Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 21Dec 28, 2011 1:46 pm We are having problems with our driveway as well, the paint is peeling off and it looks really average. Worse than that, was the storm we had the Xmas night. Bentley have cut the block next door to ours, laid the slab and filled the land in the yard area, without any thought to us. The Council guy came out a few months ago on our request due to flooding in our yard, he advised my Hubbi to did a trench along the side of the fence on the block next door to allow water to run off towards the street. We did this and it seemed to help, now as they have filled it all to our fence it was coming over our undersized retaining wall like a river. When we looked at our plans we noticed that the wall should be 800mm high going past our patio doors and 600mm for most of the remaining part of the wall. But what they have given us in fact is a 400mm wall all the way along the house. This is not what we signed for, the engineer that would have did the specifications for the retaining wall in the first place, would have done them knowing that we would be in trouble as our block is going down on a slope. You could see the water coming over the wall straight under the fence, the wall is lower than the bloo-- fence, we didn't stand a chance. Thank god for our Neighbours, all of them came running over to help sweep the water away from our doors, none of them suffered any flooding, as they have all been given the correct size walls to prevent it happening. They gave up their Xmas dinner to save our house. We will be contacting our Builder about the wall, the Council and will take it as far as we have to, to ensure we get what we paid for. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 22Jan 03, 2012 2:10 pm One thing I must say is Bentley built the house really well. Not a leak with all that rain. I have seen so much damage in other homes after the storms. We have noticed the concrete under our pergola is peeling also and we had that done privately. I really think charcoal paint is not a good choice. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 23Jan 09, 2012 3:25 pm deb17 One thing I must say is Bentley built the house really well. Not a leak with all that rain. I have seen so much damage in other homes after the storms. We have noticed the concrete under our pergola is peeling also and we had that done privately. I really think charcoal paint is not a good choice. I agree. The houses are well built. Nice and sturdy. But our concerns and issues have been with the finishing work which has been done. I honestly don't think the charcoal colour is the source of the issue. There are houses areound the area with Charcoal driveways which are much older than ours (and receiving far heavier traffic than ours) and holding up far better. The issues seem to be from something else other than the colour. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 24Jan 09, 2012 9:13 pm msolok deb17 One thing I must say is Bentley built the house really well. Not a leak with all that rain. I have seen so much damage in other homes after the storms. We have noticed the concrete under our pergola is peeling also and we had that done privately. I really think charcoal paint is not a good choice. I agree. The houses are well built. Nice and sturdy. But our concerns and issues have been with the finishing work which has been done. I honestly don't think the charcoal colour is the source of the issue. There are houses areound the area with Charcoal driveways which are much older than ours (and receiving far heavier traffic than ours) and holding up far better. The issues seem to be from something else other than the colour. Waiting to see what the Builder thinks of our retaining wall, it's only one sleeper high and as far as we are concerned it's not sufficient. We have been told it is, but awaiting confirmation of that. We are on a slope and the block next door is higher than us, running towards our block. Apparently the plans say to max of 800mm, so it's ok to build to 200mm never mind the river that runs through our yard. We have walked around and looked at other homes, many of them in the area, and they have much higher walls, ours is the smallest we have seen and some of those houses are built on a flat block Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 25Jan 09, 2012 9:17 pm http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z411/bail2000/001.jpg our retaining wall http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z411/bail2000/025.jpg not xmas day, another rainy day Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 26Jan 10, 2012 10:30 am OMG ... that's no good and it's summer - what will happen in winter? Agree that one sleeper isn't enough ... For info on our build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43093 Built the McLaren by Dechellis - slab down 22 Feb - handover 30 Aug 2011 - and gardens finished 9 Dec 2012!! Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 27Jan 10, 2012 4:44 pm U should have seen us xmas day. whole neighbourhood here saving our house from a river. It was terrible. water was so deep and pouring in over the one sleeper. we will fight this. we r on a slope oir neighbour below us never got any of it because there wall is 4 high and we put a sleeper on our side as well so that our water doesnt run into their yard. no one can believe how bad it floods. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 28Jan 11, 2012 11:18 am Honestly, it could be a mixture of the wall being too low and the drainage being inadequate. When we where doing work in our back yard (which has a 1.2m high retaining wall they have put in) we dug up the ground at the end of the retaining wall to find out where the agie drain was leading. It turns out they simply burried the agie drain where the wall ended, and it wasn't connected to storm water at all. So, the drainage was effectively useless and didn't take the water anywhere. It suddenly made sense why our backyard always seemed to be wet and flooding. We decided it wasn't worth bringing up with them as chances are they would do nothing about it. We have fixed this now ourselves, and suddenly our backyard is much much rier than it ever has been before. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 29Jan 11, 2012 12:33 pm msolok Honestly, it could be a mixture of the wall being too low and the drainage being inadequate. When we where doing work in our back yard (which has a 1.2m high retaining wall they have put in) we dug up the ground at the end of the retaining wall to find out where the agie drain was leading. It turns out they simply burried the agie drain where the wall ended, and it wasn't connected to storm water at all. So, the drainage was effectively useless and didn't take the water anywhere. It suddenly made sense why our backyard always seemed to be wet and flooding. We decided it wasn't worth bringing up with them as chances are they would do nothing about it. We have fixed this now ourselves, and suddenly our backyard is much much rier than it ever has been before. yer, we have put in drains and agies ourselves, but hasn't helped a great deal. We put in a few drains long ones, as the agie doesn't seem as efficient as the drain. We got advise from a couple of guys that build the walls and do plumbing. They both think the wall is inadequate. The builder didn't put any agie on our side, they put it behind the wall on the other block, but it doesn't stop the flooding at all. My Hubbi has now put in another drain, we have drains everywhere and agie the water comes in from the block next door, it flows straight through where the fence starts at the bottom over the top of it and straight over the sleeper wall. If it was higher it wouldn't be able to come over the top of it. It's a never ending drama. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 30Jan 11, 2012 1:15 pm [quote="deb17] The builder didn't put any agie on our side, they put it behind the wall on the other block, but it doesn't stop the flooding at all.[/quote] The agie drains behind the wall are correct. They are meant to drain the water away before it goes over the wall and stop water backlogging behind the wall and building up. The problem is, if they have just thrown the pipes in and covered in scoria rocks, but not connected the agie to the stormwater, the water can't drain away from behind the wall, get's backlogged there, and causes flooding. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 31Jan 11, 2012 7:23 pm Yer I agree. The agie is useless. If u could have seen what the guy that cut the block next door buried in their yard 2 b, omi; hubbi saw a pellet go under. Bentley r building that house so just hoping they put some more plumbing in near our fence. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 32Jan 27, 2012 7:35 pm The owner of Bentley came out to our house yesterday, a good effort considering it's a public holiday, not many would do that. He thinks our retaining wall is sufficient, and agrees with us that all of the houses on top of the hill surrounding our home, haven't been fenced yet and when they are it will stop some of the water heading into our yard. He also put temp downpipes on the build next door, we asked if he could, so that when it rains the water won't all head for our backyard, the house next door is double story and our Builder is building it. They came out today and put them up, we are very impressed with that. He is also arranging for a trench to be dug next door whilst they are building. So hopefully with all those things in place we should be fine. It's great when the owner actually comes out and has a look himself, we are very impressed with the way Bentley have looked after us. I hope that mslook gets all of his problems rectified as soon as possible. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 33Feb 03, 2012 8:44 am deb17: Good to hear that they have actioned stuff for your place that quickly. Sounds like they have attempted to make right, I just hope that it's more an actually solution to the problem rather than a temporary stop gap measure. We had a meeting with the builder on the 26th as well. They have agreed that the driveway has continued to 'deteriate' (and there was a long discussion about the terminology to use for this, which, in all honesty, we thought was more than a little pedantic) and they will be back at the end of March in order to repaint the driveway. They have also agreed, based on photo's which we have taken at the time the driveway and stairs where being laid, and emails we had sent at the time, that they where both coloured concrete (stairs being Colour-On concrete with a coloured oxide put in the top layer of concrete slurry, and the driveway being a colour through the concete), and due to differences in the colour of both they then painted the driveway nd stairs (which we did not agree to). They have not offered to do anything more than repaint it, but at least they have admitted what has gone on now. As for the other issues we are still waiting on being rectified, they are up in the air at the moment. They are still not wanting to fix the grout problems we have (here are some photo's of the grout showing the differences in colour and the grout coming out when we simply try and clean the tiles http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m51 ... %20Issues/ ), although they have admitted that they have put a thin layer of grout over the top of the existing grout, which should not be done. We are still waiting on a decision to be made on what will happen with the front windows of the house, which they had recently just put another varnish coat over the top WITHOUT sanding (so the cracking and water damage to the wood is still clearly visable, still identicle to the way it looked before they decided to do the quick slap on coat). Fixing of the paint to the front door frame has been denied. At this stage we are simply waiting to hear back about the front Windows and we will then organise for the last of the maintenance to be completed (painting to Alfresco beams and the repairs to the rips in the silver roof sarking are about the last of it). It's been a long time coming, but we are finally getting towards the end of the maintenance. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 34Feb 03, 2012 8:57 am glad to hear your getting your driveway done. That blue that is coming out of the grout isn't good, we have the midnight black and it's never had dye coming out of it like that. We will be getting our sleeper wall done privately mslook, it needs another sleeper on top of it, we have had a few guys look at it and they have all said the same. I am not waiting until the next lot of rain and going through that again. Had a bad week, a tray truck has reversed into our car which was parked at the front of our house, and drove off. The insurer has looked at it and said it was a tray truck by the markings on the boot, the indents are very clear. Funny they must have been reversing on the wrong side of the road. The joys of living in a building zone. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 35Feb 03, 2012 9:02 am msolok It's been a long time coming, but we are finally getting towards the end of the maintenance. Good to hear ... why does it have to drag on so long??? For info on our build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43093 Built the McLaren by Dechellis - slab down 22 Feb - handover 30 Aug 2011 - and gardens finished 9 Dec 2012!! Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 36Apr 10, 2012 12:13 pm Hey Guys, Thought I would give a little bit of an update. We thought that we had finially reached the end of the maintenance items last week whent he render tot he stairs at the front of our house was redone and painted and the driveway was repainted. All looked good imediately afterwards, however by Sunday it is clear there is something not right with the painting done to the driveway. Little bubles have formed all over the driveway. On close inspection it is clear that many have popped and broken the paint surface. Clearly not right, and we are waiting for the builder to get back to us on why this is happening and what will be done to rectify it. Re: Bentley Homes (Vic) - Our experience 38Apr 11, 2012 1:17 pm deb17 Did they acid wash it before doing it again. Don't you have to take all of the paint off first? I beleive they just used a preasure washer and sprayed it down, but I'm not sure of that. I'm not aware of them doing anything more, as I wasn't home at the time. I'm fairly sure that they didn't acid wash it, as this was never mentioned to me (they only mentioned about cleaning it before resealing). They basically cleaned it down 1 day and then resealed it the next. Just waiting to hear back from them about what is happening. Last year, 50% of their staffs left. Is it going be bankruptcy this year? 10 30960 Yes, i hace signed build contract and currently awaiting colour selection appointment. 2 29167 I apologise for any confusion, but your understanding is correct. We approached our situation differently based on advice from… 11 37425 |