayman (Prestige) which isn't on display at Leopold either but the sales guy there can deal with all of the range and can meet us at WL to go through the house when we need to.

We're building down on the Bellarine, where are you building?


JLD