Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 23, 2013 5:43 pm Hi all, a new member here. I think this is a good forum all sort of information and thought I'd share my building experience this time around. We are building Forrester 4300 with Burbank in South Morang. We started this project more than a year ago and in final stages now. Bad experience started even before we signed the contract and still continuing.
It is a constant straggle to get something done even to get a reply to an email. I can clearly say this is the worst customer service experience and most painful experience I ever had in my whole adult life. Incompetent, unprofessional and arrogant staffs in the Altona office are incomprehensible, who caused us lot of stress, pain and loss of money. To make things worst, Burbank doesn't give supervisors contact number to the customer. You have to contact administrator and ask them to get supervisor to call you and you have to wait for supervisor’s call. One of recent experiences are we requested 2 and 4 ceiling lights to different rooms hoping to change them in to LED down lights in future. When you request 4 ceiling lights for a rectangular room, from a professional builder like Burbank, any one will expect to have them evenly spread out with in the room as it is one of the basics of lighting. But that’s not the case here. If few centimeters off due to timber beams we can understand but it seems to be most of these are off by 30, 40 or 50 centimeters and even some of them off by nearly 1 meter which is clearly not acceptable. When we inquired this from our administrator, her arrogant reply was “Ceiling lights will not be moving. These have been installed as per the drawings.” These are her exact words, I have it in writing. Can you believe it? Yes, we signed for these drawings but it is impossible to see whether lights are spared out evenly or not by looking at drawings drawn to 100:1 scale and printed on an A4 size paper. Further to this we don’t think these are even installed according to the drawings. Another recent one is, toilet in the powder room seems to be squashed between wall and the vanity and very little space there for someone to sit, and this seems to be not practical. Even our building supervisor agreed with this. He said he can move vanity few centimeters away easily. But our administrators’ reply in her exact words is “Toilet in the Power Room – No changes to the layout will occur. Toilet and Vanity to remain in current locations.” Instead of just saying ‘no changes’ now, as a professional builder we wish that they advised this at the drawings/planning stage. We regret every day that the decision we made to build with Burbank. Never going to recommend Burbank to any one and we’ll do everything we can to stop if some one we know is going to build with Burbank. As we are still dealing with this company, any tips, suggestions or advice from other members with similar experience with Burbank greatly appreciated. Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 2Sep 23, 2013 6:24 pm Hmmm. Hot on the heels of the post below. viewtopic.php?p=1076670#p1076670 Have you seen this site? http://www.bcra.asn.au/ This thread will get lost in this sub forum. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 3Sep 23, 2013 10:20 pm SaveH2O That's not a site I'd take seriously. No info as to who they are, appears to be something someone has thrown together in their spare time. I wouldn't be sending some faceless person who has given themselves an official sounding name anything, on the basis of a website with no information other than reposting some articles from newspapers and 3 or 4 stories about people who have had a bad experience. No evidence they've done anything for these people, no evidence of legal experience or qualifications, the "legal info" link on the site goes to a blank page. It has a "Today Tonight" tone about it with even less credibility than the show... Anyway... To the OP... if you are watching your thread, PM me, I may be able to help. Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 4Sep 25, 2013 5:31 pm SaveH2O Hmmm. Hot on the heels of the post below. viewtopic.php?p=1076670#p1076670 Have you seen this site? http://www.bcra.asn.au/ Hi SaveH2O, Thanks for the reply and the link to http://www.bcra.asn.au/. Agree with Bluesuede regarding the site up to a point but still think it is worth posting my story there. Regards, uk_aus Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 5Sep 25, 2013 5:40 pm Bluesuede That's not a site I'd take seriously. No info as to who they are, appears to be something someone has thrown together in their spare time. I wouldn't be sending some faceless person who has given themselves an official sounding name anything, on the basis of a website with no information other than reposting some articles from newspapers and 3 or 4 stories about people who have had a bad experience. No evidence they've done anything for these people, no evidence of legal experience or qualifications, the "legal info" link on the site goes to a blank page. It has a "Today Tonight" tone about it with even less credibility than the show... Anyway... To the OP... if you are watching your thread, PM me, I may be able to help. Hi Bluesuede, Thanks for the reply and offer. I’ll PM you. Regards, uk_aus Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 6Sep 27, 2013 11:35 pm uk_aus Thanks for the reply and the link to http://www.bcra.asn.au/. Agree with Bluesuede regarding the site up to a point but still think it is worth posting my story there. Sites like the one I linked are borne out of frustration with the lack of consumer protection. It is a new site with credible links and information and posting might vent your spleen and release some frustration but don't expect anything more. Your issues are more to do with customer service not addressing matters to your satisfaction. As previously posted, this thread will soon be lost in this sub forum on Homeone but I understand and feel your plight. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Building nightmare with Burbank - Forrester 4300 8Oct 21, 2013 10:17 am I don't tend to take no as an answer. If it is your house and you want it and it is physically possible it can be done. I know how much we are paying for it so I want it to be what we want. Is the issue that they won't change it for free? I accept any changes we make now will cost $$$$ but I still expect to be able to say hey that cant go there as it doesn't fit, raise a variation and tell me how much to change it. I thought that was how it worked. Hi All, Recently we have signed a contract with Burbank and we are not aware that they have just DORSET, SURREY, HAMPSHIRE, KENT, PILBARA and REDGUM bricks from PGH are… 0 3107 Thanks for your reply. I will just wait and see I guess. Trying to get some more information from our builder. 9 29918 |