Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 25, 2013 7:31 pm Hi guys, I am looking for a quality Brisbane builder for a narrow lot (10m frontage) in inner city Brisbane for a new build. Roughly 3m diagonal slope across the building envelope and I have my own floorplan that has been looked over by an architect (friends friend as a favour to my friend). Thanks to everyone that has taken time to help me in my search! Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 2Mar 25, 2013 9:24 pm I am currently building with GJ Gardner Brisbane North and so far have found them excellent. They have plans or will work up a plan to your specs - we designed our own. One of our neighbours are using PJ Burns. They have done an off the plan house that seems to be going well and I have no heard of them having any significant issues. The other side are doing a custom design by Garth Chapman. Their house design is lovely and well thought out colonial style. They have had a couple of delays but I could not tell you the cause of them (ie them, council, builder or other). They are yet to cut their block. The one over the road from us is from GW Homes. It looks nice and has been built at the same pace as ours and again I have not heard any problems. You might find this helpful too. www dot productreview dot com dot au/c/home-builders-qld dot html Just be aware some builders (like mine) are franchises, so when reading reviews ensure you are reading about the right builder (franchise). Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 3Mar 25, 2013 9:56 pm Thanks for the reply. GW Homes are one of the builders we are considering, have not met them yet though. Me Build Design and Construction look interesting but I cannot find any reviews on them. I have also talked to Civic Steel but at $2000sq/m initial quote I am a little scared but they seem easy to work with? Most of the builders at Rochedale want to push their designs instead of working with me also have not had any responses apart from the first discussion so not a good sign. What upgrades did you get on your home? Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 5Mar 25, 2013 10:42 pm Our build has cost us about $1200 sqm, and that is fully finished (upgraded flooring, fully painted, modified kitchen, caeserstone benchtops, wide door, steel frame, aircon, data wired / data hub, vac ducting, security) on a sloping block. The only things we need to get done that aren't included are the driveway, some garden retaining walls and landscaping. Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 6Mar 26, 2013 4:52 am we are with adenbrook homes on the north coast and they also have branches up brisbane way. we are building a custom. Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 7Mar 26, 2013 10:29 pm Has anyone heard of or dealt with a building company called Kurrajong Steel Homes based at Cleveland, I have seen them at the home show and they seemed nice but wanted to know of anyone’s experience in dealing with them? Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 8Mar 26, 2013 10:35 pm Karen9742, I just looked through their website and they sound alright. I don't know too much about them. Are you looking at steel frame only?? Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 9Mar 27, 2013 10:10 am DeeMM Our build has cost us about $1200 sqm, and that is fully finished (upgraded flooring, fully painted, modified kitchen, caeserstone benchtops, wide door, steel frame, aircon, data wired / data hub, vac ducting, security) on a sloping block. The only things we need to get done that aren't included are the driveway, some garden retaining walls and landscaping. Hi DeeMM - can you tell me who the builder is that is charging 1200 a sqm for steel frame, and higher grade of fit out - sounds like a good deal? Thanks! Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 10Mar 27, 2013 10:13 am karen9742 Has anyone heard of or dealt with a building company called Kurrajong Steel Homes based at Cleveland, I have seen them at the home show and they seemed nice but wanted to know of anyone’s experience in dealing with them? Hi karen9742 - I have dealt with 'Kurrajong Steel Homes' They seem nice people and want to help (suppose all builders at the moment are nice when you are going to build) but was let down and wasted 4 months and ended up going somewhere else. I'm sure they would be ok for the 'standard' run of the mill home with standard inclusions but a custom home probably not. All the best if you are building soon! Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 11Mar 27, 2013 4:49 pm brownie1968 Hi DeeMM - can you tell me who the builder is that is charging 1200 a sqm for steel frame, and higher grade of fit out - sounds like a good deal? Thanks! Pretty sure DeeMM is using GJ Gardiner. Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 12Mar 27, 2013 5:51 pm GJ Gardiner is a franchise business so it depends on who you get referred to. I have went to the Rochedale Estates to speak with a few a few weeks back and no one got back to me. Why is everyone getting steel frame? I am undecided. Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 15Mar 29, 2013 9:33 am I got a steel frame because I have paranioa about termites. I spoke to a carpenter who explained to me the standards for wooden frames and indicated some builders do not comply with this guideline and in his opinion anything less than H5 was insuffienct for sub-tropical areas of Australia. He did say the termite matting was good but if there was a fault anywhere in it or there was a crack in the slab the termites could get in that way. We worked on the basis that if termites got in all they would eat would be the skirting boards and wooden surrounds, whereas if they got into a wooden frame it could be devastating. We have both dealt with termite infestations before and that was in hard wood frame houses which are a lot less attractive to them - one of which was built in the 70s when they were still using heptaclore under the pad. Its just a personal quirk of ours, I am sure the risk is not as high as we perceive it, but for piece of mind it suited us - the fact it was a special inclusion at the time was a bonus. Yes we are building with GJ - but we built a custom house that has a lot less rooms than most houses of equivalent size so I think that bought our costs down and allowed us to get the better inclusions. Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 16Apr 09, 2013 9:07 am karen9742 Hi Brownie 1968 thank you for the reply, could I be rude and ask why you were not happy and what happened? I was looking for a steel builder and found 'Kurrajong Steel Homes' in Cleveland went in there and had a quick chat with one of their guys was intially not really impressed as the guy came across as a salesperson not a designer (most builders you see have salespeople that call themselves designers and flog their own plans) as i was leaving noticed a business card on the front counter that had something like 'head designer' so i called him instead - very nice guy and went back to see him. I was honest and upfront that my business consults to the building industry meaning we know costs and tricks that builders use like lowering PC and PS costs to make a project look cheaper (not saying that is what Kurrajong does). the intial design they done was for free based on that if they do a good job they get the business which i understand - the design came back over budget so we decided to get an extension of our loan which was quite annoying. We had a time frame to get this house started as i was going overseas and very busy with business - the design phase felt like it took a long time as they were servicing other clients and doing home shows in between. the main issue was we keep constantly asking for particular revisions or changes to be made and these were never done and my wife and i got the feeling that they were pushing us towards what they wanted not what we wanted. There was problems with the inclusions list, as what it read was different to what we were going to receive again i dont think they were being deceiptful but certainly not fully explaining. At over 3 months and still not ready yet we decided to pull the pin but after thinking about it for the weekend decided to go back as we had quite a lot of time invested - the next visit we done with them they suggested the owner be present for the whole meetiing so he can help with any issues and get it sorted for us, the owner John was at the meeting for just 2 minutes the phone rang and we never saw him again (we were there again for 3 hours) and another staff member dropped in and the designer asked her for something and she was quite rude with a bit of attitude. At the of the meeting the understanding was we are all on the page as they took notes of the changes we wanted - 2 days later the revision came thru and only half the changes were done... We both had had enough and said no more we are going elsewhere. The whole process was over 4 months multiple visits to their office and one off site and calls and emails - as far as we were concerned they had our business but lost it as they could not provide us with specific requiements and the attitude at the end (plus we were way over over time schedule). Along the way they keep saying 'lets get the contract underway and we'll sort the rest out as we go' I know from experience that you get it right First before contracts and we felt the process was to get us to sign, which we understand that's the goal but from our point of view we needed to be comfortable knowing we were getting what we wanted and not paying excess charges after the contract was signed. In summing Kurrajong Steel Homes up: the head designer was a nice person to deal with (probably why we stayed for so long) but felt that they were more suited for standard builds with standard inclusions not full customs like we required. Since then we found a great designer who got it right within 2 weeks and have a builder keen to go who will build exactly what we require Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 17Apr 09, 2013 9:18 am jayjay_bne GJ Gardiner is a franchise business so it depends on who you get referred to. I have went to the Rochedale Estates to speak with a few a few weeks back and no one got back to me. Why is everyone getting steel frame? I am undecided. I want a steel frame due to longer expanses of ceiling and roof line is always straight as some older timer homes you see the roof line all wavey. Resale seems to be a bonus. Termites, yes that help too - the last home we built the saleperosn talked us out of steel into timber saying that the reason people build with steel is to avoid termites but they use good termite systems and if built correct there is no problems (4 years later - after termites were found in the house twice they said it was not their problem) We currently live in a steel frame home - no noise, no problems (the noise thing is what builders and salespeople tell you that happens so that's why they don't build them) we had more noise from our timber home than the steel one. Salespeople not getting back to you? same with us too, it's amazing they spend so much money on advertising and dont return calls or enquiries - go figure? Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 18Apr 11, 2013 7:45 pm I worked out why no one was getting back to me. Sloping site with minor design constraints. Then even the ones that do relatively difficult builds don't get back to you. I have found a few builders that seem good so it has taken a while to weed out the ones that like to build in estates only. Should I chase anyone?? Re: Brisbane Builders - Any out there??? 20May 06, 2013 11:49 am Did you find yourself a builder? I just completed a $380K complete overhaul on my character home in Newmarket and had a really good experience with our builder – Mark Murphy from MDM Builders. He was recommended to us by some friends as he built their previous properties in Cedar Vale and current project in New Farm. He seemed to collaborate really well with our architect and work with our plans. We also found his quoting to be at a much more reasonable price compared to other prices we had previously received. His website is currently under construction but his contact details are still there. If you are still looking I couldn't recommend him highly enough. Contact details are below. Good luck and all the best with your project! www.mdmbuilders.com.au Mark Murphy – 0431 591 035 or mark@mdmbuilders.com.au First time poster long story short we are planning knocking down rebuilding a house in Wavell Heights We are thinking to go with Omni built homes as they are but flexible… 0 16281 Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. We definitely wish to settle and get these people out of our life. They are trying to charge us interest on late… 7 14278 Hello Josh, This is Irving from PRIMA, we are a manufacturer of the staircase, railings, kitchen cabinets, windows, doors from China. If you have requirement to purchase… 0 5464 |