Porter Davis homes

Were you with New Home Inspections? That's who we are having our frame inspection with- recommended here!
Not sure of any others of repute? I hope you can find someone soon do that handover isn't delayed!

No not NHI, but someone else highly recommended around the place. The frustrating part of it is that we gave so much notice and were told that he's usually lucky to get a couple of days notice so I don't see why we're the ones getting bumped when he gets busy

Hubby has just gotten us penciled in with NHI, now waiting on SS to confirm. Fingers crossed!

Change of plans

SS called hubby back and said we're unlikely to be ready for PCI on Wednesday; a few things that were meant to happen last week (while the SS was on leave) didn't happen, and so he thinks Friday is more realistic . He also recommended that where possible the same inspector do all the inspections, so we will do PCI on Monday with our original inspector. Things had better go well, as I won't be happy if they ruin my birthday

Thanks to those who suggested alternative inspectors, we really appreciate it

Oh, and some good news

A few weeks ago we noticed a second front door had been delivered Figured it was probably a mistake, and since we were only charged for one door (yes, we checked ) they'd take this spare away at some point. I mean, it's pretty obvious we don't need two of them!

BUT, the SS says that it's a replacement for our door... a fire resistent replacement. Yeah, I know, whatever but it means we don't have to have an ugly screen door covering our beautiful feature entrance door

hi mickey,
thanks for ur nice comments about the house, I took ur advise and took the phone charger!

hey monkeypantz, where you been, iv been awaiting ur blog update cos i am getting excitied for both of us.

I would really love to know whom ur s/s is as ours was on holidays to last week and only came back today.

maybe its better to have pushed back the PCI if you have no inspector, but i know how hard that would have been for you, as ours was today and could not wait for that handover date but we did not get one as yet!!

ok keep the updates up pls, as i would love to say we got the same handover day and we can be inline at the office collecting our keys!!!!!

Hooray for PCI, ma! I didn't realise they went for so long! Sounds like the house is in pretty good shape, such a shame about the gas supply. Have you been given a reason for the delay?

hi monkeypantz,
yeah i did not know either, but he was so patient with us. reason being the gas pipe needs to be installed, i called the gas compnay today and said the delay was due to block not being cleared. But the good news is i hope its getting done today and meter at the end of week.

Iv never prayed so much in my life!
but will keep you posted pls let us on here what date you also get for handover.

I accepted our house without the gas meter installed. PD didn't like idea but they agreed to handover.

The meter was installed 2 days later (xmas eve).

I had NICHE to be in all the bathrooms of my house in my contract & obviously included in payments. When I went to check the house which have couple of weeks left for final inspection, i noticed NICHE is not there in one of the bathrooms. I am disappointed with the explanation PD has given saying - '..niche can not be done on an external wall and the opposite wall is where the shower head is going to be installed'

Hi tamugrg,

Same thing happened to us, we pushed and pushed but they wouldn't budge, their excuse being that we were only building an Access house. I'm not sure what yours is, but if you're not I would definitely push it. They can build in on external walls, they just have to build a 'false' wall out a little. There are people on this very forum that were allowed to do just that. They only say they can't do it because they don't care about their customers and just want to do what's easiest.

This is true, unfortunatly for you tamugrg its something PD should have been picked up on before the house started building
Are you going to be re-imbursed for the missing niche??



I don't think its has anything to do about caring about their customers. Any builder will build anything you like, you just have to be willing to pay extra for it.

In our experience its been a real battle to get PD to build what we like, even when it's been very possible, I'm afraid I agree with Wateman, they will try to do what's easiest and don't particularly care about the customer. It really is just another sale to them, however they don't seem to realise (or care about) the damage this does to their reputation. It's after the battle and when they finally do concede that yes it actually can be done that the big unnecessary expenses result. *sigh*

It's not as simple as just paying extra to add/change something unfortunately.

Just like tamugrg, we had niches in our tender etc, they were the first thing we added actually, we picked tiles for them at our tiles appt, and it wasn't till we got to the contract signing that we discovered they weren't in our contract, when we asked why, that was the first we had heard about them not being able to do it.

Of course we complained, we pleaded, we provided drawings and photos that people kindly gave us on here, showing them where PD had done niches on external walls for them, but they wouldn't budge. In the end we 'upgraded' our house to have an extra bedroom, which altered the bathrooms around and allowed us to have our niches. Of course we paid extra for the upgrade, but we also were charged for changing our plans at this late stage, besides the fact that we were only changing them late because they failed to advise us of the issue until contract signing.

As I said, we were told we couldn't do the false wall thing because we were building Access, and it's directed towards first home buyers and they don't allow as many changes or some bull*. They said that Lifestyle and Prestige were aimed at 2nd and 3rd etc homebuyers, so they allowed them more flexibility. Your house is a Lifestyle one tamugrg so I would push for what you want. You pay so much money for your house, you shouldn't be forced to miss out on something you really wanted when it is so easily possible. Especially when they didn't even care enough to advise you that you couldn't have it. I'm sure they just hope you dont find out until it is too late to do anything about it, because making their customers happy is not really important to them.

I've followed your build Wateman and I do recall the situation, and even remember the drawings and their excuse after excuse, the way you were treated left me feeling pretty disgusted. Especially when another poster here even provided you with their drawings showing it could be done and was actually being done for them.
We have had to fight for so many things in our house, luckily we were able to 'win' most battles but it was us always coming up with the ver do-able and not particularly complicated solutions to the problems, never PD - what happened to you regarding those niches was unfair in the extreme and then to be charged for making a change to rectify the problem (ie the extra bedroom) really just topped it all off. That charge should have been waived. There is either something seriously wrong with their process (that this wasn't addressed much earlier for you) or they really just don't care!! Amazing that they are up for customer service awards for 'respecting their customers dreams' (see the PD website blog for more on their recent HIA nominations if you don't know what I mean)

Don't get me wrong I know I probably come off as bitter, but I love out house and it turned out good in the end we even had some luck go our way eventually.
I just got annoyed seeing somebody else have the issue as its such an unnecessary drama for them. If PD don't like doing them they should not put them in displays and tell ppl from the start they can't have it

No not bitter at all, just understandably disappointed and that's fair enough.
Im so glad to hear that you love your house, and I hope the niches were worth the pain. We have them on our plans too, I think they are a great idea!

In that case I apologise for being so blunt with my first response, I wasn't aware of your situation and all I have gone off is my own experiance with PD, which has been quite good.

tamugrg, that's really disappointing that they didn't tell you about the niche straight up. I don't know what the options are (fortunately both our showers are on internal walls) but I imagine it would be hard for them to do anything at this late stage? I hope you get a satisfactory resolution.

Only a couple of days until PCI for us . Hubby went out on Tuesday and saw that the external painting has been done, the splashback has been installed, and the lights under the overhead cabinets in the kitchen have been installed. The last door has been hung, the front door handle is on, and the meter box has been changed. There are some blurry pictures on the blog. We are well and truly locked out now so we probably won't be going over this weekend, although it hardly matters given we will be there on Monday for PCI. Everything is crossed that we might be able to handover late next week!

got some good news to share with you guys, handover is in 7 days.

Also updated blog but sorry no pics.......