Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Are you building with Alkira? 61Jan 24, 2014 9:07 pm Oh gosh. You're right, they won't care about $50 a week. That's very exciting though. And I couldn't agree more re the efficiency in the industry. I never could understand it -- there's great potential and not many willing hands to grow in the industry. Well hopefully you'll get a good site manager. I hear a good bottle of scotch or whisky sets them off on a good foot! Re: Are you building with Alkira? 62Jan 24, 2014 9:37 pm Our approach with the site supervisor has been just not to interfere, and let him do what he wants to do. If I got 'bribed' as an SS I'd accept the goods, enjoy them, and continue on exactly as I was before in the interest of not being corrupted. Even if that meant making a few decisions that weren't in the interest of the bribers ... Re: Are you building with Alkira? 64Feb 28, 2014 9:30 pm wasn't sure whether to start a new topic for the sake of it or carry it on here ... found out the Sales Director resigned and someone else has taken up the responsibilities.. hopefully my tender will be ready soon .. signed up in mid December and we're walking into 1st week of March... so close yet so darn far away ... fingers crossed that things will start to move quickly and smoothly ... Re: Are you building with Alkira? 65Mar 01, 2014 3:39 pm I found the sales person took the jobs not as experience as V was.. .Something happened there. Friend's friend complained their construction taking too long ,not sure if they can cope with the current market demand. Anyhow,does anyone know what is their penalty weekly rent for construction time over the provisions ?other company put $500 and in the tender. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 66Mar 02, 2014 7:47 pm I guess that's why v hasn't replied to my recent email...... Liquidated damages are $80 a day.
Agree, it appears to me they may have over extended themselves. It's taking us some time to get our build started. We signed our tender at beginning of August 2013 and nearly 8 months later we are just at contract stage. DA was approved end of December and in 8 days, so council wasn't the hold up. Maybe 8 months is ok, so happy to be corrected on that. In saying that everybody in the office is very helpful, its just that it seems to be taking longer that what I would expect, which leads me to believe they may have too much work on. Just my opinion. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 67Mar 02, 2014 10:51 pm Just wanted to say hi, we've gone to tender with Alkira recently, waiting to hear back from them. Interesting to hear about V's resignation, less than 2 weeks ago she was talking about her moving to their new Northern Beaches office in April. She did say it would be a longer drive to work for her so perhaps that was a factor in her going? Or perhaps I'm just being hopeful that it's not symptomatic of something more troubling within the company. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 68Mar 08, 2014 5:20 pm Hello all, Finally started our Alkira home build blog as the slab will be poured within a couple of weeks. Enjoy and hope it will help. www.culdechamonix.com Best, Ang. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 69Mar 09, 2014 2:13 pm original_convention Hello all, Finally started our Alkira home build blog as the slab will be poured within a couple of weeks. Enjoy and hope it will help. http://www.culdechamonix.com Best, Ang. Congrats! Looking forward to hearing more of your build over the coming months Re: Are you building with Alkira? 70Mar 11, 2014 7:44 am boppa7 Agree, it appears to me they may have over extended themselves. It's taking us some time to get our build started. We signed our tender at beginning of August 2013 and nearly 8 months later we are just at contract stage. DA was approved end of December and in 8 days, so council wasn't the hold up. Maybe 8 months is ok, so happy to be corrected on that. In saying that everybody in the office is very helpful, its just that it seems to be taking longer that what I would expect, which leads me to believe they may have too much work on. Just my opinion. I agree, I think they're taking on more work than their office people can manage. I know the people I'm talking to are sounding a little stressed. I'd go so far as to say that it's the pre-build stage that they're probably overloaded with. Ours was longer than yours, at about 10 months, but then we did want a lot of variations from standard. I've said it more'n once, but it never felt like our job was sitting on someone's desk forgotten, it always seemed to be in motion; there just seemed to always be lots to do. Once the build started, however, it doesn't seem to have taken any longer than anyone else. There's a two-storey Rawson I walk past on the way to work, their house was demolished much the same time as ours, and they're basically at the same stage as us now (maybe 2 weeks behind as they have no bricks yet). Re: Are you building with Alkira? 71Mar 16, 2014 8:34 pm We are planning the smaller size Elyse,37.8squares ,as our land is nearly 2 meters sloping down to the street,theydesign is step down 1.1m for the front half.a lots of changes to our tender,we now wondering the foyer might be too narrow with the extra hight .anybody has any idea/experience? Re: Are you building with Alkira? 72Mar 17, 2014 8:09 am It might seem narrower than normal, but in my opinion it's not something you're going to be particularly worried about if it does seem a bit too high. But that's just an opinion, I don't have any experience with it. Maybe ask if they have any photos of any completed Elyses, with the narrower foyer, with the same step-down design as the one you're looking at? Re: Are you building with Alkira? 73May 04, 2014 10:06 pm Hi all Thanks for sharing info. on alkira homes coz my hubby and I are currently in the tender stage with alkira. so the info you guys provided is very helpful. And hello Boppa7 & cronulla build, glad to see someone in Greenhills Beach here!!! We like elyse15 42.4 sq. May I please ask how much bargain power you actually got? what i meant is after the tender was released, do you guys get any discount except the package things? Please kindly advise if its possible as I dont know can I ask for discount and how much I can get. Thanks in advance and any info is highly appreciated!! Re: Are you building with Alkira? 74May 05, 2014 9:12 am We didn't get any discount at all. Not sure what things are like in building at the moment, but just under 1.5yrs ago there was more business than the project builders knew what to do with; so as customer we didn't really have any bargaining power. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 75May 05, 2014 9:17 am We neither. Except the addition- home office, we negotiated for a while, and got a final price at 17K. Re: Are you building with Alkira? 76May 05, 2014 1:06 pm Thanks blackbeauty and Forg. To whom is in Greenhills Beach May I also ask how much is your site cost and basix? Please PM me if you could give me a rough number coz different builder give me very different $$$$on these two . Thanks!!!!! Re: Are you building with Alkira? 77Sep 13, 2014 1:30 pm Hi, we are building with Alkira - the Elyse 15 in Sydney's Northern Beaches. We've started a blog just yesterday and have worked hard to try and get it up to date. See the link below for more information! http://sydneyalkira.blogspot.com.au/ Re: Are you building with Alkira? 79Jul 12, 2016 1:56 pm Forg We're on our 3rd "serious" builder ... and that's Alkira. We've gone further down the path with them than with anyone else. Long boring backstory; loved a display-home (at [url=http://www.homequest.com.au]Homequest at Bella Vista[/url) by a custom builder, it had everything we wanted. Took us 9 months to not think about it & prepare for the plunge ... and meanwhile they went broke. So we started looking around for someone who could build us a light comfy airy eco home; which nobody else will do without charging an arm & a leg, as it turns out. Search for another custom builder resulted in a $1.2m estimate - ack! Decided on a project builder, looked around, got very serious with Rawson Homes, but since giving them the original brief their business seems to have boomed and they no longer want to do something largely custom; which took us 8 months to find-out. So the next round of questions we had for project builders were very very specific; a few builders didn't get back to me for various reasons, but in the end the only two (who did respond) who could/would do what we wanted were Alkira and Jandson Homes. We ended-up with Alkira (thus far) & submitted for tender mid December, no real reason apart maybe from their display homes looking better finished. We're going with a quite-modified Olivia (with the study & spare bedroom of the largest Elyse 15 downstairs, upstairs completely rearranged to have a big lounge & our bedroom facing north, and a separate shed in the back yard). So where we're at is our colour & electricals meetings are next week, kitchen selections the week after, we're awaiting council's driveway-levels and because I've got some unusual requirements for the backyard shed we're awaiting an engineering design on the slab. Floorplan is pretty-much finalised. So far we've been a lot more impressed with their customer service than Rawson. Yes it's taken a long time to get to where we are (faster than Rawson), but the person doing the work on each stage is in contact with us & asking questions, whereas at Rawson that person would either make assumptions or go through the (pleasant but busy) salesdude. I can't say if I can recommend Alkira until we're finished, of course, but it's looking most likely we will build with them (I'd say it was definite we were building with them if we'd not encountered so many extended false-starts before). One comment; their sales people seem empowered to actually give you a price on most things you'd want, so the tender process takes a week or two rather than a few months. Another comment; getting extra stuff done (over standard) does seem to be expensive with them. This could be just because of what extra stuff we're getting (the shed with special slab requirements, double-glazed thermally-broken-frames windows/stackers, Hebel flooring upstairs so we can lay tiles, lots of etc). Depending on what you want, of course, you may not want this "extra stuff"; and their standard designs seem to be fairly solid but expensive ... and example a friend encountered with another builder was being told that removing the upstairs cladding and replacing with brick was an expensive job because the upstairs wall wasn't directly over a downstairs wall so a lot of reinforcing would be needed to cope with the weight of the bricks, yet the Elyse (for example) has upstairs walls not over downstairs ones & comes fully bricked as standard (I'm sure they're not the only builder who builds like that, but it did make me feel a little better than the house sructure wasn't too weak to cope with bricks ). A final comment; don't get too attached to the imported French hardwood flooring in that Elyse 15 at Homeworld ... Oh My it's eye-wateringly expensive (can't recall exactly but $200 per lineal metre rings a bell, and the boards are about a foot wide so if I'm right on that cost it'd come to ~$600/sqm!!). Who is your aerated concrete provider. I had CSR install hebel flooring on my house (which is under construction) and its 75mm thick. Can you please share a photo from ground floor with hebel just being installed on top ? I wanted to see if Alkira provided steel joists or timber joists ? Re: Are you building with Alkira? 80Jul 13, 2016 1:54 pm SoftEng, it was all timber underneath, excepting long spans with brick walls above. Sorry I've got no photos from between the start of the Hebel-install until after the ceiling was installed downstairs. Looking to start the journey of becoming an owner builder in SA. Feeling pretty (overly) confident on the building and construction details, but really struggling to find… 0 8417 No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6631 A question. Im in Queensland and building a new home. We managed to reach practical completion 6 weeks ago but we haven't heard any date for handover yet. Who should we… 0 5806 |