Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Boutique Homes 341May 13, 2014 7:25 pm Aussie, the heating seems to be a separate problem but the a/c and electricity are connected. We had a power blackout that lasted about 5 seconds on the first night we were in the house and the a/c blinked but then we haven't been able to turn it on ever since. The a/c guy said it might have an in-built safety switch or something - I'm still waiting for someone to come out and have a look. And we have 2 electricity problems. The first one is that we get random blackouts (like the one on the first night) but they don't usually last very long. Our site supervisor and the sparkies reckon this has something to do with the power from the house to the street (rather than internal wiring). The second problem is one safety switch sometimes clicks on and we're not sure why. We think it may be because we have too many appliances running at once, but it's happened before when we've hardly had anything on. So who knows. It's a bit frustrating though having these small teething problems. And I'm happy to hear, Aussie, that they're going to give you the benchtop that you originally chose. Wazza, yeah, we had the heating done separately by the hydronic heating company that Boutique uses. They've been pretty responsive so far. How did the walk through your house go? When do you pick up the keys? Re: Boutique Homes 342May 13, 2014 8:46 pm Hi Genghis walk through was good. Think we still have to do a final walk through. Our ss picked alot of paint issue that need touching up. So hopefully they get that done quick. The shower screens were met to go in yesterday and just final render Re: Boutique Homes 343May 15, 2014 11:26 am So our good news didn’t last long. We had an email from the Boutique offices yesterday advising that in our ensuite shower, where we chose to have 2 showerheads, that they have installed the incorrect one. So the first one was one of those handle ones where you can adjust the height (great for my wife who doesn’t always wash her hair, or kids when we have them), and the second one was supposed to be a standard one that was at 2m high (for myself) that I was going to replace with a big rain dumper type shower head after handover. Boutique has installed 2 handle ones which means instead of the connection being at 2m on the normal one for myself, that they are both connected to the wall at around chest height. They have given us the option of leaving it as is with 2 of the same showerhead, and give us a small credit, or replace it, meaning basically replacing the wall (tiles, waterproofing, plumbing & plaster). The 2nd option would be the ideal choice for us if we weren’t so close to handover, and will delay us by at least a week given we’re looking at 3 different trades involved, meaning an extra cost of rent which indirectly makes the cost of replacing it significant. So we’ve chosen to keep both showerheads as they have been installed, and then replace it with a handle type showerhead again but with a rain dumper head that has a hose connection coming from a similar height to where the connection has been installed. Not ideal, but given the “fun” we’ve had with Boutique it certainly is not unexpected, and at a time where we are so close to moving in, we have basically given up on having the house turn out like we’d originally intended without hassle after hassle. Not sure if the camel’s back has been broken just quite yet, but they’re certainly throwing plenty of straw at the poor little camel Genghis did you have to complete any after handover type survey for the company? I'm not sure whether we'll be asked to do one as they'll already know the answers. Re: Boutique Homes 344May 15, 2014 10:09 pm Aussie, yes, we filled out a post-build survey. It was mainly about our site supervisor from what I can remember. But there are definitely spaces for "comments" so feel free to go all out. They should still ask you to fill it out even though they know you haven't been happy - if they're serious about their customer service, that is (and they claim to be). I filled out the survey when I went into the office to pick up the keys and my client liaison person was in the room. Don't know if they purposely keep them in there so you feel pressured to fill out the survey quickly, but my advice is to take your sweet time and make sure you tell them everything you're not happy with. I find it staggering that they got your showerhead wrong. But then I really shouldn't - they got our front door wrong, which thankfully isn't as troublesome as a showerhead, but still, it delayed handover. The plans and addenda are all there for a reason, you'd think they'd triple check everything. Have they given you a handover date? Re: Boutique Homes 345May 16, 2014 10:56 am Do you have to go to their offices to pick up the keys? Nah no handover date still, but they have hinted a few times, so we're expecting about 3-4weeks from today. Would love to move inmthe weekend of the long weekend in June but that might be too soon. Just on the front doors, we love ours. Like really love it, it just feels huge, and grand. We did notice that it only opened half way before becoming jammed. We advised the site supervisor and he said he was aware of the issue and that the supplier had a new mechanism in them so they are looking into it. Kind of need it fixed though before we move in, and we're not stressing that it wont be, but yeah it'll make moving some bigger items into the house impossible if we cannot open the front door. Re: Boutique Homes 347May 18, 2014 8:19 am Genghis77 Aussie Assault Do you have to go to their offices to pick up the keys? Yep, afraid so. It's a bit of a hassle when you have a baby and a toddler and you don't live near the city... Yeah we confirmed this Friday. We worked out that we need at least 1/2 day to pick up keys from Docklands, then at least the morning of the Thursday for appliances/plumbing, then 1/2 day at least on the Friday for the gas & electricity commission. So essentially 3 different days away from work, and this could happen anywhere from 2-5 weeks away as they still cannot give us a handover date. Makes it tough to trying to arrange meetings etc at work when we cannot get confirmation this close to when those 3 days will be. Re: Boutique Homes 348May 18, 2014 3:24 pm Hi All, We are in the process of signing with Boutique to build a double storey. The paperwork says 290 build days however the Sales lady suggested it may be a lot quicker than that so wondered what experience anyone had had with build time of double storey through boutique? TIA Re: Boutique Homes 349May 19, 2014 12:27 pm Monty39 Hi All, We are in the process of signing with Boutique to build a double storey. The paperwork says 290 build days however the Sales lady suggested it may be a lot quicker than that so wondered what experience anyone had had with build time of double storey through boutique? TIA From what people seem to have posted here, around 22 weeks seems about normal - Obviously this can change due to things like weather or items being out of stock, etc. Most times the paper work will over estimate as if these days are exceeded the builder ends up having to pay you money for exceeding the contracted build time. There do seem to be a number of factors in the build times though but so far people seem on the whole to be quite happy with the build timelines (I've not seen much in the way of complaints about it at least) Re: Boutique Homes 350May 24, 2014 8:31 pm Monty - I also questioned that in my contract signing & my pre-sales consultant (who's one of the really good ones) told me they're currently running about 22 weeks for standard 1 & 2 story houses, which is a bit longer than last year (used to be 18 weeks). ---- On my progress: I finally got my land settled on Thursday so things can finally move ahead. Hopefully they'll give me a start date next week. Mortage payment shave now kicked in so I'll be particularly impatient while paying rent at the same time. At least it's nice to finally get a number in the street. I also got some paint sample pots today & one of the colours is nothing like it looked on Solver's web site (boutique didn't have a sample card for it). Re: Boutique Homes 351May 24, 2014 9:08 pm Bandha Monty - I also questioned that in my contract signing & my pre-sales consultant (who's one of the really good ones) told me they're currently running about 22 weeks for standard 1 & 2 story houses, which is a bit longer than last year (used to be 18 weeks). ---- On my progress: I finally got my land settled on Thursday so things can finally move ahead. Hopefully they'll give me a start date next week. Mortage payment shave now kicked in so I'll be particularly impatient while paying rent at the same time. At least it's nice to finally get a number in the street. I also got some paint sample pots today & one of the colours is nothing like it looked on Solver's web site (boutique didn't have a sample card for it). Thanks Bandha, appreciate the info. Wow 22 weeks is fast... I didn't expect our place would be finished until March next year but going by what you say it will be November. Our pre-start consultant indicated it could be fast but wouldn't tell me how long or give us any real indication. She did say that building would start in about 5 weeks from contract signing which was a couple of weeks ago now Re: Boutique Homes 352May 24, 2014 11:37 pm Well our house is finished just waiting for bank to do there evaluation and all that fun stuff. Sorry to hear your bad experiences aussie. Our build has gone really well. A couple of issue floor tiles and laminated timber floors we chose weren't available . Not really the builds fault. Only issues from builder has been. They forgot we had a blind package with them. More admins fault then builders and we have a data point in our theater room and they put it at ground height rather then at the height we wanted. May get the keys late next week but probably the week after. I think our build only took about 18 weeks. Re: Boutique Homes 353May 25, 2014 9:33 pm Not far off then Wazza. The bank stuff is literally only a photo of the front of the house and then access to the final payment of funds - so our bank manager tells us. Must be exciting though to finally be ready to go? Would you build again? We're about to begin 22-23 weeks I think this week. We checked out our place yesterday. Back door was open, which we don't really mind as it gives us a chance to really go over things without feeling hurried with the site supervisor there. Anyway some bright spark had left a tile off the front part of the roof for quite some time, and of course now there is water damage to our master bedroom's internal roof from the rain - mould and bubbling in the plaster. So we'll be ringing them first thing tomorrow but I'd assumed that there is no way to fix this without replacing it, and possibly anything else that is wet (insulation / electrical). Again, I don't know enough about plastering but there is a section damaged about 800mm by 300mm and leads all the way over to the wall where the mould is growing around the skirts. Other than that the electrician is half done, but some of what has been done is incorrect - no dimmer on certain lights, switches in wrong spot. We got holes in the plaster where tradies have put the door knob through the wall, and also door knobs that are not long enough to stop the door knob actually hitting the wall. These are small fixes but another conversation we have to have explaining what is wrong. We were supposed to have the regional construction manager go through it this week, and have our final presentation next week, but I'd assume the water damage will delay things further as could the weather forecast with our front render colouring still to be completed. Other than our construction admin contact in their offices, it's pretty hard for us to say anything nice about the rest of the company anymore, and that we wished we had of chosen a different builder in the first place. We waste hours each week writing emails/ on the phone/examining our plans to try and get what we asked for actually built in the house. Ahh well the joys, the joys.... Good luck Wazza, hopefully you can get in this week! Re: Boutique Homes 354May 25, 2014 11:29 pm Yeah Aussie building is very stressful don't plan on doing it again any time soon. That's unfortunate about the plaster. You would think the contractors would be a little smart because in the end the damage they cause boutique will be charging them. I guess we have been lucky and had good contractors except our plasters. Our site supervisor made them re do a couple of sections Re: Boutique Homes 355May 27, 2014 10:12 pm We just signed the build contract with Boutique Homes today for an Airlie 38. We are doing a knockdown and rebuild in Melbourne Bayside after planning a renovation but finding it would be just as expensive as building new for a net gain of one extra room. A few tips for anyone planning to do the same: 1. Demolition and clearing of the block is the owners responsibility. Get at least 3 quotes (this goes for all services) for demo and check that they will remove everything that needs to go including trees, fences, concrete, asbestos, garage, pool... It will probably cost between $12,000 - $20,000. 2. Electricity and Gas must be abolished before demolition can begin. Contact your Retailer. 3. If your house is timber you may be able to sell it and have it removed. They can pay up to $20,000. However, the house removal company will only take it once they have a buyer. This could take many months and may not fit with your time frames. Acces to easily remove the house is also a factor. If they can't drive a giant truck right up beside it, it may be too difficult (expensive) for them to bother. 4. We used Sell4You.com.au to sell off windows, doors, fitted kitchen, laundry and bathroom, fences, gates, aircon, heating and hot water. It helped defray the cost of demolition. 5. Safety fencing all around the block and any trees on the nature strip is your responsibility, and cost, from demolition to start of building. Get multiple quotes. 6. If your old house had an overhead power supply, they usually do, the builder makes it your responsibility to contact your local electricity distributor, and have an underground electricity supply pit installed. This will probably cost a few thousand dollars. It takes a few weeks to get the application in, get a quote, and then have the work crew come out to install. This needs to be done before the building can begin otherwise they will charge you a few hundred dollars to get a builders power pole installed during the construction period. 7. Any trees that need trimming are your responsibility. You may need a council permit and a registered arborist to do the trimming. You may also need to install root control barriers, concrete walls constructed underground to keep tree roots from the foundations. This could cost thousands! 8. Once building starts the block belongs to the builder and you aren't allowed onsite unless accompanied by the site manager. If you have a Construction Induction (Red Card) then you may be ok. 9. Take the time to decide, if you can, which finishes and changes you want before signing off. Everything you change after that incurs additional cost. 10. Be aware that many of the cool finishes and features you see in the display home are expensive options that will add a lot to the cost of the home. Talk to the sales consultants to find out what is included in the base price and what will cost you extra. 10. For the wiring plan you get pretty much one LED light and one power outlet per room. Everything else costs extra. 11. A friend of mine in the wiring business recommended getting 2 Cat6 data cables to every room in the house from a central hub area for wiring up the internet. Build time estimate is 290 days like others on this thread. Construction should start in a few weeks I'll keep you up to date as we go... Knockdown and Build - Boutique Homes Airlie 38 10/12/2013 PreWork Contract (PWC) 27/05/2014 Contract 04/07/2014 Site prep 28/07/2014 Slab 30/07/2014 Frame 03/10/2014 Roof 08/12/2014 Lockup Re: Boutique Homes 356May 28, 2014 8:20 pm Hi Charlie I'm in IT & 2 x cat6 per room seems like overkill to me. I'd suggest putting a connection where you can't put up with wireless slow-down on laptops (eg office) and where you might want TV's & TV paraphernalia with a wired net connection, otherwise not really needed. I'm putting a couple in my home office, one at the TV point (which I'll run into a little switch to serve all of the HDD's etc) and one in my music room for another desktop. The rest of the house can rely on wireless which is pretty ubiquitous on devices now, I'll put a switch with wireless broadcast at the TV to provide a signal at the back of the house as the modem will be in the garage. You can always buy a switch for $40 which will give you 4+ ports from a single input cable without any slowdown, and you can get these to generate a wireless signal if you need more reach. Having said all that, if the extra data points aren't expensive then why not! Re: Boutique Homes 357May 29, 2014 8:24 am I agree it seems overkill. However, I think the rationale is that Cat6 cabling can be used for purposes other than just network connectivity and pulling through two cables is almost as easy as one. I've also heard that it's much cheaper just to leave data and audio cables unterminated in the wall and have them connected up later after handover. Any thoughts on that? Knockdown and Build - Boutique Homes Airlie 38 10/12/2013 PreWork Contract (PWC) 27/05/2014 Contract 04/07/2014 Site prep 28/07/2014 Slab 30/07/2014 Frame 03/10/2014 Roof 08/12/2014 Lockup Re: Boutique Homes 358May 29, 2014 7:49 pm charlie01 I've also heard that it's must cheaper just to leave data and audio cables unterminated in the wall and have them connected up later after handover. Any thoughts on that? It's not such a big issue on internal walls, but if particular walls back onto the external structure (eg brickwork), then it's much easier to do at construction stage. This applies to power, data, Foxtel, TV, whatever. Re: Boutique Homes 359May 29, 2014 7:59 pm I've gone to a 3rd party for a cabling quote but the price difference is marginal, I wouldn't bother. At least if it's in your contract then your SS is responsible for it & they'll coordinate the tradies for you & get any errors fixed. In the context of the overall build costs, these wall points are pretty minor. Would be worth considering if you're going for a more automated or smart home solution & really want that expertise involved, but that's not based on cost. Re: Boutique Homes 360May 30, 2014 9:50 am While we're on it, we've got one behind our TVs (or where they'll go), one in the eZone, and we'll use a switch with wifi to cover the rest of the house. We're getting the quickest NBN connection so we can set up our smart tvs to stream, and wifi will cover laptops/ipad/phones, outdoor tv, radio etc. 10 16023 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 77594 |