Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 21, 2016 10:30 am Hi everyone, this forum contains such a wealth of knowledge, experience and advice. We have used it consistently over the last few months and thought that it was about time that we contributed. Our first build is on a 752m2 block in the Sovereign Pocket Estate, Deebing Heights QLD. We are putting a 6x7m Titan shed up in the back left hand corner and by pushing the house as close as we can to the right hand side boundary, we should achieve 3m side access. Enough for a 4x4 and boat to get through to the shed. Retaining runs along the right hand boundary, so we do have some concerns about drainage and water coming from our neighbours. However, we have laid some ag pipe and river rock along the top to hopefully help with this. Our timeframe to date: Deposit on Land - 21 March 2016 Prelim Agreement Planbuild - 20 April 2016 Soil Test Results (H2 required) - 10 May 2016 Settlement - 27 May 2016 Preliminary Colour Selections Planbuild - 03 June 2016 We opted for the Exclusive Inclusions with Planbuild and to our benefit, they have changed a number of their products in the package during the negotiations. For example, they have gone from Technika appliances (which we were worried about) to Fisher and Paykel; using Fusion downlights (1 per room) instead of halagen globes/oyster lights; from 4 zone, 1 constant ducted aircon to the My Air 5 system. We modified the plans by moving the kitchen, family and dining around. We have also included a butlers pantry and changed the laundry. OUr changes meant that we could increase the size of our WIR and also include a large linen cupboard. Overall, our floor size increased by around 4.5 sqm. Our ensuite only had a 2m high wall separating the walk in shower, vanity and toilet - so we have taken this up to the ceiling. At the moment we are in constant contact with Planbuild to negotiate our final tender and hopefully will sign off on our contract next Tuesday. We have tried so hard not to forget something and to make sure that it is 100% correct before signing because we want to avoid any variations where possible. There isn't a lot of information on here from people who have built with Planbuild so we have our fingers crossed that this is a good thing!. Our modified plans Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The standard Pellegrino 2480 Plans Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 2Aug 12, 2016 12:16 pm A few mixed emotions today - our council approvals have started coming through but our bank valuation is about $10k lower than we need. I know that this might not seem like much, especially because I have read where some people have had their valuations come in $30 - $50k lower than they needed, but avoiding LMI was one of our key goals. Our Mortgage Broker has recommended that we pay the LMI because going to other banks will delay us further and there is no guarantee that the outcome will be anymore favourable. Not sure what to do, but I guess it can't hurt to try another couple of banks....... just means our dream of being in by Christmas is even less likely Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 3Sep 04, 2016 7:48 am How disappointing? How are you getting on? We looked at building the Pellegrino 5 years ago but went with the Coral homes stradbroke design. We have just bought an acre block and have been hit with LMI. Totally sucks Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 4Sep 06, 2016 4:24 pm We are still sitting in limbo land! Rather than pay the LMI we asked our broker to go to another bank for a valuation. It came in at contract price! We are now waiting to hear back from our bank to see if they will accept that valuation. It has taken ages because our broker was on leave for a week, then the bank business development manager was away for a few days and now the valuation team are sitting on it. If we go with the other bank we have to refinance our land loan and that process can take another 4 weeks Despite the hold up with the bank, we are still waiting on council approval. We had to go back to ask for a relaxation to allow us to put our shed 0.5m off the left boundary. It's so silly because Ipswich City Council requirements allow us to build to boundary but the Stockland ones don't. So frustrating! We have had to go back and forth with the builder a few times now to correct our final colour selections. We also had quite a few issues with our tile selections and Beaumonts. I think the builder should just handle our tile selections and not have us involved directly with Beaumonts at all. Every time there was an issue I had to go back to the builder, who went back to Beaumonts and then they came directly to us. We went around and around a few times because of this structure. Despite the delay and small errors that were in our selections, the builder has been really swift in fixing them up and we will be signing off on them in the next day - yay! We have given up the dream of being in by Christmas and right now - we would just like to get started lol Fingers crossed for our bank to accept the other valuation!! PS - The Stradbroke design looks really great! Are you building with them again? Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 5Sep 21, 2016 9:17 pm Hi TandL, I can fully empathize the pain you have gone through and hope that everything is smooth sailing for you now. Likewise, I am building with Planbuild and last week, I got a lower valuation of $40K from the bank and am currently in limbo as well. To add to the pain, Planbuild reminds me that the commencement date under the contract is due in 2 weeks and there would be penalty interest of 0.125% on contract price per day. That works out to be $350 per day which is ridiculous! I am wondering how did you manage to buy extra time with Planbuild and highly appreciate if you could enlighten me. Did you pay any penalties or interest to Planbuild? Whom in Planbuild did you approach or did you go to the owner? Thanks in advance! Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 6Oct 28, 2016 2:47 pm Hi My apologies for the delay in getting back to you - I don't get notifications and hadn't logged in for ages! How is everything going? We still haven't started construction but will hopefully kick off in the next week or so. I've been told that the site cleanup has been ordered. We gave them our authority to commence (finally) on 17 October. They haven't approached us about the penalty interest - maybe they are saving it as a surprise at the end . I'm not sure why but maybe because some of the delay with us getting council approval was because they had to relodge our application because the first one didn't have our shed in the right spot.... who knows. 40K under would have been really stressful - have you resolved it yet? Best of luck and I hope that since you wrote the post things have improved. L. First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 7Apr 06, 2017 9:57 pm It honestly feels like we have been building forever! Here's where we are at:
Deposit on Land - 21 March 2016 Prelim Agreement Planbuild - 20 April 2016 Soil Test Results (H2 required) - 10 May 2016 Settlement - 27 May 2016 Preliminary Colour Selections - 03 June 2016 Contract signing - 26 July 2016 Valuation from Westpac - 12 August 2016 Final Colour Selections - 06 September 2016 Unconditional Approval ANZ - 19 September 2016 Council Approval - 11 October 2016 Commencement - 09 November 2016 Earthworks Claim - 10 November 2016 Construction plans finalised (reissued a number of times due to issues) - 30 November 2016 Framework Claim - 12 December 2016 Enclosed Claim - 21 December 2016 Fixing Claim - 31 January 2017 Painting Claim - 10 February 2017 At this stage, we have been advised that PCI will be 20 April 2017. We are preparing ourselves for a long list of defects as the build has been frought with issues from the beginning. The issues involve poor communication internally with the builder and then with us, the site supervisor appears to be over-subscribed (14+ houses from Gold Coast through to Ipswich), new tradies to the builder not being adequately supervised and poor quality and workmanship from some of the tradies. We've had our gas initially installed on the wrong side of the house, a square set wall that wasn't straight, niches not initially at the correct height, incorrect sink and flooring in our butlers pantry, incorrect piers on our facade, our upgrade PGH cobalt bricks look terrible where the mortar has run down them and the list goes on. We raise our concerns of course but we keep getting told it will all be fixed up before handover. Of major concern is our tiling. The original tiler did a particularly crappy job and now we have a new tiler who has come in to rectify the problems. Basically, tiles are being ripped off the walls (along with plaster etc) and then replaced. But not all of them - only those that look particularly bad. So to date, we still have tiles that have been incorrectly cut, sharp edging on our nib wall in the main ensuite and niches and replacement tiling laid OVER the bad tiling at our entry way (another upgrade that looks worse than what it would if we'd just left it). We are particularly annoyed with our floor to ceiling tiles in our ensuite shower. We upgraded to these but the original tiler overlooked it on the plans (not sure how?!). Although, we shouldn't be surprised because he put our kitchen splashback tiles in the toilet! All of which was a complete surprise to our site supervisor (during one of only two site meetings that we've been allowed to have). So, he only took them to the standard height which means a short-cut tile at the bottom and then full tiles to the standard height. I am certain that they'll just wack another short tile at the top which will look ridiculous. We paid extra for this upgrade and I expected it to be done right the first time round. So, rant over. Building is certainly a stressful and emotional time. I really hope that our house reaches PCI and we don't have a long list of defects, but I won't hold my breath. We are engaging an independent inspector to conduct a handover inspection. After reading so many other posts on this forum, I know that we're not alone and that this appears to be the norm with some project builders. It's terrible. Having seen first hand all the errors and how it's all being covered up, it's little wonder that our home no longer feels like a brand new, dream home Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 8Apr 18, 2017 8:52 pm PCI has been confirmed for 20 April - not long now! I've been shopping for blinds today and managed to do our entire house with block out blinds for around $700. Thank you Spotlight and your 40% off! We decided to get an independent inspector for peace of mind. We chose a company that normally comes in to do a 'pre-handover' inspection. Basically, they come in after defects are finished and do their inspection. This would then cover off any new defects that may have occurred when other defects are fixed. However, our builder would only allow them access to the site on the actual day of PC. Communication between the site supervisor, the Planbuild office and ourselves is still an issue. All I can say is, make sure that you get everything in writing. We've learnt this the hard way with a couple of things that we agreed to verbally with office staff or the SS. But, where we've had it in writing, it seems to have helped us out. If you have any experience with how to handle PCI, your tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated - especially around allowable tolerances and minor defects that your builder doesn't believe are defects. Fingers crossed that PCI goes smoothly. First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 9Apr 18, 2017 9:34 pm Thought I would share some photos of our build Our block after site clean. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Slab Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Frame Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Enclosed 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 ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Shed Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 10May 03, 2017 5:00 pm We had our PCI inspection last week on our house. We paid for an independent building inspection but we also identified a few of our own defects (more contractual issues). Our builder is now claiming that some of the issues they don't consider to be defects and they won't be fixing them. Has anyone else had a similar experience? What did you do? I'm thinking of raising a complaint through the QBCC for mediation but get the feeling that it's a waste of time. The builder certainly has all the power We're feeling so gutted at the moment because the defects are on things that we paid to 'upgrade'. First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 11May 03, 2017 5:12 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Top - display Bottom - ours We specifically asked for our kitchen island to match their display home. However, their design team wrote 'bar back' only for the shadow line and upgraded laminate. I guess we incorrectly assumed that everything that wasn't the 'front' where the drawers are would be the 'back' and it would look like what we requested, with a matching end. We were given elevations to sign and not one of them showed the kitchen looking towards the end of the bench - we had no way of knowing that it wasn't going to match. Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 12May 03, 2017 5:15 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Our feature brick, PGH Cobalt needs to be cleaned. We've raised the quality of the finish with them multiple times during the build. Today they sent us an email from PGH advising that the quality was 'fine' and that you need to look at brick work from 4-6 meters away. Such a cop out, even our inspector agreed they needed to be cleaned properly. Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 13May 03, 2017 5:17 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Top - display Bottom - ours Again, we specifically asked for drawers like the ones in their display. Our contract says drawers are to be 'modified' around plumbing. Planbuild have just blocked off the area around the plumbing and now we will have two smaller and uneven drawers. The space near the plumbing is actually blocked off. Such a waste of space and not what we asked for. Re: First Build - Planbuild - Modified Pellegrino 2480 14May 03, 2017 5:20 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Top - a display home (not Planbuild because we couldn't find a tiled entry that they'd done) Bottom - ours The tiling on our upgraded entry was so poor the first time around that they hired someone else to simply tile over it. We thought the upgrade would look similar to the above and raised this with them. They said they don't always use chrome but we are even missing just the black fill, meaning there is a gap between the tile and the aggregate. It just looks untidy and and finished poor. hi guys. Please be nice. First time home builder in Qld. I would like some feedback please on whether I should build my granny flat first before my main house at the… 0 4597 So it looks like we finally have some movement on site! Definitely later than expected, but I'll take any progress at this point. I'll drop by over the weekend to get… 5 27740 Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 17629 |