We were given a very helpful 2-page list at the Huntley display (the Ponds) which sets out every non standard item along with the price to include. If they have that there, you'd think they'd have it for every design on display.
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4365Jan 17, 2014 8:18 pm munchi Glacier - We're taking ours to PCI with us. You'll get an itemised list from them with pics of everything to be fixed. Munchi, im not sure what to do. when i mentioned this to our SS, he told it should be done separately and he is happy to provide access anytime. I called up the inspector and i told him abt the PCI dates and he mentioned he will inspect once the PCI is over. So i was thinking its usually done after our inspection. I have one more week to go and i will be speaking to the inspector next week. When is yours booked? Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4366Jan 17, 2014 10:42 pm I can hopefully answer that question next week for you mrs B&B - our bloody slow tiler should have at least one of my bathrooms finished by then I hope! Keep you posted and I'll put some pics on the blog. Gosh our PCI won't be for ages glacier - we were tracking well about 2-3 weeks behind you and now it's blown well out. Probs will have PCI in early march I'd say. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4367Jan 18, 2014 7:33 am That cornice/tiling question; the cornice is supposed to be fitted first, and the tiles should be fitted afterwards (and butt-up against the cornice). I guess they might do the work the other way 'round, which wouldn't matter as long as the end-result is the same; cornice is stuck to the wall, not the tiles. You're not supposed to have to re-do the cornice if you fit new tiles in 10-20 years. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4368Jan 19, 2014 10:08 am Popped out to the house yesterday. Looks like the tiler has actually done something this week - yay! Judging by the stack of tiles, he should have nearly finished at least one of the upstairs bathrooms so it'll be interesting to see how the wall tiles look. I hope he's grouted them too, really interested to see in the black on black Site visit scheduled for Tuesday morning. Can't wait for a sticky beak! Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4369Jan 19, 2014 5:17 pm That's great news munchi. Our carpets were laid on Friday (i didn't expect that! usually they don't turn up on the booked date), also driveway poured. Photos are updated on the blog. Will need to speak to SS to find out what is left for to be done for the week, until PCI. I cant think of anything else other than the painting. Also we are in the process of getting few landscaping and fencing quotes. It looks like the landscaping is going to go out of our budget. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4370Jan 19, 2014 6:30 pm Hi all Wow, what a great thread! I haven't been able to get through all of it just yet but have had a good time reading about all of your builds. My husband and I are looking at doing a knockdown rebuild with Rawson with the Metford33 as our family has outgrown our current home but we love our quiet street and big block (impossible to buy new in Canberra these days!). We're not looking to do it for at least 12 months but want to learn as much as possible from other people's experiences. Looking forward to 'meeting' you all Erin Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4371Jan 19, 2014 8:17 pm Wow not long now Glacier! Dying of jealousy over here hahaha. I know what you mean about landscaping - we did our design and quote at the beginning of the build. It's like $37k eeeeekkk! Lucky we've been saving our pennies for a while now. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4372Jan 19, 2014 8:32 pm Munchi, don't worry, you will be in soon too.. i was thinking to spend a only 5k on landscaping! This may sound a bit ridiculous for some! i think it will now go up to 10k + . Waiting for the quotes. We have already spend a 15k on furnitures , another 15k on landscape + fencing, solar - probably another 6k. And the list goes on... We also had pool on our list, but we have now moved that to next year, otherwise that will be another 40k added to the expenses! Not fun! all these aside, i cannot wait to move in,.. and enjoy the house. Hopefully there are not many things to be fixed after PCI. Also cant wait for the furnitures to arrive! That will be in only by March. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4373Jan 19, 2014 9:24 pm I've got $8.5K set aside for some basic landscaping, but we'll do a lot ourselves. It may need to go up depending on our retaining wall quotes. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4374Jan 19, 2014 9:45 pm Mrs BB, we also need retaining wall for sides. I would have been more than happy if landscaping also was done by RH This is like.. I have to wait untik they handover and again spend time for the remaining works.. which will take up few more weeks, and then hopefully sit and relax and enjoy the house. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4375Jan 19, 2014 10:30 pm Akadeft Have you signed the tender acceptance At the Avenue? We have our tender acceptance meeting this week and I suspect we are going to be horribly surprised by the tender total. Hi Akadeft, We accepted our Tender back in September and our final plans are due in within the next week or too. We spent an additional 10k on top of the tender price so far and have not made it to internals or electrical yet. They don't seem to let you move on to this till you pay the next 7k instalment - we have asked. It means you get kept in the dark a bit throughout the process. My wife and I have had a few discussions about it and are really unhappy with the general service considering the cash we forking out - so much so that the thought of loosing the $4K we have paid already to walk away now isn't much of a deterrent. we just really love our home design and don't want to waste more time. The inclusions you get for the price are reasonable but there is no doubt you can expect to pay a fair bit extra for it. just get as much included in the tender as possible. we kept ours relatively bare as they kept telling us a price rise was due...a bit silly of us in hindsight. We wish the Sales consultant we dealt with could be our point of contact throughout the process. he was very knowledgeable and friendly. Haven't had many positive experiences since being passed on to the next stage. Good luck with your tender meeting. take lots of notes - if i could go back i would have recorded my tender meeting and plan presentation meeting. things were said by Rawson which they quickly forgot about and upon questioning it was made out by them that this was just my ignorance on the matter. No one wants to fork out over $300k and be treated like an idiot!! Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4376Jan 20, 2014 8:24 am Jen1977 Bailey - make sure they come back and paint the tops and the bottoms of the doors. It actually voids the warranty on the doors, as painting it seals the door from potential warping. At the avenue - I questioned Rawson a couple of times on their pricing. A couple of times they re-did their price and a couple of times they told me that was the price and it would not be changed. Rawson is so busy at the moment that really they don't have to deal on prices as they really could be knocking back work. I actually found Rawson to be reasonable on upgrade prices. We were going top build ith mac jones and their prices were exorbitant - a lot more expensive than Rawson. What we got as standard was more than $10,000 in upgrades with mac jones. Hi Jen1977, I agree they must be very busy at the moment and they don't have to flex on price. The reason we chose Rawson was definitely for the fact that their level of inclusions were high and included a lot of key items that we were after such as stone bench tops in the kitchen and bathrooms, air con, higher ceilings to the ground floor (birthday bonus), all floor coverings and quality internal finishes, etc. Whilst other builders were a bit cheaper to start I can't argue that they would have quickly caught up to our tender price with all the same inclusions. I only really have concerns now over some of the more minor items which are adding up quickly. As an example, when comparing the cost of the cold water point to the fridge space or extra gas bayonet to the alfresco, it is approximately 50% cheaper for my friend building with another builder. When I questioned a few similar items to this, R's response was simply - we do it better that's why it costs more. If they deliver on the quality, I'll be happy enough in the end. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4377Jan 20, 2014 4:10 pm Interesting to read about your landscaping. I'm doing my own landscape plan and am only drawing in turf and the bare min requirements for trees. I will be aiming to do the bare minimum to get our Occ certificate then do the 'proper' landscaping ourselves once we are in..I budgeted $5-7k for basic landscaping excluding fences but sounds like maybe I should have set aside a fair bit more:s Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4378Jan 20, 2014 7:41 pm Our landscaping includes fences, trees, grass and people to do everything for us so don't stress too much ATA. It's still a very expensive time though, don't get me wrong. $22k in furniture, $12k for plantations, $37k for landscaping. Plus expenses for final electrical and moving. All very expensive and worth saving as many pennies as you can before the mortgage starts. ATA - on the tender process that's standard and you'd be pretty silly to throw the $4k away and start again. All the project builders are the same. For internals as long as your don't go over the top, you won't spend much. We went OTT and still only spent $16k! As for electrical, I don't believe we went OTT and we spent $9k - that price was mostly due to downlights downstairs which if you want them in a two storey house you have to get them done during build. So yeah keep those things in mind. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4379Jan 21, 2014 8:18 am We can almost taste the finish line. Undercoat and first layer of paint was complete last week, fit out is underway - bathroom railings / holders etc installed. Electrical started yesterday (intercom, light batons, aircon vents, and most power points). Toilets and baths are sitting inside waiting to be installed this week. If all goes to plan the tiler will be back late next week to finish the main floor tiles and splashbacks ready for our final paint cover and staining of stairs and doors. Fingers crossed we have our PCI around the middle of Feb - we have a few brick issues we want fixed so I'm guessing it will take another 2/3 weeks till handover to fix that and all the other issues we, and the building inspector, find. What started late in 2012 could finally be coming to an end – the house part anyway, then we get onto the pool and landscaping. Re: Our Benham 33 journey 4380Jan 21, 2014 8:22 am oooh exciting rawson_k! We are only a few weeks behind you ... I hope!!!! 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 7385 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 24053 "Losers" "humanity" "off time" "your" "top notch" "love symbol" Sounds like ponzo is done using other people's toilets 36 24165 |