Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 101Nov 28, 2015 6:05 am Wow no the only person we've had look at our place is my father in law who is an unlicensed builder... I say this because in our motherland country he has built houses for our families. All I could see was his nodding of the head and saying things like "steel beam good" and "Good. service going through here" he thought our second storey was going to be fibro lol so his excitement seeing the second storey bricks was good to see as well. We had wood beams to hold up steel beams but they were temporary awaiting delivery of beams. Hubby has measured up the house and did find everything ok. I can't wait till we get our roof on. We are up to second storey for bricks will post pics later on. Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 102Nov 28, 2015 1:46 pm Thats good Teehkei... My cuz is a tradie, he went over mine.. Dont get me wrong everything pointed out is getting fixed or looked at sooo cant complain. My ss from Fowler homes has been great. Btw I went with ironed look and thank God I did it does look much better than flush mortar. Up to your roofing thats cool. We got the scaffolding up on friday, hopefully finish second storey this week then roofing as well just before christmas holidays Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 104Nov 28, 2015 10:29 pm BL35ED Thats good Teehkei... My cuz is a tradie, he went over mine.. Dont get me wrong everything pointed out is getting fixed or looked at sooo cant complain. My ss from Fowler homes has been great. Btw I went with ironed look and thank God I did it does look much better than flush mortar. Up to your roofing thats cool. We got the scaffolding up on friday, hopefully finish second storey this week then roofing as well just before christmas holidays Glad you like the raked look. I'm still getting over my tiff but do admit it does look better lol. My partner keeps telling me our ss was doing it for the right reasons lol... I hope so Hahahaha Is flushed more messy? I think we have flushed on our current house at the moment. And it's very messy. So funny you don't realise a lot of house features until you build Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 105Nov 30, 2015 11:04 pm Hello all! It's been lovely to see the progress on the builds, it's been awhile since I've been on as I got to the point where I just wanted to forget we were building a house. Anyways we are now up to our third contract and trying to get fowler and the bank to see eye to eye on the progress payments. Looking for late jan start now. Keep posting the pics, it's lovely to see ourfowlerbuildbingara.blogspot.com Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 106Dec 03, 2015 8:50 pm Hi lovely people. It's been so long since I've logged in - sorry! It's so exciting to see your builds progressing. Congratulations and thank you for sharing. We're at lock up and somehow (surely it will take a miracle!!) they reckon we'll have the keys for Christmas day. The blog is relatively up to date, because, unfortunately, despite all the talk of the big rush, we had only 1-2 days of trades on site each week for the last 3 weeks! The bathrooms are tiled, the kitchen and vanities are in (not as impressive as it sounds, they only take a day to install - pretty impressive). Gyprocking took a week, but then it's been 3 weeks of ripping out ans redoing. Next is painting - curiously they do a paint over the crummy gyprock to highlightt he defects then drag the gyprockers back in to rectify! The biggest hold up for us has been waiting on the carpentry team - there is just not enough of these guys to go around and of course Fowler has promised heaps of builds they will be framed or in by Christmas. But, tonight. a big breakthrough with the Famous Frank of Fowler coming on site to check in on it all. Fortunately, I happeneded to be passing by the site and took the chance to introduce myself (aka, hang around like a bad smell until we were sure he was across every square inch of our site!). I was so impressed with his ability to command the crew and get results. Countless calls making bookings for this and that, even called the carpenters to our site at 6pm to rip out and replace a wall he wasnt happy with. It was an absolute delight to watch. No negative reflection on my SS in this, of course, as Scott has been a total wonder - such a commonsense, approachable and accomodating guy. More details on the blog. A few things I wished I had known earlier, in case they are of any use to you: 1. In answer to the question about checking frames. We did it with Tyrrells as an indpendent inspector and it was money very well spent. Wished we had walked through and checked more closely. One window put in was the wrong size and now they dont match. That'll bug me for the next 30 years! 2. Get on site every day and keep your trades hydrated (it gives you a chance to compliment their work, and keeps them accountable to keep it up). I'm at site everyday, sometimes more than once. It's exhausting, but it's helped that I am keeping the SS posted on what is happening to speed up the scheduling as I am there more than he is. 3. Start thinking about your room layouts, furniture and styling. Furniture may need ordering up to 3 months prior. You also need to know lounge layouts etc for where to place your tv cabling electricals etc. I wish I had been sourcing furniture all along rather than a rush at the end when we are so busy and stressed, it's meant to be fun! 4. Be on site on key days, especially electrical rough in. Make relationships with the trades and if they are willing, ask them to do extra work and bill you directly. By doing this, we got the wardrobe layout we actually wanted (rather than installing the stock standard and ripping it out to get it as we wanted), will have our lighting fully installed including fans and pendants, a baby gate for the stairs, extra cupboards etc. It may not be the cheapest of 3 quotes, but at least we avoid a variation fee, it's super convenient and will enable us to move right in. Weighing up the extra weeks of rent/mortgage while you wait to do those things, it might just be worth it. 5. Can I do it prior? You never know unless you ask. Our SS is a whole world of awesome for letting us have site access on the weekends, but for us, getting lawn down so the kids can play not just have a mud puddle means so much. Will update the blog as we get closer... 20 days to go if they are right about their timeline! Re: Runcorn St, St Johns Park - Fowler - Kingston 34 107Dec 03, 2015 9:15 pm Fowler first-timers Groovycookie - we had exactly the same experience!! Got a letter from Fowler saying we were now dealing with Cathie... Natasha has gone. UN-BE-LIEVABLE. Just PM'ed you to say thanks for the electrical price list btw! sorry for the delay! We are now 10 months in and not even at final plans stage. And Cathie wants to charge us a $500 tender variation fee to put an extra window in. you can probably guess my response. Experience at Abruzzo tiles was appalling, and I am ready to stab George from Carpet Call. Extras bill currently in excess of $30k. Excluding downstairs flooring. Say no more. Other than that I am perfectly calm, not at all stressed or anything... can you tell????? Threegreenpeas - is everything ok? I've been stalking your blog but there's been no update for weeks. Do hope all is ok in your neck of the woods. teehkei314 - OMG you have a slab!!!! AMAZING! there is hope that things actually happen around here... Right - enough thinking about the house that will never happen and back to work. Look forward to more updates! Fowler First timers - will be following your progress to see how you've adapted the Monte Carlo 41 (as it's what we have done too). We're loving the flow of it, especially the double storey entry now the scaffolding is down. The kids 3 way bathroom is fabulous and the living spaces work really well. Where are you guys up to now, a while back since last post? My blog is pretty much up to date now so apologies for the slow updates. I hear you on the extras (and the downstairs flooring!!! Ours go down in 10 days and I just paid the balance fo $20k and I had to do some serious deep breathing to hit transfer funds! Argh!). If you can think really thoroughly about your variations, they let us bundle a few into one variation, so that helped me stomach the $500 fee. Remember, after your final plans, they are $1000 variaiion fee - ouch! I have tried to work direct with trades for extras rather than running variations - added several items at eectrical rough in and they just billed me directly. Very good of them Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 108Dec 08, 2015 8:24 pm teehkei314 End of week. Hey so our site manager Steve has been nice to advise us when our plumbing was done that our hot and cold water connections outside could not be placed on the inner corner of the sliding door as it was to narrow so we moved it to next to the gas fitting. ((I reckon it's because they forgot to put the drain in the slab) oh well I get it not everyone gets hot and cold water to alfresco) he also called me this week saying that he noticed we chose flush mortar as supposed to raked or ironed joints (the part between the bricks) apparently they stopped flush joints over a year ago. So we got ironed. Ummm has anyone had something like this come up? Lol coz I didn't know it was a crime to get your personal preference? He also said iron looks better than flush?! That's him but that ain't me! I was just ** that he didn't want to do flush as asked!! So I told hubby and from now on Steve is dealing with him because he made me upset with wanting to change this. I chose flushed for a reason I researched it and I chose it!! This guy better not ask to change something else I will just lose it! #rant for the week So I just received email from Fowler employee Jenny to remove our site supervisors last name from blog. Nice to know they are keeping in touch with our Blog!!! And nice to know they take our feedback very seriously. You know what's funny I mention everyone's last name that I've dealt with on here. Starting from my very first post. but I think it's coz I wasn't talking **** about them!! Whatever but I took it off. Hopefully our site supervisor can get our roof up by Friday. Received roof tile delivery yesterday and got gutters up. Today not sure what happened. 36 weeks = April I just want to let my fowler building families know I'm 100% about the people I don't hide anything and I will let you all know how things are going with our build bad or good! Hopefully more the latter!! This is the intention of the blog as there aren't many fowler blogs! Only endless negative reviews about fowler homes! Xx Teleo Tovio Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Teleo Tovio Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 109Dec 08, 2015 8:53 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Top floor gutter up / Roof tile delivery No work today which was a shame for a lovely day!! You know when it rains it's understandable and they can call me saying you know the rain it's been going all week and I'm like yeah it's ok can't help the weather but then when odd dry days two last week and one today when nothing is done it's frustrating!!!! Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 110Dec 09, 2015 8:05 am Been following for a while teekhei, if you want to have a look at mine....here it is viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81076&p=1479150&hilit=monaco#p1479150 Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 111Dec 09, 2015 8:39 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We have Radium Flat Profile Roof Tiles up!! Too bad it was the hottest day for the roofers they will finish up tomorrow. Wonder when eaves will be done? Happy with the tile choice though Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 112Dec 09, 2015 8:40 pm BL35ED Been following for a while teekhei, if you want to have a look at mine....here it is viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81076&p=1479150&hilit=monaco#p1479150 Great will def follow!! All the best Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 113Dec 10, 2015 7:56 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Just loving my tile choice!!! Radium not tungsten!! Can't wait till they clean the bricks so I can admire both my choices together Hahahaha!! Chiffon not brown!! -.- We also got delivery of our cladding. Hate cladding but whatever.... -.- just hope they get the eaves done and painted too Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 115Dec 11, 2015 2:54 pm No. No issues with brickwork. Everything going allgood. Heard they might clean it soon. Our eaves got done today though. Boys did a great job before the heat kicked in. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Teleo Tovio Re: Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 116Dec 11, 2015 9:43 pm Groovycookie Hello all! It's been lovely to see the progress on the builds, it's been awhile since I've been on as I got to the point where I just wanted to forget we were building a house. Anyways we are now up to our third contract and trying to get fowler and the bank to see eye to eye on the progress payments. Looking for late jan start now. Keep posting the pics, it's lovely to see It's so good to hear from yous!!! I was hoping we all start at around he same time to help each other out hope Jan comes quick for you!! X Teleo Tovio Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 117Dec 11, 2015 9:49 pm Threegreenpeas Hi lovely people. It's been so long since I've logged in - sorry! It's so exciting to see your builds progressing. Congratulations and thank you for sharing. We're at lock up and somehow (surely it will take a miracle!!) they reckon we'll have the keys for Christmas day. The blog is relatively up to date, because, unfortunately, despite all the talk of the big rush, we had only 1-2 days of trades on site each week for the last 3 weeks! The bathrooms are tiled, the kitchen and vanities are in (not as impressive as it sounds, they only take a day to install - pretty impressive). Gyprocking took a week, but then it's been 3 weeks of ripping out ans redoing. Next is painting - curiously they do a paint over the crummy gyprock to highlightt he defects then drag the gyprockers back in to rectify! The biggest hold up for us has been waiting on the carpentry team - there is just not enough of these guys to go around and of course Fowler has promised heaps of builds they will be framed or in by Christmas. But, tonight. a big breakthrough with the Famous Frank of Fowler coming on site to check in on it all. Fortunately, I happeneded to be passing by the site and took the chance to introduce myself (aka, hang around like a bad smell until we were sure he was across every square inch of our site!). I was so impressed with his ability to command the crew and get results. Countless calls making bookings for this and that, even called the carpenters to our site at 6pm to rip out and replace a wall he wasnt happy with. It was an absolute delight to watch. No negative reflection on my SS in this, of course, as Scott has been a total wonder - such a commonsense, approachable and accomodating guy. More details on the blog. A few things I wished I had known earlier, in case they are of any use to you: 1. In answer to the question about checking frames. We did it with Tyrrells as an indpendent inspector and it was money very well spent. Wished we had walked through and checked more closely. One window put in was the wrong size and now they dont match. That'll bug me for the next 30 years! 2. Get on site every day and keep your trades hydrated (it gives you a chance to compliment their work, and keeps them accountable to keep it up). I'm at site everyday, sometimes more than once. It's exhausting, but it's helped that I am keeping the SS posted on what is happening to speed up the scheduling as I am there more than he is. 3. Start thinking about your room layouts, furniture and styling. Furniture may need ordering up to 3 months prior. You also need to know lounge layouts etc for where to place your tv cabling electricals etc. I wish I had been sourcing furniture all along rather than a rush at the end when we are so busy and stressed, it's meant to be fun! 4. Be on site on key days, especially electrical rough in. Make relationships with the trades and if they are willing, ask them to do extra work and bill you directly. By doing this, we got the wardrobe layout we actually wanted (rather than installing the stock standard and ripping it out to get it as we wanted), will have our lighting fully installed including fans and pendants, a baby gate for the stairs, extra cupboards etc. It may not be the cheapest of 3 quotes, but at least we avoid a variation fee, it's super convenient and will enable us to move right in. Weighing up the extra weeks of rent/mortgage while you wait to do those things, it might just be worth it. 5. Can I do it prior? You never know unless you ask. Our SS is a whole world of awesome for letting us have site access on the weekends, but for us, getting lawn down so the kids can play not just have a mud puddle means so much. Will update the blog as we get closer... 20 days to go if they are right about their timeline! Glad you are at lock up!! We have been following you the whole way!! I hope yous get keys by xmas!! All the best!! Teleo Tovio Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 118Dec 15, 2015 2:37 pm 2 good days of no work nothing zilch again!! This Steve guy told me we will be doing the cleaning of the top half this week, moving scaffold down this week and painting of eaves,top floor drainage pipes, sealing of expansion gaps. Will see yeah how much gets done. Teleo Tovio Fowler Homes - Kingston 34 119Dec 23, 2015 5:00 pm Good news.. Everything managed to get done in Time before the break... Eaves painted, top level bricks washed, top level pipes in, top level pipes painted, expansion joints filled, scaffold down. Awesome! Loving my colour choices!! Bricks - Chiffon Mortar - Off White - Ironed Joints Gutters/Fascia - Night Sky Eaves - Crisp White Roof Tiles - Prestige Range - Smooth - Radium House looks so nice and big with our Kingston 34! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Teleo Tovio Re: Runcorn St, St Johns Park - Fowler - Kingston 34 120Jan 06, 2016 1:12 pm Threegreenpeas Fowler first-timers Groovycookie - we had exactly the same experience!! Got a letter from Fowler saying we were now dealing with Cathie... Natasha has gone. UN-BE-LIEVABLE. Just PM'ed you to say thanks for the electrical price list btw! sorry for the delay! We are now 10 months in and not even at final plans stage. And Cathie wants to charge us a $500 tender variation fee to put an extra window in. you can probably guess my response. Experience at Abruzzo tiles was appalling, and I am ready to stab George from Carpet Call. Extras bill currently in excess of $30k. Excluding downstairs flooring. Say no more. Other than that I am perfectly calm, not at all stressed or anything... can you tell????? Threegreenpeas - is everything ok? I've been stalking your blog but there's been no update for weeks. Do hope all is ok in your neck of the woods. teehkei314 - OMG you have a slab!!!! AMAZING! there is hope that things actually happen around here... Right - enough thinking about the house that will never happen and back to work. Look forward to more updates! Fowler First timers - will be following your progress to see how you've adapted the Monte Carlo 41 (as it's what we have done too). We're loving the flow of it, especially the double storey entry now the scaffolding is down. The kids 3 way bathroom is fabulous and the living spaces work really well. Where are you guys up to now, a while back since last post? My blog is pretty much up to date now so apologies for the slow updates. I hear you on the extras (and the downstairs flooring!!! Ours go down in 10 days and I just paid the balance fo $20k and I had to do some serious deep breathing to hit transfer funds! Argh!). If you can think really thoroughly about your variations, they let us bundle a few into one variation, so that helped me stomach the $500 fee. Remember, after your final plans, they are $1000 variaiion fee - ouch! I have tried to work direct with trades for extras rather than running variations - added several items at eectrical rough in and they just billed me directly. Very good of them Hi! Congratulations to all of you with proper looking houses!! Amazing to see! Sorry for the radio silence but I also had to follow the tact of pretending it wasn't actually happening as my patience levels were nearing full depletion... especially when we finally went to council and got "formally rejected" 4 weeks later... But we have re-submitted and are awaiting the results with baited breath... I have been trying forever to upload the plans for our "tweaked" house (Monte Carlo 41) - but I simply can't fathom how to do it from a laptop, sorry!! it just doesn't give me the option to "paste" an image. No doubt incompetent user error. Might try from the ipad one evening if I can summon the energy! Threegreenpeas - we have actually used the double story entry as a WIR in the master, which was probably not the best thing to do, but hopefully the shoe storage will make up for missing out on that feature! I've loved following your blog and treated myself to the Nov and Dec updates last night, now I am sort of allowing myself to get slightly excited that it might actually happen - but would LOVE to see the final finished article!!! Are you all moved in??? Your insights and ideas are really invaluable - thank you for taking the time to share them! I'm also now doubting all our colour selections and panicking about our potentially too brave choice of bricks (Silver mostly with chiffon porch, and monument as the accent colour for cladding and garage and front door - told you it was brave) - this is what happens when you have too much time to think!! Anyway - it is great to see those of you making progress and shows that there is hope!!! Please keep the updates and progress photos coming! 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 105129 Anyone built with Fowler Homes? Feedback? Especially any things concerning or negatives? Have heard some horror… 0 9220 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74218 |