Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4322Jan 09, 2014 4:49 pm JTM - you might actually find that home made blinds will cost more than proper block out blinds. Spotlight fabric can be pretty expensive. SEC - I can totally understand your frustration. 16 months is a long time to be still in the process and as I said before I felt like it was a roller coaster ride and I went from excited and happy with progress to being down when nothing was happening on our house. Believe me with the bricks and the column it does not bother me as I know that it will be fixed. It bothers my husband more, but he has come to the realisation that no project builder is better than anyone else and they all do the job quickly and get out and they only fix what you point out. I am sure that if they think they can get away with things without you noticing they will. The bricks and the column and the other issues, I will get the independent inspection and I will force them to fix it all. Yesterday they took a couple of bricks to see if they can get a match - I doubt they will be able to as our bricks were fired over a year ago so the same batch and an exact colour match will be impossible. I will push Rawson on this and make them make good on the house. If they do not do it on their own accord I will be going to Dept of Fair Trading and let them rule on it. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4323Jan 09, 2014 4:55 pm Jen1977 JTM - you might actually find that home made blinds will cost more than proper block out blinds. Spotlight fabric can be pretty expensive. They have 30% off at the moment. Material from spotlight plus remaining sheer curtains and rods and such comes in at about $1800 total... compared to the $5400 I was going to be spending on timber venetians and panel blinds for the stacker doors!!! Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4324Jan 09, 2014 5:20 pm Jen that sucks about the pillar. But I agree that independent inspectors are definitely the way to go! SEC we're 17 months in... No use crying over spilled milk - there are certainly worse and slower project builders out there.. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4325Jan 09, 2014 5:21 pm Quote: They have 30% off at the moment. Material from spotlight plus remaining sheer curtains and rods and such comes in at about $1800 total... compared to the $5400 I was going to be spending on timber venetians and panel blinds for the stacker doors!!! That is not too bad. We only have holland black out blinds on our house and they were $1980.00 for the whole house. Maybe another idea. have a look at Fabric.com. They are cheap for fabric - a lot cheaper than spotlight and if you break up your shipping to do a couple of shipments you should save a bundle. My blackout fabric was only $5.00/yard. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4326Jan 09, 2014 11:42 pm I agree about staying away from Rawson, I wouldn't build with them again, I've been in admin 8 months and still no sign of a start. I was told 12 months for the whole process. Not a chance. Unless I rant and rave and flap my wings at them they ignore us. It's been more than 2 months and I still haven't got my internal selections quote. I'm hoping council will approve our build any day now. I'll have some trees to cut down once it goes through which will keep me busy. It's a bit embarrassing telling friends and family we haven't even started. We bought the land in 2012, such a long time ago now I'm so over it! Ok, my own rant over now. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4327Jan 10, 2014 7:48 am MrsBB - I would be jumping up and down too. I cannot believe that you are waiting 2 months post internal selections and have not received a quote. I would go straight to the manager (PM me if you want any of his details) as that is not acceptable. I whinged as I had to wait a week. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4328Jan 10, 2014 8:11 am BB we received our internal selections quote within a day or two. Have u tried ringing your color consultant. . Im sure you would have, or else try to take up the matter to Cso or as jen suggested to CS Manager. We started our build on the 8th month. We didn't feel it was unreasonable at all. Only delay was in getting the appointments fixed. Its been 14 months since we signed. And our build also never had any delays except towards the finishing line when the painters never arrived on time and I must say they delayed the handover before Christmas. Also not to forget about the Chrissy holidays this year and last year. Considering all these I think my timeline is an acceptable one.. its just my thoughts on this... Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4329Jan 10, 2014 8:20 am Mrs Brown Bear Unless I rant and rave and flap my wings at them they ignore us. It's been more than 2 months and I still haven't got my internal selections quote. I had to wait 6 weeks for my internals, which delayed me getting my contract & bank approval, and because the internals werent signed of on it has held us up with getting everything ordered for the house and the final plans being completed. I was emailing our colour consultant almost daily, with my CSO chasing her up as well - this is one area in particular that I feel really lets Rawson down. Fingers crossed i'm almost done with admin - hoping the build will be alot kinder to us than the rest of the process has been. Hope things turn round for you soon Mrs Brown Bear Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4330Jan 10, 2014 8:26 am Really disappointing to hear about the internals quotes - I'm about to enter this phase myself. From what I've heard there is a particular person starting with M that perhaps is not as prompt as they should be - is anyone able to confirm? Send me a PM if you prefer. Really hope things start to move for you MBB and Pinny, fingers crossed for a better start to 2014 and smooth builds. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4331Jan 10, 2014 8:47 am robbie55 From what I've heard there is a particular person starting with M that perhaps is not as prompt as they should be - is anyone able to confirm? Send me a PM if you prefer. I can confirm that. Wasnt very helpful at all at appointment, took personal calls whilst we were sitting across from her, and had excuse after excuse as to why our $$ werent ready in the 2 weeks that she promised they would be done. Was a real kick in the face when she gloated at the begining of our appointment that she had already completed the pricing and emailed it the clients whose appointment was just before us! Definatley try and make app with someone else. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4332Jan 10, 2014 8:54 am robbie55 Really disappointing to hear about the internals quotes - I'm about to enter this phase myself. From what I've heard there is a particular person starting with M that perhaps is not as prompt as they should be - is anyone able to confirm? Send me a PM if you prefer. Really hope things start to move for you MBB and Pinny, fingers crossed for a better start to 2014 and smooth builds. You are spot on there Robbie with the particular person. For us, she was great in person, but then all the promises went out the window. She held us up for 4 weeks! Whereas I know for Pinny she was quite rude at their appointment and then held them up for 6+ weeks. My best suggestion when it comes to colours is to be prepared with what you think you want. We went by and had a look at tiles that were available in the included range and so knew what colours there. Then before the colour appt we also went to the carpet place to pick our carpet there and be able to see a better range and size of what was available.. We also had samples sent to us of the kitchen cupboards etc and so again knew what colour we wanted. This saved us so much time at the appt - and left room for the few things we hadn't thought of. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4333Jan 10, 2014 9:14 am Thanks for the prompt replies will try to get someone else. Apparently now the internals appt is at their head office - I had good hour or so to go through there when I was waiting for them to cost up some changes to the plans we'd made following a meeting late last year. They have everything there apart from the tiles but when I asked if my wife could also come by just for a look (not to actually speak with anyone) they wouldn't allow it saying we'd have plenty of time at the appt to go through it all at the appt. What were the items you hadn't considered JTM? We'd previoulsy gone through the tile showroom too and had the standard range explained but that was a good 4-5months ago now (before we even had a tender) so the selections may have changed and I will go through to have another look before our internals. Thanks for the reminder. Also we have the choice now of getting contracts now with provisional allowance for the above or we can wait till we complete the tile/internals/electrical appts and have them prepared then - does anyone have any thoughts on the best way? I like the idea of moving this along to avoid any delay later but not really sure if they will just cost everything up to make it add up to our allowance. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4334Jan 10, 2014 10:51 am robbie55 Also we have the choice now of getting contracts now with provisional allowance for the above or we can wait till we complete the tile/internals/electrical appts and have them prepared then - does anyone have any thoughts on the best way? I like the idea of moving this along to avoid any delay later but not really sure if they will just cost everything up to make it add up to our allowance. I would personally not do a PA for all the items unless you roughly know how much you think you might spend, unless you have extra funds to cover the cost from your own pocket if you go above the PA amount. I would attend the appointments first (tiles and elec you should be told price on the spot) then put in a PA amount for internals as after the app you will roughly know how much you have spent. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4335Jan 10, 2014 10:54 am pinny robbie55 Also we have the choice now of getting contracts now with provisional allowance for the above or we can wait till we complete the tile/internals/electrical appts and have them prepared then - does anyone have any thoughts on the best way? I like the idea of moving this along to avoid any delay later but not really sure if they will just cost everything up to make it add up to our allowance. I would personally not do a PA for all the items unless you roughly know how much you think you might spend, unless you have extra funds to cover the cost from your own pocket if you go above the PA amount. I would attend the appointments first (tiles and elec you should be told price on the spot) then put in a PA amount for internals as after the app you will roughly know how much you have spent. Ditto Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4336Jan 10, 2014 11:13 am Mrs BB - our admin took 9 months all up (3 months with a useless CSO who did nothing and she got fired, then a further 6 months with a great CSO). Waiting 2 months for your internals quote is an absolute joke though. I'd get that contact from Jen and give the manager a piece of your mind! We had J with our internals and she was great - we were very prepared when we went in on the day and it only took 2 hours. She sent the quote through 2 weeks later which was pretty good time because we threw her a couple of "curve balls" with our selections. I think everyone just needs to keep in mind that most full build processes take around 18 months - no matter what builder. This is what I was told by others who built with EB and MJ and I was still unrealistically thinking it would be 12 months. We're possibly looking at hand over at the end of feb now, exactly an 18 month process. Yeah it does suck (believe me, I'm renting too!) but it'll all be worth it. You may have maintenance issues, but realisitically you'll get that with any house, built or purchased. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4337Jan 10, 2014 4:37 pm You all are very patient - I had T for my internal selections and she was great and it took 1 week to get the pricing. Some of the things we wanted were not what Rawson has done before, so she had to look a bit extra hard to find the things we were after. MrsBB - I would definitely be jumping up and down. Quote: I think everyone just needs to keep in mind that most full build processes take around 18 months - no matter what builder. This is what I was told by others who built with EB and MJ and I was still unrealistically thinking it would be 12 months. We're possibly looking at hand over at the end of feb now, exactly an 18 month process. Yeah it does suck (believe me, I'm renting too!) but it'll all be worth it. You may have maintenance issues, but realisitically you'll get that with any house, built or purchased I think we are very lucky, our build process took 13 months basically to the day, but i must say that I kept on top of my CSO all the time and really pushed things through as I wanted to make sure that we started building on our land within the 6 months that we owned it. Big skip bin delivered today That means that we must be having the rubbish left behind by the brick layers when the re-did the window sills finally cleaned up - how good is that Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4338Jan 10, 2014 6:01 pm Got my quote today and for the most part reasonably priced. They won't let me put extra studs in for drier tv etc. though. Our consultant had left before Xmas and we got lost in the void. I was expecting plans though so I'm going to insist they rush those. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4339Jan 10, 2014 10:37 pm munchi I think everyone just needs to keep in mind that most full build processes take around 18 months - no matter what builder. This is what I was told by others who built with EB and MJ and I was still unrealistically thinking it would be 12 months. We're possibly looking at hand over at the end of feb now, exactly an 18 month process. Yeah it does suck (believe me, I'm renting too!) but it'll all be worth it. You may have maintenance issues, but realisitically you'll get that with any house, built or purchased. Spot on munchi... also not to forget the issues during the build. Its your house which is getting built, so its your duty to make sure that everything is done as per your selections. Please bear in mind that SS will not have access to all our selections .. for eg: tiles, doors etc. So its our duty to tell him straight away. .. hey this is not what we selected. Could you kindly check.. Also its important for everyone in admin phases to pick a sample of your selections wherever possible. Or else make sure that you atleast take a photo of your selections so that you can use it for future reference. Our selections were done well ahead of the build and the photos we had taken helped us during the build. Also please ensure that you do atleast 2 individual inspections, it definitely helps. At least we will get to know if everything is done as per books. It costs few hundreds more, but I would suggest its worth it. We did one after frames just before gyprocking and the next one would be for PCI. I can only comment on the pre build and build phases of RH as of now, since I am still waiting for the handover. Once I move in I'll provide an honest opinion about the quality of work done. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4340Jan 11, 2014 10:47 pm mckz Rawson should consider changing the title of their Customer Service Officers to just "Officers" as my experience so far has been lacking a lot on the "Customer Service" component. Your recommendation seems to have been taken up - they have changed the name to Pre Construction Administrators! Thinking about building Rawson's Huntley 27 Any advice on how to ensure the kit home granny flat that im thinking of buying will get council approval. The kit home companys wont release plans without a deposit and… 0 4074 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 14592 "Losers" "humanity" "off time" "your" "top notch" "love symbol" Sounds like ponzo is done using other people's toilets 37 14039 |