Building with Metricon

That's absolutely fantastic ,glad that someone made them honest,what is hard to believe is what volume builders can legally get away with,in the retail world,I can't show a customer product a ,and promise it can wash and easy iron etc then if customer comes back,two months later with no more proof than their word,I have to replace with like for like or refund or store credit, customer chooses,but in our building world with our biggest ever purchase,they can legally show product a,and deliver product h,with unsightly plastering,bad bricking, poor painting etc,and if within tolerance ,their home free,so unfair border line corrupt,I on my build would buy all the sand,cement etc so it was exactly the same for all 40000 bricks,had a Bricky that was fussy so went well and he knew I was fussy as well.

Based on my recent experience and what I have learnt from others, I believe Metricon is significantly mis-representing at the point of sale the product that they actually deliver. Their behaviour is not isolated or random, it is considered and systemic to the organisation. They are not resourced effectively, nor do they have a suitably robust process to properly plan projects then manage and supervise contractors on a build to deliver the quality assurance that they heavily promote in their literature, online media (example attached), display homes, and through personal selling. Customers are basing their decisions to sign up for $500,000 home contracts based on Metricon's representations of quality assurance. When this quality assurance is not delivered it can result in significant financial damage and family stress for many customers. For more details about the legal framework for this concern please check out https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/misle ... ing-claims

They break just about all those laws on one hand,but are protected by tolerance laws on the other hand,being within tolerance can mean most your house is visibly poor quality such as you can't turn on a light when looking at your plaster for faults,it's accepted if it looks ok in daylights but you can see poor joints at night with the light on, this alone is a contradiction of law,as displayed they use to sell all their homes have perfect plastering which your entitled by law to get as this is why you went this builder,but just about everyone working for them would know your chance of getting a display build is almost non existent but still they are allowed to get away with deceptive selling practices.

Where abouts have you built

Melbourne

The expectation to be delivered a house built to the same quality as the display home in enshrined in law and has been confirmed in real cases.

The V-CAT case linked below concerns another builder but the display home benchmark was referred to during proceedings.

EDIT: Link not working...looking at the problem.

Pasting Clarendon Homes Vic Pty Ltd v Zalega (Domestic Building) [2010] VCAT 1202 into the web search bar will bring up a link to the Boston Group. Clicking that will bring up a pdf of the V-CAT proceedings. Will work on a better solution.

EDIT: LINK BELOW WORKING.

http://www.bostongrp.com.au/documents/c ... _%5B20.pdf


Although the owner's action was a very serious and stressful matter, reading the proceedings becomes almost comical during the V-CAT member's summaries of the builder's 'expert' witness who attempted to defend the workmanship. If I hadn't read the document, I probably would not have believed it if told which is why I took the step to save it.

I particularly liked the references to the Building Surveyor (BS is such an appropriate acronym) and how they work in Victoria. Unfortunately, not much has changed

Link isn't working...

Link now works. Display home differences start at point 86 but there are other references throughout.

http://www.bostongrp.com.au/documents/c ... _%5B20.pdf

Very interesting read thanks for posting

Do you know what kind of damages they got?

No unfortunately. I found it some time ago on the Boston Group's website bostongrp.com and while I have wanted to find out the damages judgement, I have been unable to.

The Boston Group have a number of interesting cases on their website, just hover on the E Tool Box on their menu and a pop up box appears that shows two selections, V CAT & Court Decisions being one. Just click on it and an alphabetical list of cases comes up. Scroll down to Clarendon and you will have the one I linked.

This particular one was amazing to read and Clarendon's expert witness left me in stitches time and time again.

Agree the builders so called expert made him self look very silly at times,
It has similarities with site meetings I have had during my build !

Hmm very hard to judge your overall brick work without been there at that time.

But looking at some of your photos do u think u shot yourself on the foot and incurred the 85k losses for been too picky?


In the last 6 mths when I started my build I start to walk around and look at new houses been build even those by expensive volume builders I really can't see their brick work is any better than volume builder and in some cases the volume builders brick work is even better.

The trend these days is are to render the Façade or majority of it.

Since brick work will always have imperfections due to the nature or the work to produce it.

Agree, that's a very interesting read.
I think it is a situation that many (or most) volume builder customers find themselves in. The house is complete, however there are defects that are at a stalemate. You are tired of the building process, paying rent to live in a dogbox, the kids are sick of sharing a room and everyone is getting on each other's nerves, everyone just wants to move in and get on with their lives.
You don't have the energy to continue disputing and dragging it out.... so just accept it.

Also I reckon every fix there is a 90% chance they introduce imperfections.

On an extreme case like mine.
I got cheesed off when my mortar patching wasn't using the off white mortar.

How stupid can u be?clearly in this case care factor is zero.

A clown would know that the mortar is off white and why u patch it with grey mortar.

Lucky it was just a few small patch.

I got upset with my ss and he got upset with me. Lol

And another friend with a small builder. They deliver 2 batches of different sand. So his brickwork now has 2 different tones of mortar color. But that doesn't bother him and he accept his SS explanations. Crazy.

Metricons own brickwork report prepared by the building manager said it was one of the worst brickwork Jobs he had seen! This was confirmed by the NSW department of fair trading and 2 independent inspectors. This was in addition to slab not level, frame not straight, major variations to plan, non compliant roof plumbing, gyprock terrible, mould....these were common defects on many other Metricon homes based on my conversations with about 10 other customers last year. Metricons tactic is to delay the jobs of their customers that insist on the quality that they have paid for, and are entitled too. Metricon knows the delays will cost their customers $1,500 per week so they leverage this advantage to pressure them to give in and just accept poor workmanship.

hey guys, those who built a designer spec house, just wondering how much you spent on upgrades once you signed a contract with M? We have a quote that includes some things, but know we will probably want to change a bit once it comes time to go through the finer details, so just wondering what kind of $ others have spent in total?

Buddy

Great photos of your brickwork and I love the high tech equipment!

I would be really interested to see more photos if you can post more. In particular I assume you have checked all your expansion joints comply with the Aus Standards and I also want to see how they have finished the brickwork in corners like your alfresco and porch etc

Also, what termite treatment did they use, ie if Kordon is it exposed properly around the perimeter?

cheers

Simon

Hi, we are building the Nolan 50 that came to a 60 with extensions. We also had a custom facade and our extras came in at 200k. Mind you that incorperated butlers pantry, full laundry cabinetry, 5 bathrooms with tiles to ceilings, sunken home theatre, top of the range sinks taps, fireplace, upgraded electricals (20k), 27k staircase, ceiling heights, wooden features, 1.2m floor tiles, balcony, colourblind roof and plenty more. We are very happy with the extras even though it cost an arm and a leg but I found them pretty good with pricing

I found directly hiring Bricky and plasterer from my project managers guys that they did a better job,as it was their responsibility to warranty their own work,I asked them if I had booked you both through your employer , would you take as much care, both said not quite as much care would be taken as warranty would fall on their much bigger employers,also got 25-30% better price this way with a better job done,so one of the volume problems boils down to supervision and trades knowing they can get away with lower standard work.