Browse Forums Building A New House Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 21Jun 14, 2012 12:15 am Really nice plan you have! And getting an office, activity and games is pretty good!!! Jen Building with HomeGroupWA (started as Scott Park Homes ) - Grand Wisteria Check out my Build Thread!! Time line on P1. First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starting o 22Jun 14, 2012 12:33 am enelya Really nice plan you have! And getting an office, activity and games is pretty good!!! For a while we had no idea what to do with the games room, but then DF suggested we use it as a gym! Perfect! Going to need new furniture, while our current house is a tiny, tiny bit bigger in floor space, the house we are building is bigger in living space, if that makes sense? I feel so much better now after having had Jemimas help, as well as speaking with our Sales Consultant today. We also received all the papers to sign for the settlement of our block today. There is so much of it! Tomorrow is going to be a day of signing papers, thankfully one of the children will be at school! (On a side note, WHY do my children have to constantly cry and fight, driving me a bit crazy at the moment, they are at that age now!) Building the Riva by Dale Alcock Homes. Follow our progress here: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=57075 Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 23Jun 14, 2012 12:41 am MissEm enelya Really nice plan you have! And getting an office, activity and games is pretty good!!! For a while we had no idea what to do with the games room, but then DF suggested we use it as a gym! Perfect! Going to need new furniture, while our current house is a tiny, tiny bit bigger in floor space, the house we are building is bigger in living space, if that makes sense? I feel so much better now after having had Jemimas help, as well as speaking with our Sales Consultant today. We also received all the papers to sign for the settlement of our block today. There is so much of it! Tomorrow is going to be a day of signing papers, thankfully one of the children will be at school! (On a side note, WHY do my children have to constantly cry and fight, driving me a bit crazy at the moment, they are at that age now!) That is rather stellar service from DAH!! Very Impressed. And its also great to see a building company actively using social media! I don't think my builder even has a facebook page! (In saying that, mostly happy with the service we have had... just DAH are another level up!) I work in the industry, and the number of builders that don't even have emails for their supervisors is quite astonishing (I am a heavy iPhone email user though)! I sort of wish I had Jemima's job!! And also... if she reads this.. I love the display with the servery bifold window with no sill! unfortunately, no way to incorporate one into my house Jen Building with HomeGroupWA (started as Scott Park Homes ) - Grand Wisteria Check out my Build Thread!! Time line on P1. Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 24Jun 14, 2012 7:01 pm Hi Jen! Just to say thank you for your kind words! I love helping, so it's always a pleasure. And it is a great job I have! Which display did you see the servery window? Such a great feature to have! Where are you building? And what stage are you in? Exciting times! Best regards, Jemima. Dale Alcock Homes. We love building. T: 08 9242 9200 Mon – Fri 8am-5pm Sat - 10-4 thedacrew@dalealcock.com.au http://www.dalealcock.com.au http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 25Jun 14, 2012 9:59 pm Hi Jemima It was the archipelago display, I haven't seen it in person only on the website. Alikimos is a fair trip. I'm building in Success, we are just waiting on building licence, which is sent according to the council website but builder hasn't yet received. Very close! Jen Building with HomeGroupWA (started as Scott Park Homes ) - Grand Wisteria Check out my Build Thread!! Time line on P1. First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starting o 26Jul 08, 2012 10:12 pm Quick update; Our block settled on Friday (6th July) so that stress is now gone!!!! Same day Dale Alcock rang to book in our "pre selection" meeting and we are booked in for this Wednesday at 10am!!!!! We've already pretty much decided on our front colours - roof, bricks, render, garage door etc. It helps a lot we both have either exact or very similar tastes!! Will post our choices after Wednesday. Still no word on the final drawings but we will enquire while we're there. Building the Riva by Dale Alcock Homes. Follow our progress here: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=57075 Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 27Jul 08, 2012 11:21 pm Congratulations on the block settling!!! Now you have a mortgage..... Or maybe not! I wish I could go back to the start! I'd tell myself to not stress so much about the colours and worry more about getting the kitchen design right! Ie. get as many opinions as you can before that final sign off, when it comes to the kitchen.... Unless you've designed a few kitchens in the past and know what does and what doesn't work. It's great to have someone else building in Baldivis too Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 28Jul 08, 2012 11:36 pm Congratulations! Good luck with pre start! Such an exciting day Jen Building with HomeGroupWA (started as Scott Park Homes ) - Grand Wisteria Check out my Build Thread!! Time line on P1. Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 29Jul 08, 2012 11:38 pm Look forward to seeing your list of selections! Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 30Jul 09, 2012 11:22 am Pre selection!!! YAY! It was great to do a pre selection BEFORE pre start! We changed our colours completely from our pre selection to prestart...but it was good as we had another chance to explore the selections and we had time to go away and think about it all, before it went on the official paperwork! Have a good time doing it! I am sure you will be fine with your colours too! From memory our window frames were storm front! I know it is another thread you posted on, but remembering now! What colour are you choosing for your render??? First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starting o 31Jul 09, 2012 4:34 pm For render we are thinking same as you vans - white cliffs 200%. Which is the same as the archer display right??? Would love a darker render but with dark roof and garage door it definitely needs to be light. Still haven't decided 100% what colour garage door but definitely leaning towards woodland grey - will see what the interior designer thinks!! Building the Riva by Dale Alcock Homes. Follow our progress here: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=57075 Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 32Jul 09, 2012 5:01 pm Hi MissEm The Archer display's render is white cliffs but at 300%. Sounds like lots of exciting decisions are being made! Thanks, Renee. Dale Alcock Homes. We love building. T: 08 9242 9200 Mon – Fri 8am-5pm Sat - 10-4 thedacrew@dalealcock.com.au http://www.dalealcock.com.au http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 33Jul 09, 2012 5:19 pm Renee I tripled checked with the office when we were selecting our colours and they assured me (two different people) that it was 200% white cliffs. If it isn't and it is in fact 300% I am one mighty peeved off customer! As I said I wanted exactly the same...and they told me 200%. They never do 300% apparently! Apparently the paperwork with 300% is a typo. ( I received it and put it on my paperwork and my colour girl picked it up saying there is noway it would be 300% and she checked it!). Yeah, if you go a dark roof/garage you definitely need a lighter colour. The pillar will be a great feature...a little splash of colour without taking away the colour of the roof/garage. I know we did not choose the same window frames as the archer as a new colour came in and it is so close to woodland grey that it was a no brainer that we went with it! Goodluck deciding! Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 34Jul 09, 2012 5:33 pm Hi Vans sorry to cause alarm. No doubt it is a typo as I am looking at a document to get the information. I'll follow it up in here to get it changed as it could cause similar concerns further down the track! Thanks, Renee. Dale Alcock Homes. We love building. T: 08 9242 9200 Mon – Fri 8am-5pm Sat - 10-4 thedacrew@dalealcock.com.au http://www.dalealcock.com.au http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starting o 35Jul 09, 2012 7:23 pm So we went to the Elwood display today in baldivis just for a look around. We told the DA guy there that we were thinking of going woodland grey roof, gutters and fascia and garage door. He suggested if we have the woodland grey roof to maybe lighten the gutters and garage door a bit. Then we could also match the front door and pillar with those. Something to keep in mind for Wednesday Definitely going white cliffs for render. Hopefully is 200% on the archer coz we want the same also!!! Building the Riva by Dale Alcock Homes. Follow our progress here: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=57075 Re: First timers building in Baldivis with DAH - Just starti 36Jul 09, 2012 11:22 pm Just copy the archer! (and us!!!). do the surf mist garage door. Will go nicely with the render, and you aren't adding too many colours in... You don't have a big pillar to be too over powering with gutters. And you want to keep your gutters/fascia colorbond so you don't have to repaint later! Just my 2 cents! When you see a frontage you like...stick to it! 1st build in Baldivis with DAH - Pre Selection tomorrow!! 37Jul 11, 2012 4:27 pm Bit of a disappointment today.... Definitely had no reason to be as excited as we were. Let me preface by saying about a week ago I was trying to email our sales consult to see if there was any updates on our drawings. The email bounced straight back saying unable to deliver to the email address. Tried several more times and they all kept coming back. So we left it at that and decided not to bother. The other day when we went to the Elwood display, we spoke to the guy there who informed us our consultant was in Bali on holiday. When we told him we had been contacted to come and do pre selection he assured us our drawings would be done as this triggers the pre selection meeting. So the first thing we are told this morning by the pre selection lady; "I was going to call you to re schedule this because your plans aren't ready yet". Great. Then she says as a result of this we can't attend the meeting at intelligent homes because they need the plans. Even better. Then she told us that our sales consult might come down to see us. He had just returned from Bali today apparently. But of course, that didn't eventuate. He apparently has something he needs to discuss with us, and we're told he will "contact us". Just gets better. So now, when we get "the call" that our drawings are ready, we have to make our own appointment with intelligent homes and travel all the way from Baldivis to Osborne Park just to tell them where we want our phone point and tv points :/ When we first ever visited the Elwood display, DF fell in love with the flooring. We were told it was solid blackbutt flooring and when installed they come and sand it back and then polish it up. So we signed up for it and put it in our contract. Today we see the sample of blackbutt and it has a sticker saying "engineered direct stick" or words to that effect. When DF questions this, she says "yeah we don't use solid timber anymore, it has too many problems down the track so we just use this". She tells us it's real wood on top but fake stuff underneath. We were quoted $12k to do our house in blackbutt and we agreed to it. It is apparently normally $20k for our floor plan but because we got the 32k package it drops down to $12k. Could almost see steam coming from his ears when we found out about this. Then we briefly talk about the electrical plan that's to come at prestart. DF says we will predominantly be getting junction boxes as we have a friend of the family who is a sparky and we will be using him to do our lighting. "We don't do junction boxes anymore, because we can't tell if the wiring is working or not and it's not classed as complete" Not sure if this is a marketing con or not, but it doesn't take a genius to know you can stick a multimeter over a wire and see if it runs electrical current or not. Oh and if we install halogen downlighting with them (yeah right) we could only have 20 or so for the whole house otherwise it will effect the "6 star rating" - which in itself is another con. We managed to select some really nice colours etc for our bathrooms and kitchen which was the upside. All the rest is a lack of knowledge and communication between staff members and clients. We had a long chat on our drive home and both of us are pretty annoyed at the lack of communication. Today was pretty pointless - they need the bricks and roof to be submitted to council but there was no need for that today as the drawings aren't even ready so it can't be submitted yet. Would have been nice to be told this before we came so we could decide to leave it for when the drawings are ready and we could have the two appointments on the same day. DF reckons he's close to pulling the pin with them. We lose our $3k deposit but he feels that this mediocrity will flow onto the build. We have really extended ourselves to build with DAH but we saw it as worth it because they are top of the range but really not seeing anything to rave about at this point. Will have to wait and see how long it takes to receive a phone call from our sales consult now to see what needs talking about. :/ P.S vans -- they have confirmed the white cliffs render on the archer is 300%. The lady did mention they would fix it up if it was their mistake. Building the Riva by Dale Alcock Homes. Follow our progress here: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=57075 Re: 1st build in Baldivis with DAH - Pre Selection tomorrow! 38Jul 11, 2012 4:54 pm OMG! I am so damn peeved! I made them check and check that render colour and was assured it was 200%. They checked with the designer! GGRRRR!!! Useless! Will talk to hubby tonight and see if he wants to pursue the colour. Then the downpipes will need to be repainted. Still need to get a bit of render painted that STILL isn't done! I remember being really annoyed at the communication at this point where you are at. It feels like the consultant has got his/her commission and you are left in limbo. Communication is supposed to be their number one priority but I think they need a lot of work on it! We did get a managerial meeting (twice) at two stages as we weren't being listened to. However, our house is gorgeous and it is top notch quality. We chose Dales over another builder who were cheaper, but I do feel that our final build is far superior. And the site supervisor you will get is fantastic! However we still have a few unfinished fix ups which are starting to irk me! Tell them you are ready to pull the plug. That will make action happen! Sorry you are feeling this way. It is a time of limbo and not a lot seems to happen, but that is why communication is important! Re: 1st build in Baldivis with DAH - Pre Selection tomorrow! 39Jul 11, 2012 5:02 pm I am going to add now, that I am having second thoughts on my feelings about how great Dales were. The more i think about it and the things we had to complain about...would they have been actioned if we didn't complain? things that haven't been fixed, should have been, but nobody is communicating with others (communication again a problem) and now knowing that after the many conversations regarding the colour, they still managed to get it wrong...what did they get right???? hmmm...$3000 isn't that much in the scheme of things! But we do have a good quality home and i think it looks nice! Re: 1st build in Baldivis with DAH - Pre Selection tomorrow! 40Jul 11, 2012 5:30 pm I'm afraid that I have to agree with Vans - communication is one of their big failings. The current business model is allowing their sale reps to promise the moon and the stars without being checked by anybody. Since nothing is in writing during their sale pitch because that’s part of the tactic of getting you hooked, once you signed on the dotted line all the promises seems to go into a “misunderstood” category... excuses that maybe they weren’t too clear and probably we the client “misunderstood” their jibber jabber – so let’s meet in the middle and compromise cute one but that’s how it works... My big lesson from this exercise was to get every single damn thing in writing – if they said solid wood flooring put it in writing and expect nothing less than solid wood flooring not engineered one. I had problems at sales stage, pre-start as well because of our sales guy told our consultant that our house although priced using the Aspire spec was not covered by Aspire and at the last invoice where we were charged twice for those bloo...dy soakwells. Triple check everything. Preliminary agreement 23/11 Contract 22/03 Prestart 06/04 - finalised on 30/04 Unconditional approval 10/05 Demolition 05/07 Slab 26/08 Brickwork 13/09-06/10 Roof frame started 07/10 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32292 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 17618 3 48403 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74716 |