Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 19, 2014 4:52 pm There don't seem to be too many Canberra specific threads on these forums, so for the benefit of anyone planning to build here I thought it might be helpful if we shared our experience of building a house in Canberra - specifically, with Blackett Homes. If anyone else has built with Blackett, and would like to contribute to the thread, feel free. I'll be adding to this in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks but for those who just want to know if they should build with Blackett or not I can recommend them without hesitation. We've been in our new home for just under two months and are very happy with the way things went. The build was quick, done to a high standard, and relatively stress free.
Sales and design They've got a display home in Wright and another in Googong. The Wright display home is new, and is a slightly modified version of their previous display in Wright, the Cambridge Alfresco 265. Like most display homes the fitout is very nice - a mix of standard inclusions and upgrades. Nice to not have the whole house upgraded so you can see a few of the standard fittings as well. Their sales manager we found to be very good. We were very wary first home buyers and took a long time to commit while we did the rounds of all the larger builders in Canberra. From our first visit to signing a contract took us about 4 months. During this time the sales manager kept a nice balance between keeping us interested and giving us some room to think. One thing they do a bit differently from a lot of other builders is give you a fixed price up front. We walked in one Saturday morning with our block specifications, picked a plan and a few upgrades, and two weeks later had a fully costed proposal. No money had changed hands at this point. If we'd made no changes, that was all the house would ever cost us to build. I thought that was pretty good. Other builders would only give us an estimate up front - for the final price we would have to pay a substantial deposit first, with no guarantee that the price that came back was going to be affordable for us. And having paid the deposit we'd be locked in. If you're on a modest budget and can't afford cost overruns, I can recommend the Blackett model. We found the price to be very competitive. That said, it went up considerably because we kept thinking of things to upgrade, but I don't think we're alone in this! Decking for the alfresco and entry instead of concrete, 40mm stone benchtops, high ceilings, rendered facade etc....the luxuries you could probably have lived without but add because you just can't help yourself! To Blackett's credit, they were very transparent about these costs and we always knew how much we were spending. In the end we didn't go with one of their standard designs and got the architect they use to design something for us. I think we had about seven cost proposals by the time we finalised the plans and inclusions we were after. If you do go down this road, be aware that it is considerably more difficult than going with a standard plan. We went into it a bit unprepared for the decisions we'd have to make and while it all worked out in the end, it was a bit more stressful (lots more opportunities for spousal arguments when everything has to be planned from scratch!) You have to be very good at visualizing what a plan is going to look like once completed. We went with a mix of render, brick and cladding across the front of the house but would probably drop the cladding if given our time again. Still, the end result was what we were after so can't complain! I'll update again soon. If anyone has any questions they'd like answered, happy to oblige! Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 2Jul 20, 2014 5:18 pm Inclusions Standard inclusions are pretty basic - what you would expect. Nothing flash, but not cheap and nasty either. They have a list of items but no photos, so you have to get on Google and look up "Standard doorknob X456V" etc to see what they look like. I guess not printing out lots of glossy brochures is one way of keeping costs down, but it does mean that you have to look everything up (or go through the display home thoroughly) to know what you want to upgrade and what you don't. The allowance for the kitchen was modest. If you want stone bench tops, soft close drawers etc, those are all upgrades. You let Blackett know what you want and they will estimate a cost for you. This becomes part of your kitchen allowance, so when you go and see the kitchen company they use later on you can change things around a bit if you suddenly decide you don't want the waterfall edges or whatever.If you go over your allowance you pay the kitchen company directly out of your own funds, so probably best if you overestimate what you want so it will go into the loan. If it comes under you get credit, which you can either use to lower the overall loan or spend on some other upgrade. They don't have upgrade packages like Rawson or Sekisui and the like. Mixed feelings about this. While you don't get that buzz from "Wow, look at all this great stuff we got for $2990", it does mean you can choose the upgrades you want rather than things you don't necessarily want like LED shower heads or fancy taps. I'm sure Sekisui and Rawson work on the basis that pretty much everyone is going to get the upgrade package anyway, so they just front-load a lot of the cost into the house price. That way you're paying full price, but feel like you're getting a bargain.That's my theory, anyway. In any case, the lure of the Upgrade Packages is hard to pass up.... The bathroom supplier is a big name in Canberra and quite expensive if you wander off the scheduled inclusions. They warned us about it so we were prepared, but still...not cheap. Fortunately the standard inclusions were fine - we upgraded the toilets only, and they credited us the amount for the standard toilets. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 3Aug 19, 2014 10:09 am Hi Shirokuma, great to get some info on the build process. We have just signed up and very excited and nervous. Did you get the standard Blanco kitchen appliances? Are you happy with them? Thanks Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 4Aug 20, 2014 11:10 am Great review Shirokuma. It is very useful to know about your experience. I have a friend that also used Blackett for his house in Forde. He cannot rave about them enough. The build with Blackett went smoothly for him with no major issues. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 5Aug 25, 2014 9:41 pm Hi Goog99 We went with the standard Blanco oven (60cm) and have found it really good so far. Some of the symbols on it are a bit hard to get used to at first, but if you read the instructions it (eventually!) becomes clear. We upgraded the cooktop to a Blanco 80cm Induction and are really happy with it. Amazing how quickly it heats things (we've never had one before but would definitely recommend it). It clicks a little bit every now and then, but apparently that's normal for induction cooktops. Because we upgraded the cooktop, we also upgraded the fan above it so it was the same size. We went with one of the built ins (another Blanco) rather than a large hood so it's essentially hidden from sight. It's externally ducted. Seems to work very well - at least my wife is happy with it and that's no mean feat! All in all we're happy with the Blanco products. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 6Aug 25, 2014 9:59 pm Communication Without a doubt, one of their strong points. All of my emails were answered quickly and professionally, and my phone calls answered straight away. If the person I wanted wasn't in they always called back within 24 hours. No question was too stupid, no amount of changes (and there were a few!) too much effort. And they were quick to get back to me with prices if we suddenly came up with some new idea for the house. Very reassuring. Build speed Excellent. They guarantee a 20 week build for single storey houses (with the usual allowances for weather etc). Ours was done in about 17 weeks. In fact, of the three neighbouring houses ours was the last to start, but the first to finish. It was very satisfying to move in before everyone else. They don't appear to rush things - just schedule their tradies very well. We visited our site about 3 times a week and nearly every time we were there something new had been done. There always seemed to be someone there doing something, which was certainly not the case with the houses nearby. Some of those would go a week or more before anything new appeared. So speed was, at least for us, another Blackett plus. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 7Sep 09, 2014 8:16 pm Build Quality On the whole, very good. A few mistakes were made during the build (a skylight was put in the wrong place and a feature niche missed on the first run) but these were quickly corrected when pointed out. I had to fix the toilet roll holders because someone had forgotten to adjust the screws properly, and an instruction booklet was left in the range hood (not a pretty sight once we noticed 2 months later!) The carpenters they used for our build were not quite up to scratch in a couple of place (I've since learned Blackett doesn't use them anymore) but again, any flaw was quickly fixed once it was pointed out. We were impressed on our initial walk-through as there was very little that needed touching up. During the 3 month maintenance period we noticed a few more things that needed adjusting (a couple of door stops that weren't lined up properly, an issue with one of the dimmer lights, and a couple of spots where the paint needed touching up and a couple of other things) but none of these were major, and I dare say to be expected when building a house. Handover A very happy moment at Blackett's offices receiving the keys. It all had a bit of a formal ceremony feel and they brought out a lovely welcome basket with champagne, chocolates and other goodies for us to take home. A nice touch. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 8Oct 18, 2014 9:47 pm Maintenance Going through the 3 month maintenance now. Nothing major to report. They've touched up the paint in a couple of areas and checked and fixed some minor issues with the LED dimmers. A few of the internal doors were also a bit noisy when the wind blew when closed, so the carpenter fixed those for us. Still a couple of outstanding issues to have fixed - will update when done. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 9Dec 10, 2014 7:53 pm Update Looks like they're pretty busy at the moment. Still a few things that need attending to. Happy to answer any queries anyone has regarding our experience with Blackett, or for people to add their own experiences. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 10Jan 21, 2015 1:27 pm They are VERY busy. They have been turning away potential work as they have lots of projects on the go at the moment. But you can always approach them to see if they can do a build for you. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 11Jan 22, 2015 8:42 pm Yep, BlackPearl, definitely seem pretty busy. Hopefully that won't affect their build quality as they may have to start using contractors they wouldn't ordinarily. As time has gone by I've started noticing more little things the carpenters they used didn't quite do as well as they might have - a couple of gaps where there shouldn't be gaps, a couple of the window sills not as smooth as they might be. Still, relatively minor. Now that we've moved into summer we've started getting flies buzzing around in the range hood. I guess they are coming in from the external outlet - not sure where that is but I imagine the roof. Maybe missing some mesh? I've asked them to take a look. We're officially outside the maintenance timeframe but given this is something you're only going to notice at particular times of the year, I think it's a reasonable expectation that they take a look. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 13Mar 10, 2015 3:43 pm Goog99 Hi Shirokuma, how is everything going a few months in? Can I ask, did you organise an I independant progress inspector or just go through the one Blackett uses? All went very well in the end. They were busy, so the maintenance schedule slipped a bit but they fixed all that they said they would. Not that there was much for them to fix. About 10 months in and there is nothing major to speak about. We just used their building inspector. We were getting a pretty good vibe throughout the build and just went with the flow! The only thing I would advise is make absolutely sure about the inclusions list. We had one thing on it that was a bit ambiguous, so something got installed one way when we wanted it another way. In the end it wasn't a big deal, but something that perhaps if I had my time again I would have made clearer at the start. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 15May 29, 2015 9:38 pm hi Shirokuma, we are in the process of choosing a builder for new build in canberra, do you mind posting approx cost per sqm blackett homes charged ? Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 16May 29, 2015 11:17 pm canberrauser hi Shirokuma, we are in the process of choosing a builder for new build in canberra, do you mind posting approx cost per sqm blackett homes charged ? A little hard to say because we specced the place up quite a bit. I think it was roughly $1600/m2 at the end. I had a spreadsheet at the time which compared similar sizes and inclusions between 8 builders. Blackett and Renaissance were the most competitive. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 17May 30, 2015 8:14 am Thank you so much , we would like do keep some of the items exclude out of the quote e.g kitchen, joinery, floor to non wet areas. Thinking of organising these ourselves, I know big builders don't like this, blackett said they won't allow other tradies into the site before hand over, did you do organise any work to be done yourself before the handover, any such experience with blackett. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 18May 30, 2015 4:38 pm canberrauser Thank you so much , we would like do keep some of the items exclude out of the quote e.g kitchen, joinery, floor to non wet areas. Thinking of organising these ourselves, I know big builders don't like this, blackett said they won't allow other tradies into the site before hand over, did you do organise any work to be done yourself before the handover, any such experience with blackett. They let us do our splashback through Masters (highly recommended by the way, very competitively priced and installed very well) but that was about it as far as non-Blackett tradies goes pre-handover. We had to wait till handover to get the flooring done. I can't see them letting you source your own kitchen - it's just too central to the overall build. When we built with them, they ran a very tight ship. There was always someone on site doing something (on weekdays, anyway) and I think letting other tradies in to do things risks upsetting their scheduling. They let us know weeks in advance when handover would be so we could organise the flooring to come in the day after - they kept to that timing, so it all went smoothly for us. Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 19May 30, 2015 5:49 pm Shirokuma canberrauser Thank you so much , we would like do keep some of the items exclude out of the quote e.g kitchen, joinery, floor to non wet areas. Thinking of organising these ourselves, I know big builders don't like this, blackett said they won't allow other tradies into the site before hand over, did you do organise any work to be done yourself before the handover, any such experience with blackett. They let us do our splashback through Masters (highly recommended by the way, very competitively priced and installed very well) but that was about it as far as non-Blackett tradies goes pre-handover. We had to wait till handover to get the flooring done. I can't see them letting you source your own kitchen - it's just too central to the overall build. When we built with them, they ran a very tight ship. There was always someone on site doing something (on weekdays, anyway) and I think letting other tradies in to do things risks upsetting their scheduling. They let us know weeks in advance when handover would be so we could organise the flooring to come in the day after - they kept to that timing, so it all went smoothly for us. Thanks, where did you build, is it two storey? How long was the build process Re: Building with Blackett Homes - Canberra 20May 31, 2015 2:02 am [/quote] Thanks, where did you build, is it two storey? How long was the build process[/quote] We built in Bonner. Single storey. We were in exactly 5 months after they started digging dirt. Wow I hadn't realised things had gotten that pricey in just a couple of years since I built, that is crazy with how much land is now costing if you aren't lucky enough to… 3 7093 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74700 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 105530 |