2 Storey Home w Ultimate Homes / Peter Stannard

Hi

I commenced construction of a home with Ultimate Homes (though everyone I have dealt with is really an extension of Peter Stannard Homes) last year and wanted to know of other people's experience with this building company?

To date the quality of work and knowledge of staff has been great and was the initial reason why I signed up to build. However, since construction has started the communication (or lack thereof) and slow progress has caused frustration - I appreciate that every home is always going to seem to be going slow for the owner.

The only contact I have had from the builder has been when a variation from their end has been required. I had to call up myself for the first site meeting with builder and have not received a progress update at all in the 5 months that construction has been going on.

At the moment the second storey slab has been poured and bricks will be on site next week for the second storey - so while I have not been given any time frame at all I would expect we are well behind.

Keen to hear of anyone elses experiences with this builder (or as a comparison) another builder for a 2 storey home.

I looked at building with Ultimate homes but in the end decided to go with someone else, but I did keep an eye on a single storey that was going up near my block, it seemed to move fairly quickly.

We are building a 2 storey with another builder (my build thread is below) the communication is not what I thought would be the case but this seems to happen across the board with any building company, but we do get updated mostly every 2-3 weeks and if I ask a question it's answered within 24 hours. I would not accept no updates in 5 months that is not good enough! The builder contacted us to set up the plate high inspection.

It took us 4 months from slab down to our upper floor having walls (timber framed), we are happy with the timeline so far.

Hi

We built with another 2 storey builder (completed last year) but we didn't get updates from the builder except obviously a letter requesting money for the completion of the next stage. We didn't really need them though as we were in constant contact with the site supervisor (they provide you with his number) and we visited our site very regularly. Because of that we knew what was going on and was on top of everything especially when the wrong things were installed!

In regards to time frames we just rolled with whatever happened as we didn't want our house to be rushed and wanted particular tradies of theirs to do certain jobs. Our slab was poured June 2013 and the second slab was poured September 2013 and bricks started on the next storey October 2013.

Good luck with it all!

We've just had handover for our two story home built by Ultimate Homes. Our experience was mostly very good. The build quality was excellent and the site supervisor has high standards and so the home reflected this. The time frame was average ( about sixteen months including waiting three months for council approval, so actually thirteen months.) Every time frame they gave us was spot on. Not much communication at first, but they did respond when we sent emails. Our only gripe was some poor advice given at prestart re electricals which proved to be costly, but I know they've changed the process since then to correct this.

WE are building a 2 story with them right now and it's been nothing short of a nightmare from hell.

March 2013 - first contact with company
Dec 2013 - Passed by council
June 2014 - Bricks start
Feb 2015 - Bricks are finally finished
March - 2015 Roof stuff has been sitting there for nearly 4 weeks - They are blaming Bristile for not installing them.

I'm so furious - we were promised to be in 10 - 14 months after council approval - just at that now and no way could we move in. Its a 4 *2 with study - so not a palace !

How are you going now?????

Hi two-storeyPerthgirl

Have PSH given any indication of what went wrong with Bristile? We are just about signing up with PS to build a variant of Cape Mill and just wanted to ask these questions to the sales executive during negotiations rather than later. And who did you deal with in terms of sales?

Also would someone be able to sum up a trick sheet to beating them at Pre-start?

I asked a lot of questions to the sales people and they said "You can do that at Pre-start". I want to be forewarned about the traps in Prestart

Hafees

I don't have a trick sheet(good idea though) but Prestart was definitely the only weak link in our experience. I believe that they now organise a separate electrical appointment where you can discuss placement of outdoor lights in relation to down pipes, what needs to be done through the the company and what can be done afterwards by an electrician etc. Apart from the electrical issue, every choice we made was followed to the letter with no delays from any tradesman. The only exception was the colour of the laundry cabinet but we can live with that.

Thanks so much, Teaswizzler.
I was going to see the electrical contracting people separately anyway because I want to network cable the house
Did you change heights of large windows etc at prestart??? Is that something anyone is familiar with??

Yes 'you can do that at prestart' but you can also friggin quote it up for me now please is what I'd be saying haha if you leave it to prestart you have essentially signed the dotted line and given deposit already and they're not 'fighting for your business' anymore, I told my salesperson I wasn't signing until I had every upgrade quoted and then at prestart I just literally chose colours. that way you know what you're in for before you commit to anyone

If they want your business they'll do it for sure, I just made a dot point list of things I wanted prices on (stone tops/gloss cupboards/upgraded sinks/upgraded bath/rendering/painting) literally anything you want a price in just add it to one shopping list and give it to four builders ..... How else do you compare apples with apples

Thanks Mandy + Steve. We are still talking to the sales person and ironing out things. They friggin forgot to draw overhead cupboards when they quoted base house price and now we have been slapped with an additional $3500 in the review quote

Also guys just wanted to check with you. PSH and Webb& Browne Neaves are also quoting a turn key price. What should I be wary of in this?? And would there be any over heads? Just not sure whether to do those myself

Very interested in this thread as we are looking at a variant of the Cape Mill with PSH too. Would love to know what you are doing Vasqla.

We are doing something called the Landing. Attached is a preliminary plan of the GFloor. Let me know what you think.

Ah yes. Our potential salesperson has been pushing this one too. I like it. Absolutely love a mudroom.

Where are you building? We have just bought a house to knock over in Floreat.

We are in woodlands. Empty lot near Jackadder lake.
The landing is a slightly cheaper version as its rejigged version of Cape mill and Waterview

Who is your sales person?? Ours is Erin Edwards.

What is the cost of retaining wall. One company (PSH) quotes $12000 and another company has quoted $5500. Perplexed!!b

It will probably be Dean.

We had an appointment with Intelligent Homes which was an inclusion and you can upgrade this. Is this what you mean by network cabling?I don't think we changed any windows. A question re your floor plan, how wide is the laundry? We've recently moved out of a rental, very close to your block, by coincidence, and the laundry was so narrow I could hardly walk through with full basket of clothes. Not a very glamorous issue I admit, but we did add a little to the width of our UH house as a result.

Our laundry is almost 2 metres wide. But obviously the bench top impacts into it. What would your laundry be??
We are talking about the intelligent home package but prob an upgrade.
Did you get a seperate figure on your quote to say cabling to meet NBN requirement. One of the other companies quoted this ($1800). PSH told us that it's not required anymore and there is no need to upgrade to that. Did you get charged anything like that at Pre start??