Porter Davis homes

Hi everyone,

If you have a chance, check out the exciting build of fellow HomeOne member, Donna (mdzzj). To celebrate Donna's lovely home we have done a feature article on her home on the Porter Davis blog. She has offered some great insights into her home building journey which many of you will find interesting. Let us know what you think

Check it out here: http://blog.porterdavis.com.au/index.ph ... ground-up/

Cheers, Jess.

Hi J & C,

I understand you want a great Site Supervisor to overlook the construction of your home. I would like to assure you that all PD Supervisors are qualified to deliver exceptional customer service, project management & quality control. When you get a SS, you'll be provided with their mobile no. & can contact them Monday to Friday during business hours &, on top of that, they will contact you on a fortnightly basis to update you on the progress of your home. There is no need to stress. If you would like me to put you in contact with someone from the PD office to discuss SS's & clarify any questions you may have, then feel free to private message me your first name, lot address and phone number & I'll do my best to help you out. Cheers, Jess.

Hi everyone,

Has anyone signed up for PD's latest promotion that covers the driveway, path to house, front landscaping and fencing. PD have increased the price of their house since Jan and their H&L packages have risen by 15k. We were wondering if these costs are equivalent to market costs.

Cheers,

J & C

Hi J&C

I think they're still pretty competitive - considering how much land has gone up too - thats probably been the biggest change.
M put their prices up way higher than when I originally signed up with them but they don't have the landscaping and fencing etc.
Shop around - but I think they're still pretty up there and they're upgrades dont cost as much as others too.

Cant wait to get up there to visit

Hi all, I just wanted to update on my house. A few months ago I was having some major issues with the bricks, namely that they were two different colours. Well we have had the house rendered by PD at no cost to us and it looks fantastic! It is Surfmist with a Dune balcony. Not everyone's thing I'm sure, but we love it and it is far better than the multi-coloured bricks.



We have been living in the house for 6 weeks now and it is just amazing. There were a few outstanding issues at handover such as the stairs hadn't been carpeted as the carpeters ran out of carpet on the day, but they have now come and completed it. At two weeks before Christmas we decided to accept the house regardless as it would have cost far more in rent than the carpet and other things were worth but PD fixed all the issues they said they would. One mirror was damaged but they also replaced that a day or two later, and we had a stream of tradesmen still coming through for the first week or so fixing up minor things. The only thing we are still waiting for is our powder room lights as they were out of stock imports, but should be arriving at the end of Jan.

In the time we have lived in the house the only problems we have experienced are one door handle broke and a bit of the caulking is too thinly applied in the ensuite. Other than that it is perfect, apart from all the holes we put into the walls moving in!!! But we can hardly blame PD for those! We have had some pretty intense weather lately, I thought the trampoline was going to blow away at one point, but the house has withstood everything without any problems and feels really solid and secure.

We have had a never-ending stream of curious family and friends visiting since we moved in and they are all suitably impressed and envious. We adore our colour selections, the build quality, and there is absolutely nothing we would change about the house, for our family it is perfect. We are very happy with the quality of the finish in the house, the paintwork is outstanding, the insulation and soundproofing are great, the house stays really cool on hot days, the evaporative cooling works really well and the appliances are really good. I'm trying to think of something to complain about but I can't, the house is amazing and has exceeded my expectations.

We are a family of six and the Cremorne 42 never feels overcrowded, unlike our previous houses, we all have our own space (even though it is often, like now, myself and four kids crammed into the study!) and there is plenty of storage room, even for chronic hoarders like us! We seem to fight a lot less also. The master bedroom is cavernous, but fantastic, the WIR is a touch on the small side, but I think it is more that I need to throw some stuff out. The oversized shower is sublime to use, it is a real struggle to stick to that 4 minute water saving thing, because I seem to just stand there with a goofy smile for ages. The kitchen is so easy to cook in, plenty of space and storage for everything, excellent appliances, cooking has become a pleasure again. I am still at that point where I go out on the balcony each morning and just gaze out at the landscape, the goofy smile re-emerges at that point. It is a very indulgent house, even folding laundry is pleasurable as the laundry is so huge.

Thank the Lord for Homeone, it has been such a source of wisdom, inspiration and motivation throughout the process, I don't know what we would have done or if we would have even done it without having read and shared in everyone's experiences. Thank you Homeone users!

For the benefit of the Homeone readers who are considering building these are the most commonly asked questions we have had and our responses.
1. Would I recommend Porter Davis? Yes
2. Would I build another house in the near future? No
3. Am I glad I did it? YES, it is an exhausting, time consuming and intense process, but exceptionally rewarding. It is quite amazing to commission the building of an edifice and watch it materialise from the page into a three-dimensional structure, sure it's not the Parthenon that we have built, but it feels darned good to create something this big. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased to regain my life now that it is over and to drag four kids through it has been difficult for them but they are used to my nutty ideas and in the end we are all so happy with the result it was certainly worth the effort, and I think we will be perfectly happy here for quite a long time, although we were thinking of an investment property...

Cam I just say they have rendered your home beautifully! From the outside it looks awesome, and i'm sure it's just as good if not better on the inside!

Thanks building one! Yes the inside is great, too messy to photograph though

you can see some old ones here if you are interested;
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41072

I did think of one thing to complain about though, they forgot to paint the strip on the front of the house, you can see it in the picture on the left of the balcony. But we are on a battleaxe block so the photo shows the street view and it is not really noticable. I figure it is less effort to paint it myself when I am bored one day than complain!

Fallen apple, wow, looks awesome
Congratulations.

I recall seeing the pre-render photos and the bricks were very disapointing. It looks fantastic now

Hi Everyone,

I am building with Porter Davis Lifestyle. I have done my tender appointment and will have my contract appointment in 4 weeks time. I went to National Tiles during the weekend and found out the range for standard tiles are pretty limited, I am not sure whether it is worth to upgrade the tiles to PORCELAIN from CERAMIC. Does anyone know how much does it cost (per m2)? Is it worth to upgrade?

Thanks in advance.

some are $45 and others are $60 per m2. All up we spent around $6k extra on tiles for a 29 sq home, we are pleased with it

Looking at your pic, did you extend the garage accross as we are trying to decide between a few of the PD designs (cremone, wembley and Chadwick) and i dont remember a window being there, we were just discussion doing something like that ourselves, I was not sure if it was possible

btw the house looks great, will read your thread later when i get time tonight

Hi Fallen_Apple,

It is great to see that you've moved in and are enjoying your new home. Your house is looking fabulous, thank you for sharing your picture on the forum. I am very glad to hear that you are happy with your bricks, and the overall quality of your home. I am also glad to hear that the Cremorne 42 is spacious enough for your family of 6! Congrats on a great build, please keep us posted in the future with any updates, including decorating ideas you come across. Cheers, Jess.

I've noticed most of the display homes these days have wallpaper of varying colours and textures, is it an option for PD to put up wallpaper and if so where can we choose it from, I have not seen any selections at Hopetoun etc.
If anyone has had this done can you also give a rough price per wall or meter??
Cheers

Thought I’ll share our journey with PD do far.. We have just finished our colors selections and will be signing the contract soon (well.. maybe).

To start with, we always wanted to go with PD as they had a good repo & we liked the floor plans, but we found most of the sales consultants arrogant, unhelpful and unprofessional. So we decided not to go with them and paid a deposit with H3nleys instead.
But, wife wasn’t happy with the floor plan we had chosen with H3nleys, so we decided to give it another go with PD and that's when we met our sales consultant who was probably the most professional & cooperative person we've dealt with at PD. We wanted to make a few changes to our plan and she happily got then approved. We had a few issues during our tender appointment and she intervened and got them sorted, even on her day-off. She has since left PD and I must say it's been an absolute nightmare after that.

Let's start with Hopetoun.. We had out color selection appointment and all the time we were there, all that the color consultant did was put in the system what our selections were as we had already selected them from our previous weekend visits. No costs were given for the upgrades, so we were kinda aiming in the dark with the selections.
Not only this, our color consultant gave us wrong bits of information multiple times. Even things like colors that were supposed to be under standard inclusions, she told us that they were an upgrade. So, we had to change the color theme of the whole house as we didn't want to upgrade. When asked what the colors were used at a specific display, she told us the colors without even referring to any documents. And to top it all, she told us to hurry as she had another appointment!

After the appointment, they give you a 48 hour period to make a change to your selection, but that is useless as no one from Hopetoun interiors will ever return your calls or emails and you can't go there without an appointment on a weekday. So lets say your color appointment was on Tuesday, you can almost assume that the only way u can make further changes would be to go there on the weekend after and then send the list of changes to your CSA for approval.
So, the following weekend, we went to Hopetoun as we weren't happy with our sections and when I checked the inclusions with one of the sales consultant there, she was surprised as she said that our initial selections were standard inclusions. We double checked with the other girls and they were all surprised on what we were told by our color consultant. Not only that, the colors our color consultant had told us that were used at the display.... most of them were wrong!

On our contract appointment, when I complained about this to our CSA, all that she said was that the people at Hopetoun are contractors and that's why this happens ! Now what are we to make of it? I don't care if they are contractors or not.. I'm paying a hefty sum of money.. and I demand a certain level of service for it !
On the brighter side, our CSA was an absolute charm to deal with (for a change !) We were given the costs for the color selections (FINALLY !), so we decided to take a few things out and get a few things added. As a result, we didn’t sign the contract as there were too many changes and we were to come back again after all the changes have been finalized…

All these days.. we had taken time off from work and it was all for nothing !

Since then I have tried multiple times to communicate with the CSA, but it's damn hard to get a meaningful response. They will never return your calls and regarding emails, you might get a response once in a while that they are working on it or something similar..

Now we are having second thoughts as for the amount of money we’ll be paying, I don’t think we are getting the level of service one would expect !

Hi Baronx,

I should say we had totally the opposite experience from you. Our consultant at Hopetoun practically chose the whole colour scheme for us & we are very happy with the result. Our CSA was very helpful & replied to my emails or phone calls within 24 hours. Of course there were few problems every now & then but everything were sorted out & rectified in timely manner & without complains.

Send a PM to Jess from Porter Davis & she should be able to help you with your problems. That another thing that I like about PD, they have someone involved in the forums & they take actions to help us experience a relatively trouble free building.

I have to agree with this PM Jess here, although i have not built with PD....YET we have been doing a lot of research online and here and everytime i needed something she has been straight on it for me. and the person from PD we have emailed for certain prices/plans etc has been more than helpful and gone out of her way to help, for eg she rand me 6pm Sat with a price for something extra we wanted to know and then emails us 3 different plans, when i replied with a thanks can i also have an extra drawing of something else (expecting she would do it on Monday) she emailed back within an hour on Sunday night! Above and beyond what I expect really, more than helpful each time i ask something.

So PM jess and tell her what is going on,

Just to add to my above posting, I dont want to ask to many questions and seem like a pain to the lady at PD
that has helped us (as we have an autistic son we cant get to displays until after the school holidays are over so she has been helping us out until we can visit some displays) so i thought i would ask here,
we are very excited about building yet again (this will be our 3rd time) and have narrowed it down to 3 of the PD designs, all double story, the Cremorne, wembley (with alfresco added on) or the Chadwick (which is currently the front runner)
I have a question about the facades, to those who have build a double story with PD, which ones are standard, or what facades people got and a rough idea of the extra costs for certain ones, I know i could just ask her again but as i said i dont want to sound like a pain, when it is onyl so i get a rough idea for our budget.

Thanks in advance guys

Hi guys.. good to know that you are being helped by Jess.. I will surely PM her.. but my question is..
What are the CSA and the color consultants for ? If we have to PM Jess to get things done, then shouldn't we just be dealing directly with Jess ?
Where's this "exceptional customer service" that Team PD keep talking about ?