Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Boutique Homes 601Oct 15, 2014 1:24 pm Hi Bonnie thanks we are so happy with how it has come up. This is my fav photo so far Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ it is hardwood timber from Hurfords Timber (through a local Geelong supplier). The timber is Grey Iron Bark. We have had a terrible week this week. My car was broken into on Friday night and laptop and phone stolen (I know im a dill for leaving it in there but still) and then we go to the house last night and our dishwasher has been stolen and all our nice outdoor lights ripped off the brick work. bloody arseholes! So unfair. Went for our final walk thru today but as the begets had helped themselves to our dishwasher we have put it off until either tonight or another day. Everything is looking good tho. Re: Boutique Homes 603Oct 15, 2014 4:01 pm JP - Glad you got some progress. In their defence I would have to say it's very difficult for them to price many options in isolation. They have to look at what is the default provision for the design you've selected, then check the variance on that. Some options will also need one of a techo to check if there are other build implications etc. which might impact cost. I found them to be quote fair, some of my options resulted in a reduction in cost and they were happy to pass that on. Re: Boutique Homes 604Oct 16, 2014 11:06 am Pippa1987 Hi Bonnie thanks we are so happy with how it has come up. This is my fav photo so far Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ it is hardwood timber from Hurfords Timber (through a local Geelong supplier). The timber is Grey Iron Bark. We have had a terrible week this week. My car was broken into on Friday night and laptop and phone stolen (I know im a dill for leaving it in there but still) and then we go to the house last night and our dishwasher has been stolen and all our nice outdoor lights ripped off the brick work. bloody arseholes! So unfair. Went for our final walk thru today but as the begets had helped themselves to our dishwasher we have put it off until either tonight or another day. Everything is looking good tho. sorry about what happened to you over the weekend pippa! but the flooring looks stunning! Re: Boutique Homes 605Oct 16, 2014 11:28 am HI pippa wow initially i thought that is a picture of a display home. really good looking and sorry for your loss, i think you def need a security system at home. really good one Re: Boutique Homes 606Oct 16, 2014 11:42 am Pippa1987 Hi Bonnie thanks we are so happy with how it has come up. This is my fav photo so far Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ it is hardwood timber from Hurfords Timber (through a local Geelong supplier). The timber is Grey Iron Bark. We have had a terrible week this week. My car was broken into on Friday night and laptop and phone stolen (I know im a dill for leaving it in there but still) and then we go to the house last night and our dishwasher has been stolen and all our nice outdoor lights ripped off the brick work. bloody arseholes! So unfair. Went for our final walk thru today but as the begets had helped themselves to our dishwasher we have put it off until either tonight or another day. Everything is looking good tho. Thank you! Looks absolutely stunning, bit out of my budget though. We will have to stick with timber laminate i think! Looks stunning though you're very lucky Re: Boutique Homes 607Oct 16, 2014 6:37 pm Pippa1987 ... We have had a terrible week this week. My car was broken into on Friday night and laptop and phone stolen (I know im a dill for leaving it in there but still) and then we go to the house last night and our dishwasher has been stolen and all our nice outdoor lights ripped off the brick work. bloody arseholes! So unfair. Went for our final walk thru today but as the begets had helped themselves to our dishwasher we have put it off until either tonight or another day. Everything is looking good tho. Jeez, sorry to hear about all this Pippa, there are some jerks out there. I'm having a frustrating time as inspections have found that Boutique didn't bother putting flashing in the window frames. It's been called out to them in reports but they're just ignoring it. Also disagreement about sarking -I'm not in a bushfire zone so not required from that perspective, but the building permit was based on sarking for the energy rating, so ther eare at least two items where Boutique seemed to be in breach of the building code & not doing anything about it. Re: Boutique Homes 608Oct 16, 2014 7:26 pm Hello everyone.. I am 80% choosing Boutique to build my 1st home.. yet to sign PWC.. Would appreciate if anyone can share what important facts needed to clarify or to add in the contract before signing it.. - noticed the price protection is only 8 months, and my land supposed to be titled in May 2015... which wont leave much time if it got delay.. does anyone managed to nego this to 12 months ? - driveway, letterbox and blinds are not included, would like to know how much would those cost.. or should i ask them to include that with extra cost ? - or should i shop around for few more months then only decide ? Thanks in advance.. Re: Boutique Homes 609Oct 16, 2014 8:38 pm Bandha Jeez, sorry to hear about all this Pippa, there are some jerks out there. I'm having a frustrating time as inspections have found that Boutique didn't bother putting flashing in the window frames. It's been called out to them in reports but they're just ignoring it. Also disagreement about sarking -I'm not in a bushfire zone so not required from that perspective, but the building permit was based on sarking for the energy rating, so ther eare at least two items where Boutique seemed to be in breach of the building code & not doing anything about it. I was surprised by lack of sarking too. I did more research here on Home One and elsewhere and it seems that sarking is more to do with moisture control than thermal efficiency and applies more to tropical climes than our temperate Melbourne weather. Ceiling insulation, ie: batts, seem to be far more important for thermal efficiency than sarking. Not sure about your building permit though. Does the local council require it? 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 610Oct 16, 2014 8:49 pm Apparently what happens is that batts aren't very efficient when they get wet, so the sarking is involved in that argument as well. If they don't meet conditions of the building permit then the building inspector (who they engage on our behalf) should pull them up, but apparently not doing their job properly, which I've heard is not unusual. I guess the end result could be a knock back on the occupancy permit. Boutique Homes 611Oct 16, 2014 8:59 pm Bandha Apparently what happens is that batts aren't very efficient when they get wet, so the sarking is involved in that argument as well. If they don't meet conditions of the building permit then the building inspector (who they engage on our behalf) should pull them up, but apparently not doing their job properly, which I've heard is not unusual. I guess the end result could be a knock back on the occupancy permit. For future reference can you describe what the flashing should look like? I'm not sure we have it either. We certainly have "embossed polythene dampcourse + flashing" inserted between the slab and first course of bricks but not around the windows as far as I can tell. Will have to have a closer look this weekend. Ps: If the ceiling batts were to ever "get wet" I think you would have a major problem! 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 612Oct 17, 2014 9:09 am annielee Hello everyone.. I am 80% choosing Boutique to build my 1st home.. yet to sign PWC.. Would appreciate if anyone can share what important facts needed to clarify or to add in the contract before signing it.. - noticed the price protection is only 8 months, and my land supposed to be titled in May 2015... which wont leave much time if it got delay.. does anyone managed to nego this to 12 months ? - driveway, letterbox and blinds are not included, would like to know how much would those cost.. or should i ask them to include that with extra cost ? - or should i shop around for few more months then only decide ? Thanks in advance.. Hi Annielee, Before signing the PWC just make sure that all the structural changes you would like have been quoted for & included. Once you sign off on the PWC you cannot make any alterations. So consider things like - if you need to move windows to another wall or change their size, shifting walls, ceiling height, adding doors, bulkheads, cabinetry changes, adding eaves, changing size of kitchen benches. As an example, in my case I wanted to have a larger shower in the bathroom. I am pretty sure that I mentioned this to our SC in the lead up to the PWC & that I was told to bring it up at the color appointment when selecting the fittings. So during the color selection I did, & I was told that comes under structural & I was unable to increase the shower size. Also, if you are deleting anything then it is best to get that sorted before PWC also, eg we are putting in fans, heating & airconditioning after handover as we wanted a different arrangement to what Boutique offers so we had their system deleted & we also increased insulation levels in the ceiling & walls etc. We did manage to negotiate the 8 months fixed price for another 3 months when it looked like we were just going to be over the 8 months before we began building. We did this at the time of our color appointment though, not at the PWC but since you know in advance I would mention this to your SC. I think it is personal preference as to whether you get Boutique to do your driveway, blinds etc. We are getting them to do our driveway for convenience. We thought their quote was reasonable - from memory it was $4440. We are doing the blinds & letterbox ourselves since I am sure we can do those cheaper than Boutique & I wanted more time to think about window coverings. I found http://www.blindsonline.com.au to be a useful resource as you can play around with sizes & get instant prices for the various types of blinds. We may end up ordering our blinds from them. Hope that helps! Re: Boutique Homes 613Oct 17, 2014 11:14 am charlie01 For future reference can you describe what the flashing should look like? ... Ps: If the ceiling batts were to ever "get wet" I think you would have a major problem! Flashing is a waterprooflayer generally placed around areas where moisture can penetrate & get to the frame (window frames, door frames). If it's ineffective you could end up with rotting frame timber etc. Batts could get quite damp without sarking as moisture could build up in the ceiling with long rain periods, tiles won't be at all wind & moisture-proof & it doesn't need to be direct water. Without sarking you often also have ceiling fans & range hoods venting into the ceiling space, which can carry moisture to be moved out through the tiles over time. A broken roof tile, of course - then you will have direct water onto your batts. http://www.dupont.com/products-and-services/construction-materials/building-envelope-systems/videos/install-and-flash-brick-mold-door.html In hindsight, I wished I had asked for sarking even though not in a bushfire zone. Re: Boutique Homes 614Oct 17, 2014 11:50 am annielee Hello everyone.. I am 80% choosing Boutique to build my 1st home.. yet to sign PWC.. Would appreciate if anyone can share what important facts needed to clarify or to add in the contract before signing it.. - noticed the price protection is only 8 months, and my land supposed to be titled in May 2015... which wont leave much time if it got delay.. does anyone managed to nego this to 12 months ? - driveway, letterbox and blinds are not included, would like to know how much would those cost.. or should i ask them to include that with extra cost ? - or should i shop around for few more months then only decide ? Thanks in advance.. Hi Annielee. We are on the same boat! i am leaning 50% thou... my land is supposed to be titled in feb.. but from what i have observed, we will be lucky if its just 2 months delay. i think better to always shop around for cost comparison. but from what i have seen, boutique quality is really good. and the from the experience from most of the guys here building with them is really good. Re: Boutique Homes 615Oct 17, 2014 6:42 pm Shalee - thanks for your advise, didnt know structural meant so many things ! btw, how much credit did you managed to get to minus the heating or can it be 'contra' with the insulation you are asking ? i did asked about the extension of the price protection, but the SC mentioned will be additional costs as well.. which is why im not comfortable, as i thought its supposed to be 12 months.. macky1012 - yes.. the SC kinda rushing me to sign the PWC as she said they are having some promo now.. what other builder are you looking at ? additional question : - ilve or westinghouse (if westinghouse, will be able to get the credit back) - worth to remove the microwave ? as we dont really use it.. - does 20mm kitchen benches/island looks oki ? as i was quoted 40mm, tot of reducing to 20mm, so it can be cheaper.. - quoted for $15k as site costs, just wondering anyone experience to pay more than what is quoted ?? Re: Boutique Homes 616Oct 18, 2014 2:32 pm Annielee we were credited $3025.00 by Boutique for removing the ducted heating system. This was back at the end of Oct 2013 when we signed our PWC. The increased insulation was added to our schedule as a separate item. Re: Ilve versus Westinghouse appliances. We downgraded to Westinghouse & received a credit back, although it wasn't much. I did not want Ilve appliances - the reviews that I read didn't really impress me & I wanted a 60cm pyrolitic self cleaning oven. Ilve had one that Boutique said we could upgrade to but it would have cost more & it was smaller than I wanted inside the oven. I decided the reviews for Boutique's Westinghouse models sounded better than what I could find out about Ilve's (this is just my personal opinion though) so in the end we decided to go with Westinghouse. The Westinghouse standard oven models on offer didn't include a pyrolitic oven, but we gave Boutique a model number for the 60cm one we liked & they were happy enough to get a price for us (which took a while). Mind you, that cost us an extra $180.00 over the standard 90cm Westinghouse Boutique provide. Even though we priced it in a retail store & the 60cm pyrolitic oven was cheaper then Boutique's 90cm one. So it doesn't really pay to change to something outside of their specifications unless you really want it. I really wanted Bosch german appliances, as that was what I had in my previous house, including a pyrolitic oven & I was really happy with them. We got Boutique to quote us on those but with the small rebate we would have got back from them & with their price being $1500 plus dearer than what we could have purchased them outright ourselves from Harvey Norman we decided not to go ahead. By this stage I was getting a bit over kitchen appliances & we decided to just go with the Westinghouse instead. So we received a total of $926.00 credit to go from Ilve to Westinghouse appliances (rangehood, cooktop, pyrolitic oven, dishwaher & microwave). We stayed with the 90cm Westinghouse rangehood & cooktop. I don't use a microwave much either & I already had a relatively new one but I wanted everything integrated so we opted to include the Westinghouse one. You could ask them how much credit you would receive back for the microwave & then decide if it is worthwhile doing or not for you. I think it is personal preference re the 40cm or 20cm caesarstone benches. I prefer the look of the 40cm stone myself but I've seen kitchen benches done in the 20cm & they look fine, just different. Re: Your site costs of $15000 - Suranga posted about his experience a few pages back where he had to pay more than originally quoted. Read it here viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60835&start=480 I would be allowing more than your quoted amount if it were me. If it turns out that that $15000 is all you end up paying then you will have some left over to use for furniture/landscaping etc but at least you won't get a surprise at the end like Suranga did. Re: Boutique Homes 617Oct 18, 2014 5:33 pm Hi all, We've chosen to build the Barcelona 23 on our block in Allura, Truganina. Signed the PWC with $10,100 site works allowance. Were meant to go in and sign our contract on the 6th October but got a phone call the week before our contract signing appointment saying that our soil report from the developer differs from the engineering. They have said that concrete piers will be required, we're just waiting to hear back on cost, and that this cost will not be included in our $10,100 site cost allowance. Has anyone else experienced this? We're annoyed that this is the first we've heard of this problem just as we are about to sign contract. Is the developer to blame for having an incorrect soil report? This is our first home so we're new to all this. Thanks in advance. Re: Boutique Homes 618Oct 18, 2014 6:08 pm Steffie - Common to have two versions of the soil report, I had the same & they were different, but not significantly so. The PWC always has caveats that the site cost is x unless certain types of conditions are found, ie a fixed cost is only fixed if no major surprises. Elsewhere on this board someone mentioned it's common for builders to use a 'friendly' contractor of their own who would provide a worst-case soil report for them, enabling a higher price for the builder to pass on (not that they mentioned Boutique or anyone else in particular). Annielee - Variations are divided into structural & non-structural. The fee for structural variation is double (plus cost changes, of course). Obviously at some point in the process of getting permits etc, structural changes would require much more significant overheads & involve greater costs & delays. I think you could always get the variation if you were prepared to pay the costs, but might have to push harder to get it past the immediate client-facing level of staff. I actually went for the Ilve 60cm pyrolytic, my cost delta is mentioned earlier in this thread. Ilve seem to be like so many Italian products (Ducati bikes, etc). Great designs, stylish & terrific unless you get a lemon, quality control not being up there with German companies. My Boutique sales guy was an ex-chef & he said they were a good choice so I trusted him. Re: Boutique Homes 619Oct 18, 2014 7:24 pm annielee Shalee - thanks for your advise, didnt know structural meant so many things ! btw, how much credit did you managed to get to minus the heating or can it be 'contra' with the insulation you are asking ? i did asked about the extension of the price protection, but the SC mentioned will be additional costs as well.. which is why im not comfortable, as i thought its supposed to be 12 months.. macky1012 - yes.. the SC kinda rushing me to sign the PWC as she said they are having some promo now.. what other builder are you looking at ? additional question : - ilve or westinghouse (if westinghouse, will be able to get the credit back) - worth to remove the microwave ? as we dont really use it.. - does 20mm kitchen benches/island looks oki ? as i was quoted 40mm, tot of reducing to 20mm, so it can be cheaper.. - quoted for $15k as site costs, just wondering anyone experience to pay more than what is quoted ?? Hi annielee. The "price inrease trcick" is the most common thing that they would say to rush us into signing. Always tell tham that you are looking at multiple builders, and you love them all. The primary selevtion criteria that you are looking is value for money... We are looking at boutique, carlisle, and maybe meyricon or eight homes (on that order). Re: Boutique Homes 620Oct 20, 2014 7:02 pm hey.. i received the quotation last week for the house design i wanted, but i need to make some amendment.. so they revised it and provided me 2nd quotation, but i noticed the base price of the house is different (extra by $900), is that possible ?? And actually i wanted to get a quotation for another house design, do you think that is alright as well ? as o want to compare the prices.. but the SC seems to be reluctant to do that.. thanks... 10 15751 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74709 |