Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 13, 2013 11:14 pm Hello to all out there, we are building with Metricon in Melbourne and would like some feedback. 1. To those who have built with Metricon in the Melbourne area, anyone has a good and reliable SS to recommend? Understand all the privacy issues involved so please feel free to PM. 2. We have signed up and selected all our specs etc. It's been 6 weeks since demolition and there is no activity as yet on site. Is that normal? How long did it take on your site for construction to begin? Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 2Aug 14, 2013 2:22 pm We built with Metricon 18 months ago. Very happy and a quality build with a great supervisor. I have sent you a PM. Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 3Aug 19, 2013 12:19 am Thanks OurLindrum52. I believe we've been in contact before. We couldn't get your SS as we are not in the same area. That's why I am asking again. Boy I've been told that the construction process is difficult, but we're having troubles just getting construction started! I've been told to wait another 3 weeks! That would be 2 whole months since demolition and 5 months since signing the contract and choosing all our fittings etc! Can anybody tell me why it takes such a long time for things to get started? The grass is growing rapidly on the empty site. Will M come back and ask us to pay more money to do another clearing for construction to commence? OurLindrum52, I agree with you completely - the admin process is really difficult to bear! At least you got a great SS and hence a good quality home, which made up for all the hassles in the beginning. I sure hope Metricon assigns a good SS for us too. Else, they'll have one very UNHAPPY client here. Long-drawn out admin process + issues during construction = VERY grumpy client :O( Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 4Aug 22, 2013 10:55 pm Quick update for anyone who is interested. Still no signs of construction happening but at least, we've been contacted to sign off on some documents and to make some final selections. A face-to-face meeting in the office helped push the process a little so thank you Metricon for taking our concerns into consideration. Now the wait continues for work to begin and for a good SS. Any suggestions out there??? Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 5Sep 02, 2013 5:00 pm O when, o when, o when, o when, O when is construction commencing? O when, o when, o when, o when, O when is work beginning? We've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, And we're still waiting! O Metricon, when will you be delivering? Apologies for the poor attempt at poetry but this is the best I can do, considering the not-so-great news and hence impact on inspiration level :O( Latest update - another additional 10 more days from today before anything happens. But who knows, 10 days will pass, and maybe another 10 days??? We've been assigned a SS but for privacy purposes, I won't publish the name in case things go really pear-shape! But if anyone out there who is building in the Melbourne central area with Metricon and would like to exchange notes, please PM. Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 6Sep 12, 2013 11:14 am Update as at 12 Sept - nothing happening on site still. Some dates to consider: 1. 9 April 2013 - signed contract with Metricon 2. May 2013 - complete selection of tiles, bricks, tapping, sinks etc 3. 29 June 2013 - old house demolished. Land available for building 4. 20 Aug 2013 - pre construction variation signed 5. 24 Aug 2013 - file passed to construction team Time from contract signed to today = approximately 5.5 MONTHS If you are planning to build with Metricon, please bear in mind that it takes a LONG time for construction to being. DO make sure that you are ok to handle the long wait financially. We are struggling but there seems to be nothing we can do to speed up the process. Very discouraging for us to drive to the site in full anticipation of seeing some activity - get there, NOTHING. Metricon, you should have warned us beforehand what your timeline is. Please make it up to us by building us a good quality home. Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 7Sep 12, 2013 12:13 pm So sorry to hear of your long wait.... must be incredibly annoying. Have they given any reason as to why its taking them so long to get to site? Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66299 Slab: 16/6/14 Frame: 4/7/14 Roof: 22/7/14 Lock Up: 20/8/14 Fixing: 26/8/14 PCI: 9/10/14 Handover: 20/10/14 Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 8Sep 12, 2013 2:42 pm Once your file goes to construction, that's when they start organising trades, ordering materials, etc; that is, scheduling your build. That will take time. We signed our plans off just before Christmas 2010 and they started building with the site cut on 18th February 2011. Factor in the two week shut-down over Christmas/New Year and you should start approx. 4 - 6 weeks after your file goes to the construction team. Don't wait, contact your CSC to find out what's going on. I know, waiting is the hard part. Once it does start, things happen pretty quickly UNTIL the last month or two when it seems there's so little to finish off but it takes forever!! Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 9Sep 12, 2013 10:42 pm Hi deluxes, I don't really know. From what I'm hearing, it's all M's contractors fault. They made errors and hence have caused the delays. But my issue is: 1. M is a big company. Surely they have some "muscle" to speed things up and get errors fixed up asap. 2. We signed our contract with M, not with their contractors. To be honest, it's not really my problem and M should deal with it. It's not right for M to hide behind their contractors. We were actually ready to demolish early June but there were delays in getting the building permit. That was another 2 weeks of waiting. Between the time of the land being available for construction and when file was passed to the construction team was almost 2 months. I'd really like to know what was happening there. I called and emailed and asked and pushed as hard as I could, but all I got was "WAIT, our contractors made some mistakes and we are waiting for the paperwork to come back." My sister-in-law built with PD recently. They signed in Sept/Oct 2012, and they got the keys July 2013. Sigh! Lindrum52, wow, you signed before Christmas and they started in Feb the following year? That's pretty quick - less than a 2-month wait even with the holidays. M customer team, care to comment and clarify? What happened with us? Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 10Sep 16, 2013 8:51 pm FINALLY! After 5.5 LONG months, some activity on site. M finally started on the site-cut. Can't tell you all out there what a relief that is to us. But honestly, should it have taken so long? It's a real disappointment. My parents flew in from overseas in July, to follow the progress of construction. They are heading back mid-Oct (all booked earlier) and so will not even get to see much of anything! M, what happened??? Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 11Sep 21, 2013 2:22 pm zebulun11 FINALLY! After 5.5 LONG months, some activity on site. M finally started on the site-cut. Can't tell you all out there what a relief that is to us. But honestly, should it have taken so long? It's a real disappointment. My parents flew in from overseas in July, to follow the progress of construction. They are heading back mid-Oct (all booked earlier) and so will not even get to see much of anything! M, what happened??? Hi Zubulun11, We too are pleased that we have been able to start construction of your new home. Congratulations! After reviewing your home, we have no doubt it’s going to be fantastic! Your particular project, being inner urban & being a knock down and re-build, is a more complicated than a standard Greenfields block of land. We too would love to be able to commence building as soon as the knock down has occurred, however this is simply not possible. Key milestones need to be reached that can only happen once the knock down has occurred. The land must be clear and available to start undertaking all the necessary foundation work. Please allow us to explain this further and let’s run through the dates that these milestones occurred so we have the full picture of events from demolition to site start. Please consider the actual working days within the dates below. • Building permit approved by independent building surveyor 31/05/13 • Your Demolition was completed (Responsibility of the owner) 01/07/13 • Final soil/survey by independent engineers was received 24/07/13 • Plans completed based on new soil/surveys 12/08/13 • Customer provided finance evidence 13/8/13 • Final engineering received by independent engineers 14/08/13 • Authority to Commence Construction variation issued 23/08 & signed on the same day • Project moved into our ordering team to commence ordering the materials for every item within your building contract. • Site start commenced 16/9 We recommend to our customers that the knock down should only occur once the building permit has been received. Until this milestone is reached it could be premature to knock down a home prior. The knock down part of the project is outside the contract agreement between Metricon and our customer. The demolition is solely managed by our customers. The site was completely cleared by 1st July, which was great, and we were now in a position for all the foundations work to commence. Metricon instructed independent geotechnical engineers to access the site and provide us with a report that details the soil matter and a survey of the block. Both critical milestones that need to occur when preparing to construct a home. The survey informs us of the fall of the land, property boundaries, and physical features like roads or creeks nearby as well as the proximity of the adjoining neighbouring properties. Both these reports were returned by 24/7/13. On receipt of these reports, we were then in a position to draw your final plans. This occurred by 12/8/13. We received your finance approval on 13/8/13. In good faith, Metricon continued to work on your whist you were undertaking your finance particulars. Meeting the finance requirement is at the onus of the customer and as per clause 13 of the contract. As soon as the final plans were drawn, your proposed home siting along with the soil and survey reports were sent to the independent engineers to finalise the slab design. The engineering was returned on 14/8/13. The finalisation of your project ensuring all was in order was occurring in the background with Metricon sending you an Authority to Commence variation on 23/8/13. This variation was promptly signed and returned and we were in a position to move your project into the ordering team. The ordering of an entire project is a complex task. Your project being quite a large one with many items, does take time. During this time, your site manager is allocated and he reviews your project and meets with the ordering team to ensure ample material is ordered for each item. This is also an opportunity for the site manager to ask any questions in relation to the items within the contract. We issued the relevant purchase orders to the trades and received communication regarding start dates. We then commenced construction on 16th September. I hope the above clearly articulates the process that occurred from demolition to site start. In particular the milestones reached for your project. We find once there is some content placed around the milestones and the dates, it helps our customers understand the requirements of their project. We understand your parents were kept up to date with phone calls and e-mails and we even met at head office to explain the above. If there is something you wish to discuss further, please don’t hesitate to contact us at cusotmercare@metricon.com.au In summary, we hope you can see that the knock down re-build process is complex and it’s not a process where you can cut corners. We are well and truly underway now and we look forward to completing your home as soon as viably possible! We wish you all the very best with your new home and if there is something we can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to contact your site manager, your building support co-ordinator or the customer care line. We will continue to make ourselves available and assist you in any way we can. Kind regards Metricon Customer Care Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 12Sep 21, 2013 3:44 pm Team Metricon In summary, we hope you can see that the knock down re-build process is complex and it’s not a process where you can cut corners. We are well and truly underway now and we look forward to completing your home as soon as viably possible! In fairness to the OP, yes it's complex, but if it took you two and a half months to start on site after demolition was completed, you may want to consider looking at how you can streamline your processes. I'm doing a large project, KDR, and have complications of restricted access and a sloping block, and yet my builder managed to get started on site a month after demolition was completed - and that's including the Christmas construction close down period in the middle of that month... As an example, you have 3 weeks blown in "completing plans" after another survey completed post demolition. Any differences between the site from plans prepared from your original survey prior to demolition and then after demolition would be minimal (correcting spot levels and site contours, correcting ground level on elevations etc) and the engineering side should just be verifying the soil classification is still the same, and again minor amendments to the eng drawings. All in all, a couple of hours work for a decent draftie. I can see a lot of stretches of delays in your timeline that could easily be shortened. The "but it's complicated" line is just smoke and mirrors for delays in your administration side that could easily be tightened up. Anyway - to the OP - good luck and I hope it's all smooth sailing from here on in! Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 13Sep 24, 2013 10:52 pm Thanks heaps Bluesuede for your input! It's great to hear from someone else who understands the technical part of all this and to know that we aren't the only ones who thought that the whole process took way too long! Really, I still think that 5.5 months from signing the contract and 2.5 months from demolition is a bit too much. Also, to clarify with the finance document, we had provided a bank statement but that was not sufficient evidence and so we had to go back and get something else from the bank. Our consultant never communicated to us that this was such an urgent issue. Are you saying M, that this piece of finance evidence slowed down our project??? Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 15Sep 25, 2013 3:51 pm Bluesuede Team Metricon In summary, we hope you can see that the knock down re-build process is complex and it’s not a process where you can cut corners. We are well and truly underway now and we look forward to completing your home as soon as viably possible! In fairness to the OP, yes it's complex, but if it took you two and a half months to start on site after demolition was completed, you may want to consider looking at how you can streamline your processes. I'm doing a large project, KDR, and have complications of restricted access and a sloping block, and yet my builder managed to get started on site a month after demolition was completed - and that's including the Christmas construction close down period in the middle of that month... As an example, you have 3 weeks blown in "completing plans" after another survey completed post demolition. Any differences between the site from plans prepared from your original survey prior to demolition and then after demolition would be minimal (correcting spot levels and site contours, correcting ground level on elevations etc) and the engineering side should just be verifying the soil classification is still the same, and again minor amendments to the eng drawings. All in all, a couple of hours work for a decent draftie. I can see a lot of stretches of delays in your timeline that could easily be shortened. The "but it's complicated" line is just smoke and mirrors for delays in your administration side that could easily be tightened up. Anyway - to the OP - good luck and I hope it's all smooth sailing from here on in! Hi Bluesuede, Thanks for your comments. I think it’s important to re-iterate the Finance requirements. Perhaps this wasn't articulated clearly enough in the previous response. Until satisfactory evidence of funds is received, we cannot move forward to ordering materials. Metricon will not take the risk of ordering materials for a project that hasn't had the finance approved. Therefore, when looking at the overall timeframe for construction to commence, to be fair, please review the period from finance received to construction commencement. This equates to approx 1 month. Until all our customers satisfy their obligations under the contract (which finance falls within), Metricon are merely not in a position to be able to work full steam ahead on that particular project. As far as the bigger picture goes, Metricon are currently reviewing our ordering process with the objective of bringing in our timeframes and as you suggested streamline this process, which will be great! We wish you all the very best of luck with your project. Kind regards Metricon Customer Care Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 16Sep 29, 2013 11:40 pm O team M, why was the finance requirement not brought to our attention earlier? We received an email on 20 June that the bank statement provided did not meet M's requirement and then no mention of this matter for 1.5 months after that! In all our emails/phone calls with the consultant and even with his manager, nothing was said about this finance requirement and the need to get it to M ASAP. Only when we met up in our face-to-face meeting on 6 August did our consultant bring up the finance requirement and even then, he didn't stress that it was URGENT! Mind you, we asked for that meeting because we were not getting anywhere and everything was going so slowly. If we hadn't asked for that meeting, we'd probably still be in the dark with regards to this all-important document. If we had known that this would caused our home to be delayed, we would have expressed post/couriered for signatures overseas (or do something!) in June instead of waiting for the other owners to come back to Australia in August. Whilst I acknowledge that the onus is on us the owners, I have to say we don't fully understand all the requirements (and there is a lot!) and its order of importance. I guess it was silly and naive of us not to know that $$$ would be of utmost importance here. Still, a reminder from M would have been greatly appreciated. So, now we know what the delay was all about and could have done something about it, but we were allowed to wander blindly by ourselves, oblivious to our mistake and received no reminder/assistance because "the onus is on the owner." Sigh! Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 17Oct 01, 2013 10:28 am zebulun11 O team M, why was the finance requirement not brought to our attention earlier? We received an email on 20 June that the bank statement provided did not meet M's requirement and then no mention of this matter for 1.5 months after that! In all our emails/phone calls with the consultant and even with his manager, nothing was said about this finance requirement and the need to get it to M ASAP. Only when we met up in our face-to-face meeting on 6 August did our consultant bring up the finance requirement and even then, he didn't stress that it was URGENT! Mind you, we asked for that meeting because we were not getting anywhere and everything was going so slowly. If we hadn't asked for that meeting, we'd probably still be in the dark with regards to this all-important document. If we had known that this would caused our home to be delayed, we would have expressed post/couriered for signatures overseas (or do something!) in June instead of waiting for the other owners to come back to Australia in August. Whilst I acknowledge that the onus is on us the owners, I have to say we don't fully understand all the requirements (and there is a lot!) and its order of importance. I guess it was silly and naive of us not to know that $$$ would be of utmost importance here. Still, a reminder from M would have been greatly appreciated. So, now we know what the delay was all about and could have done something about it, but we were allowed to wander blindly by ourselves, oblivious to our mistake and received no reminder/assistance because "the onus is on the owner." Sigh! Dear Zebulun11 The finance requirement is certainly bought to the attention of all our customers. It is a major milestone in the overall process and it’s important our customer understands the significance. Finance is a requirement of the essential information clause, which is thoroughly discussed during the contract signing appointments as all items in this clause must be met prior to commencing on site. We endeavour to manage all owners through these requirements each as important as the last. In this instance we requested further information from you regarding finance on 20th June, while we continued on other important administration matters. It was assumed on receipt of this e-mail explaining why the finance was not satisfactory, that attention to facilitate correction of the matter would follow. As you can see in our aforementioned timeline the finance was not the overall reason for delay, in fact we honoured your commitment with Metricon and proceeded with all administration in good faith you’ll provide the necessary requirements. We, more than anyone else, know and understand that we deal with customers who need guidance and assistance. We hold their hand and help them along in any way we can. Our business doesn’t start to be financially rewarded until the home is completed. It’s within our vested interest just as much, to be in a position to commence building your home. There may be some conflicting information between the discussion with the owners listed on the contract and what has subsequently been communicated to yourself, however as we have total control over the building I’m sure the previous frustrations will quickly be forgotten. This is our final post about this particular matter, however, if you would like to discuss it further, please feel free to contact us at cusotmercare@metricon.com.au Kind Regards Metricon Customer Care Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 18Oct 01, 2013 10:40 am Team Metricon, can I just say that your responses above make me so glad we did not go with the Big M. Good luck zebulun11, I hope you get a wonderful house and that you are not too stressed through the actual build process. Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 19Oct 07, 2013 11:35 am Thanks Back Pocket! Yes, hopefully we'll get a good quality home at the end of the day and that all the waiting and the so-called miscommunication will all "pale" in comparison. Would be nice if M would recompense us somehow but I guess it's too much to ask - us being the little people, and them being the "Big M" as you put it :O( Back Pocket, who did you end up building with? Going good so far? We've met out site supervisor and he seems really nice and efficient too. Fingers cross! Will be posting to keep everyone who is interested updated Re: Building the Duxton with Metricon in Melbourne 20Oct 07, 2013 1:35 pm We are building with PD, and yes we have had some issues. We are all human and make mistakes, it's just how you deal with those mistakes that make the difference. Our house is going really well, week 9 of the build and they are 1/2 way through the bricking. Pretty happy Glad you are getting on with your SS, I hope admin does pale into insignificance for you. Good luck! 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