Porter Davis homes

Jackula · Jul 17, 2013 5:17 pm

That's great!

We were told that changes to niches are not structural unless the niche spans the entire wall, end to end (like what we're doing for our master ensuite).

Mali02 · Jul 17, 2013 5:19 pm

Jackula

That's great!

We were told that changes to niches are not structural unless the niche spans the entire wall, end to end (like what we're doing for our master ensuite).

Well there you go, explains why we could change it so quickly!

clairemumto5 · Jul 17, 2013 6:01 pm

Hey Mumma DJ - I know your site start was delayed due to pool etc...but if it hadn't been so how soon would it have been between when you signed final construction drawings and site scrape etc? - am getting a bit excited as got the call today to come in and sign construction drawings so we can move to site start etc - which will hopefully be in july...

inglewood · Jul 17, 2013 11:02 pm

mirz

MummaDJ

Seems like not much difference really in price and you are getting what you want. Ask for a final price - "best offer" and see what you get. Don't tell HN what your PD price is though. You obviously then have to see the cost and time to put in the skirtings as noted above in discussions. I think I have said earlier, we got a quote for laminate floor top of range ($80/m) and Bamboo Carpet ($65/m) and we were quoted 20K (Choice Carpets) - double the price of the PD. We can't upgrade everything. We figure if we have to redo carpet in many years to come after children trash it, we will do that and freshen it up in 5-10 years.
Have fun making the decision - there are soooo many to make!

That's sounds good then, our aim is not to go too far from PD price and get better quality if we can.

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Here is the board we liked, it's some walnut colour but looks pretty good in real. It was $59 sqm, but now reduced to $39 sqm.

Guy told us that they are expecting a new range in day or two which is dull kind of colour. So we are planning to go and check that too over the weekend.

We are looking at vinyl planks - they have these at HN too. We plan to get our carpet through Western Distributors - we used them a few years ago when we replaced our carpet in our current home and we were very happy with the carpet quality and price of what we chose. They are certainly worth a visit (They're in Macintyre Rd, Sunshine http://westerndistributors.com.au/home.html open Mon - Sat - check their website for opening hours, they're not open on Sundays) They also have bolero flooring there too, not that it was called that :wink:

. They sell it for $19m2 and it definitely was the same - same colours and same names of the colours...

Superdaddy · Jul 18, 2013 12:09 am

HURRAY!!!

The long wait is finally over. After a 5.5 months build we have finally got our keys on Monday. The final inspection was a formality to check off all the items mentioned in the inspection report and checklist have been done. We then drove to the PD Narre Warren office to collect our keys. We are still over the moon, having the keys in our hands finally.

It has been a great experience for us during the build process as it was our first time building a house. True to PD's sloggan of "respect the dream", we now have our dream house, dream has become a reality.

We have been very happy with Porter Davis as a builder, to us there are 2 special people who have been exceptional in their jobs and I do commend them for their dedication, prompt response and great customer service. Without naming their names, they are our Site Supervisor and Building Coordinator. Our SS has been fantastic, great at what he does, schedules jobs ahead of time and ensure his trades produce quality work. As for our BC, those who have read our blog, we had a change of BC at the end of last year. We were very concerned getting someone new who didn't know our build requirements, but thankfully, it turned out to be a blessing as she provided prompt response to our queries and available when called or emailed. So thanks again SS and BC!!! You know who you are.

As our emotion settles down, if we have another opportunity to build again, we will definitely go with Porter Davis again and hopefully the same SS and BC.

I'll update our blog when time permits to show you the final result. For now driveway and concrete apron is top priority before moving in.

Team PD · Jul 18, 2013 12:28 am

Superdaddy

HURRAY!!!

The long wait is finally over. After a 5.5 months build we have finally got our keys on Monday. The final inspection was a formality to check off all the items mentioned in the inspection report and checklist have been done. We then drove to the PD Narre Warren office to collect our keys. We are still over the moon, having the keys in our hands finally.

It has been a great experience for us during the build process as it was our first time building a house. True to PD's sloggan of "respect the dream", we now have our dream house, dream has become a reality.

We have been very happy with Porter Davis as a builder, to us there are 2 special people who have been exceptional in their jobs and I do commend them for their dedication, prompt response and great customer service. Without naming their names, they are our Site Supervisor and Building Coordinator. Our SS has been fantastic, great at what he does, schedules jobs ahead of time and ensure his trades produce quality work. As for our BC, those who have read our blog, we had a change of BC at the end of last year. We were very concerned getting someone new who didn't know our build requirements, but thankfully, it turned out to be a blessing as she provided prompt response to our queries and available when called or emailed. So thanks again SS and BC!!! You know who you are.

As our emotion settles down, if we have another opportunity to build again, we will definitely go with Porter Davis again and hopefully the same SS and BC.

I'll update our blog when time permits to show you the final result. For now driveway and concrete apron is top priority before moving in.

Hi Superdaddy,
How exciting - that's great news

All the best for the future and thanks so much for your kind words. I'll ensure your BC and SS get a copy of this post; it's great for them to get good and positive feedback. I know they will be stoked when they see this and so will their managers! I wish you many happy years in your new home and should you ever require any assistance in the future, you know where to find me.
Cheers, Helen

Corz11 · Jul 18, 2013 2:59 am

Typical, have the negative feedback taken off PD. Just another notch on the experience.

MummaDJ · Jul 18, 2013 5:38 pm

clairemumto5

Hey Mumma DJ - I know your site start was delayed due to pool etc...but if it hadn't been so how soon would it have been between when you signed final construction drawings and site scrape etc? - am getting a bit excited as got the call today to come in and sign construction drawings so we can move to site start etc - which will hopefully be in july...

As I signed the construction drawings (on a Tuesday), my BC walked in with a post-it note stating our Site Start was the following week!
Fingers crossed this happens for you.......

clairemumto5 · Jul 18, 2013 5:42 pm

Sweet

that is exactly what I am hoping for! I searched back through your blog to work it out - made it very exciting are you happy with how your hebel is looking? am really hoping we made the right choice with it!

inglewood · Jul 18, 2013 6:25 pm

clairemumto5

Sweet

that is exactly what I am hoping for! I searched back through your blog to work it out - made it very exciting are you happy with how your hebel is looking? am really hoping we made the right choice with it!

Ooooh MummaDJ - it's looking soooooo good!

mirz · Jul 18, 2013 6:50 pm

MummaDJ your house is looking fantastic now.

Have they done render only on first floor or ground floor as well? Looks like two different colours.

Another thing I noticed, in basic facade why half pillar is brick and half just wood?

mirz · Jul 18, 2013 6:53 pm

inglewood

mirz

MummaDJ

Seems like not much difference really in price and you are getting what you want. Ask for a final price - "best offer" and see what you get. Don't tell HN what your PD price is though. You obviously then have to see the cost and time to put in the skirtings as noted above in discussions. I think I have said earlier, we got a quote for laminate floor top of range ($80/m) and Bamboo Carpet ($65/m) and we were quoted 20K (Choice Carpets) - double the price of the PD. We can't upgrade everything. We figure if we have to redo carpet in many years to come after children trash it, we will do that and freshen it up in 5-10 years.
Have fun making the decision - there are soooo many to make!

That's sounds good then, our aim is not to go too far from PD price and get better quality if we can.

Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅

Here is the board we liked, it's some walnut colour but looks pretty good in real. It was $59 sqm, but now reduced to $39 sqm.

Guy told us that they are expecting a new range in day or two which is dull kind of colour. So we are planning to go and check that too over the weekend.

We are looking at vinyl planks - they have these at HN too. We plan to get our carpet through Western Distributors - we used them a few years ago when we replaced our carpet in our current home and we were very happy with the carpet quality and price of what we chose. They are certainly worth a visit (They're in Macintyre Rd, Sunshine http://westerndistributors.com.au/home.html open Mon - Sat - check their website for opening hours, they're not open on Sundays) They also have bolero flooring there too, not that it was called that :wink:

. They sell it for $19m2 and it definitely was the same - same colours and same names of the colours...

Thanks for sharing, would definitely check western distributors next week.

Bolero flooring and cat 1 carpet both are $19 sqm. PD is charging pretty high markup on them.

MummaDJ · Jul 18, 2013 8:37 pm

mirz

MummaDJ your house is looking fantastic now.

Have they done render only on first floor or ground floor as well? Looks like two different colours.

Another thing I noticed, in basic facade why half pillar is brick and half just wood?

Hey Mirz - thanks.

There is just a piece of timber holding up the timber roofing on the right hand side - this will later be removed. Only one Hebel pillar on the left will remain. I am expecting that over the next week or so the roof of this portico, garage and alfresco will be started and completed. SS thought the carpenters might have started back yesterday, but haven't seen them yet.

The whole house is rendered, but only the top storey has the coloured render. They concentrate on getting everything on the top storey done all at once (render/roofing/evap cooler/solar panels) so that they only have to hire the scaffolding for a limited time. The bottom level will be rendered at some stage - don't know when.

MummaDJ · Jul 18, 2013 8:42 pm

inglewood

clairemumto5

Sweet

that is exactly what I am hoping for! I searched back through your blog to work it out - made it very exciting are you happy with how your hebel is looking? am really hoping we made the right choice with it!

Ooooh MummaDJ - it's looking soooooo good!

Claire - yes, we are happy with the Hebel. Temperature feels great inside the house. They have done a super job, looks very smooth. The one thing we didn't realise that there is no Hebel between the garage and the house. It was something that we just thought happened. So instead it is plasterboard on either side. Anyone else who didn't realise this, you could consider either making it Hebel or adding extra insulation in these actual walls between garage and house. Not sure how much difference it will make, but anyway, have to live with it now!

Inglewood - Thx, can't wait for the next week and installation of stairs and cabinets! Bi-fold door went in today! (Officially locked-up now!!!)

mirz · Jul 18, 2013 9:27 pm

MummaDJ

Hey Mirz - thanks.

There is just a piece of timber holding up the timber roofing on the right hand side - this will later be removed. Only one Hebel pillar on the left will remain. I am expecting that over the next week or so the roof of this portico, garage and alfresco will be started and completed. SS thought the carpenters might have started back yesterday, but haven't seen them yet.

The whole house is rendered, but only the top storey has the coloured render. They concentrate on getting everything on the top storey done all at once (render/roofing/evap cooler/solar panels) so that they only have to hire the scaffolding for a limited time. The bottom level will be rendered at some stage - don't know when.

that makes sense, but what about the Hebel pillar? its 3 quarter Hebel and then timber. would it stay like this or Hebel pillar will go all the way up? asking this question we have picked same facade.

Cant wait to see whole house completed

looking awesome.

How much did you pay for eval cooling? is this only upstairs or downstairs as well?

MummaDJ · Jul 18, 2013 10:05 pm

mirz

MummaDJ

Hey Mirz - thanks.

There is just a piece of timber holding up the timber roofing on the right hand side - this will later be removed. Only one Hebel pillar on the left will remain. I am expecting that over the next week or so the roof of this portico, garage and alfresco will be started and completed. SS thought the carpenters might have started back yesterday, but haven't seen them yet.

The whole house is rendered, but only the top storey has the coloured render. They concentrate on getting everything on the top storey done all at once (render/roofing/evap cooler/solar panels) so that they only have to hire the scaffolding for a limited time. The bottom level will be rendered at some stage - don't know when.

that makes sense, but what about the Hebel pillar? its 3 quarter Hebel and then timber. would it stay like this or Hebel pillar will go all the way up? asking this question we have picked same facade.

Cant wait to see whole house completed

looking awesome.

How much did you pay for eval cooling? is this only upstairs or downstairs as well?

Sorry if I misunderstood your question first time around. Yes, the pillar is Hebel for first 3/4 and timber the rest of the way, this is as per the facade - which can't be changed. I guess the only thing is that on most of the facade pictures of the "Balmain" Facade, they have stack stone on this portion of the pillar. We were quoted around $2,000 to stackstone just this pillar by sales consultant, and thought no way. We can do post handover if we want to.

Evap Cooling - $6146.00 to whole house - 8 points

mirz · Jul 18, 2013 10:21 pm

Thanks for explaining that for me. I still can't figure out why they are making 1/4 in timber?

Did you ask them as an option to build whole pillar in Hebel?

Have you seen a house with belaire facade? How it looks finished?

$2k for stacker stone on that one 3/4 pillar, lol. Loving PD pricing already.

Aircon pricing seems good. Do you know make and model #? Sorry for being pain with all these questions

clairemumto5 · Jul 18, 2013 10:33 pm

Didn't know about the rebel garage wall thing and as our construction drawings are Monday we will just learn to live with it too i guess.

My hubby hated the wood pillar look so we upgrade the facade to the dalgety . We didn't op for
Ducted evap either as the humidity in melb and evap drives me crazy so we will get split systems post handover will probably cost us a ill more but that's ok

MummaDJ · Jul 18, 2013 10:55 pm

mirz

Thanks for explaining that for me. I still can't figure out why they are making 1/4 in timber?

Did you ask them as an option to build whole pillar in Hebel?

Have you seen a house with belaire facade? How it looks finished?

$2k for stacker stone on that one 3/4 pillar, lol. Loving PD pricing already.

Aircon pricing seems good. Do you know make and model #? Sorry for being pain with all these questions

Re Pillar - we actually asked to have no Hebel and just timber posts as this matches what we are having out the back, but told "Absolutely no changes to the facade!" So we are fine with it, we don't mind the timber post.

The Evap Cooler - we were originally quoted on the Bonaire system, but now they have changed supplier to Brivis, so unfortunately don't have the model number of this one. Someone else out there might have it - ours is whatever 'standard' is.

Belaire Facade - no I haven't seen this one. Any pictures on their website? You can also ask the Sales Consultant if there are any in the estates. We were able to drive past some specific houses actually built.

mirz · Jul 18, 2013 11:11 pm

I'm pretty sure it would look good, as these are designed by professionals.

Sorry I meant to write Balmain facade not belaire. I haven't seen Balmain yet, may be yours would be the first one for us to see.

We use evaporative cooling a lot in summer, and mostly suggesting to get it done during construction. We will check with BC further details on cooling.

Are you doing driveway post handover?