Browse Forums Building A New House Re: building with simonds 4Feb 10, 2013 10:25 am I'm building with Simonds also. Can anyone explain their policy of not releasing plans or soil test results until the day of contract signing? If they expect me to sign up after going over this documentation once in front of them, they're dreaming! To me this is a policy that is purely advantages to Simonds and not the customer. I asked the question of Simonds but didn't get a reasonable answer. I know that many of the other builders I've dealt with dont share these policies. Anyone out there agree that this is strange? Re: building with simonds 5Feb 10, 2013 3:58 pm Hi jem+gab, We're hoping to build the Sierra with Simonds too. However we're still waiting on the land to title so haven't got official bank approval yet. Where are you building? Re: building with simonds 6Feb 10, 2013 4:34 pm hi mjmelb we too are waiting for the land tittle, got the block in adelaide (east) , i love the sierra design but as we have no children we changed the plan a little , got rid of the third b/room and halved the size of the guest bth/room ,it allowed for a much larger master b/room and ensuit ,hope your tittle comes through soon and we can exchange updates ! jem and gabby Re: building with simonds 7Feb 10, 2013 5:04 pm we are going build...their policy is as what you said, but you can always ask for reviewing your contract before you sign and make changes until you are completely satisfied. We signed on last year June and waited until Nov to get our land titled. We again made a few structural and color changes and finally waiting for the final contract next week. If we are don't see the changes exactly the way we want we don't sign until those changes are made! So stick to your demands until you sign. good luck! Re: building with simonds 8Feb 10, 2013 6:53 pm Hi I recall the process, paying the deposit enabled them to start drafting our plans and the fee was to cover this as well as the soil engineers report. If we didn't like the soil report we could pull out and the deposit is gone. However, as we went for a fixed price contract we didn't fear the report. We moved quickly from signing for land to title to build in only about ten weeks and that included a delay over a valuation issue. As we stayed with the layout of the Turin, the only structural change was the flip of the rear layout. We didn't make too many non structural changes, just a sliding cavity door for the ensuite. The rest of the changes were lots of upgrades, to get an idea of the final cost we kept tracking the upgrade costs so at contact sign up our only surprise was the inclusion of smart glass to ensure we kept the six star energy rating, 2k-3k extra as we have a lot of sliding glass doors Re: building with simonds 9Feb 11, 2013 5:25 pm hi all, alcatraz ,did you take advantage of the upgrade promo 28k for 50k ? plus another 6k for the show room? also im interested in the smart glass your talking of , after your soil report was there much of a difference in your footing to what was expected ,our soil is a little clay so im hoping the footing wont be hugely expensive,if they are well have to start crossing upgrades off HAS ENYONE HAD TO PUT IN STREET ACCESS OR REMOVE ANY TREES , WAS IT PAINFULL? HOW LONG DID IT TAKE ? (many more trees will go in to replace the one taken out ) happy building all Re: building with simonds 12Feb 13, 2013 9:17 pm We are also building the Sierra in Melbourne, so far the only thing we have been surprised by is the waterfall bench, we have a laminate bench not ceasear stone or other. But there is a bracket, and hence a gap, between the bench top and the waterfall end, that's apparently how their kitchen company does it in Melbourne, apparently the stone top does not have the plate, but is not a 45' mitre either. Might want to just double check that, otherwise we are so far happy, we are currently sitting at final stage waiting for fit out to finish! 2 Re: building with simonds 14Feb 14, 2013 7:10 pm Hi jem + gab, We are building with simonds at seaford meadows. There's photos of my build and Alcatraz build and caz76 build on my thread if you wanted to check out our progress. So far the build has been pretty smooth and very quick (in 4 days we had frames, roof, fascia, gutter, windows and bricks had started) We choose the $30 thousand upgrade package to try keep the price down. We got all our flooring, shower niches, down lights, render, appliances, bricks upgraded etc. We are having a laminex kitchen bench with waterfall edges (the budget didn't stretch to stone unfortunately) but we did upgrade our tiles to a pebble feature wall in the ensuite and rectangle wall tiles Good luck with everything...I look forward to following your progress. Re: building with simonds 15Feb 15, 2013 4:48 pm alcatraz only surprise was the inclusion of smart glass to ensure we kept the six star energy rating, 2k-3k extra as we have a lot of sliding glass doors Did you have this properly explained to you? Exactly how far off was your house from the 6 stars? Did you have ALL available options to gain the 6 star rating presented? The one option they gave you was obviously the easiest option for them. You certainly shouldn't take this as gospel. 3k extra seems high. Re: building with simonds 16Feb 15, 2013 4:58 pm We are building with Simonds. The Crestwood at Cascades on Clyde. We made quite a few changes and are happy so far. We are at lock up. Painters are in atm. Re: building with simonds 17Feb 15, 2013 9:00 pm I expect the size of the windows caused us to drop down on the rating as we replaced three or four to sliding doors and the main living area has two sets of large stack doors. Already have r2.5 in all walls and r5 rated insulation in the roof i think it came in at $2,600 from memory. Re: building with simonds 19Mar 20, 2013 3:56 pm We are just waiting for the big clean and driveway now....getting closer where are you building Alcatraz? I’m curious about how you went with this. We are planning a KDRB and considering Plantation Homes as a builder. I’m aware that after the demolition another soil test… 1 6313 i wouldn't be worried, you'll definitely miss something, no matter how many times you review. we've spent close to 5 months ensuring everything got reflected in the… 5 9437 Thanks for your reply. I will just wait and see I guess. Trying to get some more information from our builder. 9 11711 |