I'm happy to include it for now. I haven't done my internals appointment yet or looked at the suppliers choices yet.
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 701Jul 16, 2014 12:02 pm joandandy Returntoshire are you happy with bamboo flooring? Flooring will be my biggest dilema!!! I'm happy to include it for now. I haven't done my internals appointment yet or looked at the suppliers choices yet. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 702Jul 16, 2014 9:02 pm Hi everyone, WOW...these lovely homes nearing completion and looking fantastic. Well done! As for flooring, our current house has been floorboards in all rooms except kitchen (tiles). I worry about timber floors in kitchen and particularly dining rooms as they look great for 5 minutes and scratch permanently the first time your dinner guest or kids scrape the floor with the dining chair. Tiles are super durable, vacuum quickly and you can pop little socks on if your tiny toes get cold. We go barefoot at home all year with no dramas. Please be careful cleaning your bamboo floors as I found many websites which talk about how the bamboo will soak in water and swell up when you mop the floors. We were offered bamboo at no upgrade cost but we have gone with all tiles (carpets in home theatre and bedrooms). We signed our contract a few months ago and K refused to add liquidated damages. Any time these get added to a contract, the completion date gets extended by many months - that way they never have to pay damages as they will always finish your home on time. Our internals were decided just after plans went to council but, since we are still awaiting approval, internal upgrades and costs have not yet been finalised by K. I think you will all be in your lovely homes before we even get formal bank approval (which our bank says they will not even look at until council approval and final post-tender prices have been added). Good to see your progress folks Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 703Jul 17, 2014 11:14 am Manago Tiles offer a couple of different ranges of bamboo flooring now. There are 2 colours (natural and coffee) in the standard range which are not an upgrade. The Verdura range which is a premium strandwoven bamboo is an upgrade and they have many more colours available. I am hoping that with a 25 year guarantee and careful maintenance it should be alright, but still nervous about it! Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 704Jul 20, 2014 8:59 pm Hi all, we are at paint stage, looks like undercoat all done and our fireplace alcove Has been done. Waiting still for our walk through. Mars, did you have to apply for your driveway? How soon was this done for you in the scheme of things? I was told that we have to apply to council and because we want a layback instead of the usual kerb which is the rolled kerb we have yet another variation. Waiting to see the impact of this????? Also, Mars did you get any additional cost with your driveway after they got the concreter to quote the job? Already told K I wouldn't be impressed if this is a variation as they should have been able to quote this and include this in the original tender which we have already signed off. Should know this week. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 705Jul 21, 2014 7:53 am Hi Upsize, Fortunately for us, the Developer already installed the crossover and layback (as we don't have the rolled kerb either). Unfortunately this location was not ideal so I need to make sure I'm on site to ensure we have enough width for the car to turn. The concretor quoted last week and I haven't received any variation, and wouldn't be happy if I got one either. Upsize which toilets did you opt for? We chose the Profile 4 Deluxe (Silver) which had a soft close seat. I think they may have installed the wrong ones because it looks different to the showroom toilet and has a standard seat. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 706Jul 21, 2014 5:48 pm For those who have gone through colours, for the laundry door what were the options (standard range). I have the product guide, is it any of the ones in the bronze range on the externals page? When we did our externals it seemed we were only given the choice of a plain door or anything else was an upgrade? If we can have something a little "prettier" without an upgrade we might change. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 707Jul 21, 2014 11:56 pm Hi Mars, we just got the standard loo, they aren't in as yet. But do have our bench tops in the kitchen, laundry, WIP, and bathrooms. They are still painting, glad it is them not he, such a massive job. Think they are up to second coat. Got told around a month to finish. I can't believe it! Exciting, still doesn't feel real. Hills build, are you talking about external laundry door or internal? If external you have to request a change. We had big discussions on this external door as we wanted one with a window given there us no window for natural light in our laundry. We ended up getting one at a cost. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 708Jul 22, 2014 8:20 am Hills Build, we also got our external laundry door upgraded with a window and built in venetian blinds. This was very expensive, but a very neat option. I've spoken to Caroma who confirmed that they have installed the standard toilet. It shouldn't be a big deal to change, but just another thing to add on the list. I've had to pay my PC progress payment as I don't want to risk paying interest. I trust our SS to get everything sorted. Wardrobes and other shelving were installed yesterday. The sliding door is being swapped out for the correct stacker door on Wednesday, flooring will commence on Thursday along with the driveway. Thursday will also be our first PC walkthrough. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 709Jul 23, 2014 5:03 pm Could be a silly questions but when does the soil test get done, or when should it be done? We have signed contracts etc and Kurmond are in the process of getting everything together to put to council but no soil test, as far as I am aware has been done? I would think this should have been done by now? I might have it wrong, but if it should have been done I might have to either a) chase up results in case it was done and we dont know or b) get them onto it so that it doesnt delay anything with council Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 710Jul 23, 2014 8:37 pm Hi Hills Build I would recommend that you start chasing up the soils test, we have been told three times that we were almost ready to go to council and each time something has popped up to delay things and the soil test is what currently holding us up. We were told that the soil test should of been done already but was missed by all the departments, it was done last Friday after a lot of 'chasing up' and the test should be back next Monday....and then hopefully off to council fingers crossed! Big Mama Can I ask about your pre council process?.... We have had huge hold ups with the hydrolics issues and getting the additional plans drawn up to cater for the 1 in 100 yr flood. We began this build process with KHomes back in October last year, finalised our externals in January and internals in March and it has been a lot of frustration since. I noticed that you were in council two months after your external app and we are currently in month 7 (month 10 from first signing with KHomes) and still not in council... Were your hydrolics plans drawn up before going to council or during? And did it take anyone else this long to get to the build process? Unfortunately I'm not very patient at the moment with any of it Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 711Jul 23, 2014 10:23 pm Ses which council are you going through? Our council approval was very quick but we went through CDC which is a separate section area or something. My understanding is if everything is std then they can do CDC if there is any deviation from norm then you have to do council which does take longer. But 2 mths, I wouldn't be patient either. So frustrating when you can't control the process. What are hydrolics plans? Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 712Jul 23, 2014 10:39 pm Hi Ses it took us about 9 months to go from tender to build. Sounds like yours is dragging on The soil test for us was done after tender and before contract signing. I had to chase up in writing before we signed contract that there were no nasty surprises. It did help though that we provided kurmond a soil test and contour survey that Lend Lease had given us for our block so they had based their tender on that anyway. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 713Jul 24, 2014 8:42 am Our soil test was also not required as my developer provided the soil classification. Only the bore holes were required. Otherwise, as soon as Kurmond have access to the land (after registration usually), that's when the soil test should occur. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 714Jul 24, 2014 3:46 pm Update from us. The roof on the ground level was completed today. We got an invoice for it on Monday but due to a stuff up the installers for the colorbond portion apparently told the SS it was done but it wasn't... Went around with the SS today and they were there putting it up. Also onsite were the electrician, sentinel and carpenters. Quite a lot happening! I'll post photos once the cladding is on Gyprock gets put up on Tuesday. Fingers crossed things are back on track as you can see we've drifted quite a bit behind everyone else. SS showed me the schedule on his laptop and he's looking at having us completed early October. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 716Jul 30, 2014 9:00 pm Thanks for the info everyone! Your kitchens etc are looking great so far, what has been happening in the last couple of weeks? Upsize...We are in the Ryde council area and unfortunately they have a reputation for being very picky and strict . And because we are building a duplex and have acidic soil we can't go through CDC which means it's off to council for us. The hydrolics plans are done by an engineer to work out how much water will run off the property and where it will go. We have to make allowances on our property eg large underground water pits to collect the rain water so that there is no impact on surrounding properties and because it is a duplex build everything has to be doubled (two pits and double the price!) the house will also have to be raised 40-50cms and on piers so that any flooding (even though the area does not flood) will have space to flow under the house. This is all now finally sorted and the soil test was done last week so we are now officially going to council!!!!! We still have internal things to sort out but as our colour girl left the company in April we won't have the chance to finalise anything until we have been given council approval. This is annoying as there are many questions unanswered but no one ever said that building was easy Looking forward to some new pics Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 717Jul 31, 2014 6:53 pm Upsize your house is looking great! Cladding was finally completed today on ours and internal walls were meant to go up on Tuesday but the pin was pulled by the construction supervisor. Its been rescheduled for Saturday (I'm not holding my breath) Here's the latest pics: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 719Aug 01, 2014 8:14 pm Looks great Mars, what things are they fixing up? Went past the block today at 3:30pm today and it was a hive of activity, about 5 vans out front and utes. Exciting to see. Also, I was wondering who pays for electricity usage at build stage? I noticed the electrician have left an outdoor light on, long time to be be left on over the weekend. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 720Aug 01, 2014 9:12 pm Thanks for reminding me Upsize, I think I have an electric bill from memory to pay. We have to foot the bill. It's also common in new estates for neighbouring builders to use your power when they can get away with it! Mainly we had paint and gyprock issues, however many of them I would've let slide. T set the standard with the stickers, so my wife and I followed suit. He said usually this painter is much better. Overall he did do a good job. There were a couple of defects on the polyurethane cupboards which will get re done. Some of the rubber seals under windows were loose or missing. Still waiting on whirly bird colour change, toilet suites changed and b&d garage door which is delayed due to a factory issue. All these were not Kurmond's fault. R from Manago came to do a quality check on the bamboo floor and some of it had to be re done. But it's all looking great today. Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 76980 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 107546 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 25468 |