Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Clarend0n 2 story Build - opinions? 2Nov 18, 2012 1:54 pm Built a Hawthorne 31 with EB nessjeffdreamhouse.blogspot.com.au Building an investment now with New Living homes... We are at nearly finished... Just landscaping and driveway to go! Re: Clarend0n 2 story Build - opinions? 8Nov 19, 2012 7:56 pm Built a Hawthorne 31 with EB nessjeffdreamhouse.blogspot.com.au Building an investment now with New Living homes... We are at nearly finished... Just landscaping and driveway to go! Re: Clarend0n 2 story Build - opinions? 10Nov 20, 2012 7:46 pm zojo Krillic I hate to say it but it sounds to me like you are unaware that you actually had a good building experience. If you read the posts on here properly you will find with other builders you may end up with a total dud of a house and will spend a lot more of your time and money dragging the builder through tribunal/court hearings or worse, the builder may end up in Liquidation as many have in the last 2 years leaving people with uncertainty and lots of time lost. This is the extreme case. I don't consider the fact that I have to do all the work and do their job for them as acceptable just because others have to take builders to court. It tells you more about the industry that the customer isn't being looked after and the fact that you think that this is quite ok and with what I have experienced, it truly speaks volumes. Seriously every plan submitted were incorrect (and this is the minor problems), if I hadn't caught the errors then no doubt there would have been problems with council either for myself or the build with other revisions. zojo A few patches here and there and having to ask them to fix things is annoying but not the end of the world. Having pipes flood your whole home 2 weeks after you move in or many other similar disasters I have heard about from other builders is the real nightmare. There is no such thing as a perfectly built home. Things always need to be fixed here and there. we are not just talking about patching here i've used the phrase loosely to be nice. When things are to be fixed they should be fixed the right way not just a slap together methods and she'll be right approach. zojo I am building with Clarendon also and there has been a lot of homes in my suburb built by Clarendon and i have really only heard good things about the quality. i have had issues with 1 staff member there that has lost us a fair bit of time but they have done a lot better than Masterton who actually presented plans to us that would never ever pass at council as the home was too big for the block. Following this we paid for a tender with Wisdom and a week later paid for a tender with Clarendon. Well Wisdom failed big time losing our job and presenting 1st tender 6 weeks later. By this stage we had signed with clarendon and already had plans drawn. interesting it took me 5 weeks to hear from Clarendon about my tender to begin with, I wonder how that would have gone down with you then, for me I wasn't to bothered this is nothing in my eyes, but for you it seems an issue which begs the question as to how you would cope with their build as i have. zojo In regards to the council issues...everyone has them. They have their own set of rules any maybe you were lucky to have made them change their mind but i have friends who have fought council to the death trying to have them change a decision and absolutely no chance! lots of time and money wasted in doing so also. Sure of course there are council issues no arguments there, the problem is as you employ a builder you would like them to work through the problems not simply go 'ok I've been told it isn't accepted and that's it'. The fact that I could get all the issues resolved without any changes on my end tells you how well they worked through the problems with council. All they were interested in was to submit plans and start as quick as possible so if council said to change something they simply complied without question even when it wasn't consistent with their planing codes (which was one of the issues I had to deal with). zojo No matter which builder you go with, you generally get similar inclusions. Extra power points, light points, are always extra money and they more or less charge the same amounts. With kitchens you can always get a slightly better price if you have reason to believe they are overcharging and you can prove this in a way. For example... i got quoted $3100 for full Gloss kitchen (createc) however by other people posts i could could see that the average charge was $1500 - $2000 depending on kitchen size. I brought this up with them and they reduced the price to $1890. Don't be afraid to ask for a better price! you really think I didn't challenge them on every price..lol if only you knew the kitchen quote was outrageous, the air conditioning was overpriced, the tiles...well all i have to say there must be some good builders margin in there or else the supply is ripping people off. My advice to anyone going with any project builder don't go super on floor tiles or carpets or aircon etc, just get the bar minimum of what you need and do the rest after handover. The other advice would be to visit your site daily if you can (when you have tradies there) and stand your ground don't be bullied by anyone from the company if you feel you need your concerns addressed. Personally I would avoid project builders and go the owner builder route, hell I've done half the work already the only thing I haven't done was to simply employ the tradies which I would love to do and have a say as to who does what and at the same time save money in my pocket. Edit: To the op I hope your build goes well with Clarendon better than mine all I know is the experience I have had I would not go with any off the plan builder these days. Good luck with the build again. Hi, We have a single story MacDonald Jones house, on a waffle pod slab with steel frame. Are we able to build a second story extension? Other info is we are 900mm from… 0 5824 We bought land in Tallawong Schofields NSW size 30m X 12.5m and planning to get double story house build around 350 sqm. We are thinking about having premium inclusions… 0 1952 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… 8 2218 |