Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 14, 2011 1:33 pm Hi, Seeing as this is a fairly new company and not much exists so far on the forum, I thought I would document my building journey with Carter Grange. We are building the Metropol 39 in Melbourne. Their service, as I have written elsewhere in the forum, has been very good so far. They bent over backwards to speed things up. What we liked was that most things other builders charge for as upgrades have been included ie. carpets,tiles, all undermount sinks, stone to every benchtop, double glazed windows....so we dont have a huge upgrade bill. e.g tiles - we only spent $187 on using a few feature tiles... You can see plans here. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/85 ... 9gfrh.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20 ... 9ffrh.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/54 ... le010.jpg/ If there is a better way to post images, please let me know. The alternate format seems to be My only bug bear, and that pertains to all companies, is that one has to 'extract' information or figure out yourself what else you need. Why cant they be more pro-active when it comes to extras or suggestions. I can understand that they dont want to scare off potential customers with a long list of 'extras'...but why not, once a client has paid a deposit say to them : "These are changes that other clients have thought of and these are optional extras that they have requested....would any of them be of interest to you?". That would save everyone's time ie. once we have our formal quote we 'suddenly' think of xxxx. Then we think of zzzz, then we think of yyy... etc etc. If we were given the info up front, then we can choose all at once and not waste their consultants time - and ours. I mean the things most people are interested in would be - future proofing for technology, water tanks, solar panels, aircon.... I bet EVERYONE at some stage of quoting will ask about at least 3 of these items. If they pre-printed the blurb, think how much time & energy could be saved. I will try and figure out next, how to upload my colours etc... BTW, Hannah the colours lady was really helpful and offered valuable suggestions and alternatives and ended up saving me some money. Re: Our build with Carter Grange 2Oct 14, 2011 2:02 pm Hi tracey Thanks a lot for your reply, i think a group of us are in this forum and i am sure they really look forward to your posts as much as I do. At which stage are you? One of the members is at the contract stage. Glad that they have been helpful. I hope we get the same treatment throughout till the end. We are at tender stage... Did you get a water tank? Re: Our build with Carter Grange 3Oct 14, 2011 2:22 pm We have done colours and electrical. Just going back for tender on Friday 21Oct. As we had originally signed with another builder and had already had soil reports, planning permit etc - they are hoping that council will just accept new plans as an amendment and then we can start building in November. Fingers crossed!. Water tank - we are 'provisioning' for a wanter tank ($583) ie. so they do all the piping etc so we can just put in our own tank as my daughters boyfriend is a plumber and cheaper to buy our own tank etc. For a 3000L slimline tank connected to 3 toilets they were going to charge $3885. Am now just trying to research solar power. Think that is more important than water. Waiting for AGL to quote me so I can have a clear picture... Re: Our build with Carter Grange 6Oct 14, 2011 8:40 pm I am waiting to hear re solar rebates. I will let you know when I find out. The $583 does not include the electrical point...it is only for doing the pipe work. We have ordered an outdoor switch for that purpose. By future proofing, we are just deciding about cabling for when fibre optic comes in etc. A lot easier to lay cables for a double story house at time of build...afterwards, very difficult and more expensive. Re: Our build with Carter Grange 7Nov 22, 2011 12:44 pm Hi all, we just put a $1000 deposit down with CG yesterday and can't seem to find any info online. They seem very professional and their inclusions are just amazing. Can anyone give us any feedback with their experience with them.. ? Re: Our build with Carter Grange 8Nov 22, 2011 9:21 pm Hi Hutchee We have signed contracts with CG. We were due to start building on 28Nov but council is slow, so hopefully the week after. We have been quite satisfied with the service so far. Inclusions are indeed good. Just be careful re cost of any extras. Eg drain holes in the upstairs bathrooms were about double the cost of other builders. Overall, we actually feel positive about the building process...before we were very very nervous... and it is nice to see builders almost as excited as we are to build. Some companies start off small and then grow so big they lose the personal touch. Carter Grange is still small enough/new enough to have that personal touch. Most staff worked for other builders incl the directors. You can check out by googling their names! Re: Our build with Carter Grange 9Nov 24, 2011 4:30 pm update on previous post... I said the drain holes were nearly double...I just found my paperwork and want to correct. The other builder was charging $150 per drain hole and carter grange is charging $250.... Re: Our build with Carter Grange 10Dec 11, 2011 2:10 pm Anyone got any further updates? Wouldn't mind hearing about them. Also does anyone know if they build South West of Melbourne? Re: Our build with Carter Grange 11Jan 11, 2012 7:32 pm We have paid a deposit with Carter Grange, currently working on the finer details. So far they haven't given us any indication of site costs. So far we have 2 other builders quote on site costs, one was approx $10,000 and the other was approx $30,000. Wanting to get an idea were CG is likely to be before we spend any more money on Soil test/ Soil Survey, etc as we have already paid for this with another builder. Can anyone let us know what they charge for additional site cost? Our block has a slope of 300mm in the house area, and we are demolitioning and have been told to expect the site/soil to be rated as a 'P' Class. Re: Our build with Carter Grange 12Jan 28, 2012 11:40 am Hi Tracey, Why do you need to pay extra for drain holes? Recently they upgraded the drainage system, is it not good enough? Hi Brens, The site costs depend on the soil and slope, cut and fill, retaining walls etc...(very much up to the land), we have additional site costs of about $5K after the second soil test which they do after the demolition. Re: Our build with Carter Grange 13Jan 31, 2012 9:44 pm Brens, sorry been away and only saw this post now.. Give CG your current soil survey and they will be able to work out for you . Naturally they have to do their own soil test if you proceed but you should be able to get a pretty good idea from them. We also did a demolish and rebuild. We are in a flood zone and sandy soil so they had to used screw piles for foundation and also bring in fill to increase to 300mm. Our site costs came to $30k. An update on our build is that the slab has been laid and now they are on ground floor framing. Pretty exciting. Been on site every couple of days and workmanship looks pretty good so far. I am sure you will be very happy with Carter Grange. I went through 2 other builders and paid deposits but pulled out when we were not happy with the way things were looking...their service etc. I cant think of anything that we are unhappy about ... Nancykong....we added drain holes to upstairs bathrooms just in case we let the bath overflow (which I have done before...leave bath running and get distracted!)....and for downstairs, in case the washing machine overflows - which has happened to us before... (granted we now have new washing machine and previously we had just hooked the outlet pipe over the edge of sink and someone had left a cloth in the laundry trough, so it overflowed. Probably overly cautious but it makes dh feel more comfortable... Re: Our build with Carter Grange 14Apr 24, 2012 7:03 pm Hey all We were about to build with Carter Grange paid the deposit but have since pulled out. We loved the inclusions and the Metropol 43 layout but due to a number of outstanding issues and some serious concerns we decided to look elsewhere. Advice: Check your specs document, Carter Grange include all the same lenient tolerances and minimum building practices as volume builders. Do yourself a favour and get a copy of a standard HIA contract and a copy of the Victorian Building Commission Guide to tolerances and standards 2007 and compare these documents to what it is you are signing... nuff said! There are many trickle down practises in this business and considering where they come from it is understandable. Remember that old adage - if it seems too good to be true... Disclaimer: Our situation is our situation and may not be indicative of this builder in general -but it is our experience - Ghunnar Re: Our build with Carter Grange 15Jun 16, 2012 8:44 pm check out my blog about our build with carter grange, how did everyone elses build go? so far we are really pleased, no headaches during the build Our build with carter grange: http://bojarkus.blogspot.com.au/ Re: Our build with Carter Grange 16Jul 28, 2012 1:35 pm Just in case anyone else is considering building the Metropol 39 - these are things that I have realised I made a mistake with could be improved: 1) The toilet upstairs - to get inside the toilet is very very awkward. You have to squeeze yourself in the corner before you can close the door. (So try it at the display home). I would suggest doing a sliding door or adjusting the plan 2) THe en-suite bathroom has been realllly cold in winter. I would suggest either putting in a 4 lamp tastic. I have just done that, using the light opposite the mirror. (cost me $200 to retrofit and $354 to buy at bunnings) Now my husband has pointed out that I should have used the light above the bath, next to the shower as that is where you need the warmth. Such is life! 3) If putting a chandelier in the void and above the staircase, try and organise it before they put in lights and try and get it into the contract as electrician wants to charge me $200 per light as difficult to get to etc. You may also need a noggin as chandeliers can be heavy. 4) I cant remember if I added lights, but upstairs we have way too many lights. (I dont think I did). With that wonderful thing called hindsight, I should have cut some lights upstairs and put one switch for 3 little lights along the staircase or something to that effect. (When I want to let the dog out at night, I have to switch on a quite a bright light which really wakes me up). 5) Laundry - ensure you have a cut out for the washing machine in side cabinet and that your waste water from wm is fed directly into the pipe. (So that you dont have to hook your pipe over the ledge) which can easily lead to flooding if it is knocked or if something is in the plughole. 6) Consider if you need an opening window in the laundry to prevent condensation build up or if you want to change the opening/closing of the dining room windows. (In dining room, the norm is 2 fixed and one opening). I am wondering if I should have changed to 2 opening and one fixed.... 7) Upgrade the standard lock on the laundry door to one of a better quality. Locksmith said Gainsborough very good, hard to pick , but the laundry door had a weaker lock which was pickable. That is all I can think of off the top of my head...other than that, quite happy with our house. Re: Our build with Carter Grange 20Jul 29, 2012 8:59 pm hi Nancy, we had an issue with our rangehood. The Schweigen ones (and ones with an external motor) can only really be fitted to a single story as it has to go through the roof and you must advise your site supervisor and give him the installation instructions. We ended up having to change to a normal range hood (which I am very sad about as it is noisy). Which house are you building? T We spent close to 2 years in a process with TA. It was horrible..... we got to tender, and the first cut was 50% over our budget which "they care such about meeting ". We… 18 27184 Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 17507 of course there are legal avenues. You've already mentioned it. Sue them. I find it odd that lawyers wouldnt be willing to take on the case, given CCT evidence and… 1 23758 |