Rawson Homes - General Thread

I know there’s a few people building with Rawson Homes and many have their own threads in this forum. I just want to create a general thread where anyone who is building (or considering to build) with Rawson Homes can actually come to this place and ask questions or share stories about their building process.

We are building a modified Huntley. We submitted our tender in June 2015, did all the colour, tiles, and electrical selections in the second half of the year. Signed the building contract just before our land registered in July this year and pre-lodged our DA to council and had it approved in under 3 weeks. That’s one thing I like about Rawson: they didn’t waste any time and hit the ground running.

Communication with Rawson has been very good. Phone calls and emails were responded promptly and we can always pop up for an arranged meeting in their office to resolve any issues. This is a big plus for Rawson. Sales person, admin coordinators, colour & electrical consultants, are helpful and friendly.

What I found quite disappointing was their drafting and estimating department: sloppy, with zero care factor. They made plenty of mistakes, so read up your contract, scrutinise your house plans, and watch your variations carefully. Make sure you get fair credits for things you take out, understand that there is no such thing as fixed site cost (it’s an oxymoron), ask tonnes of questions and never assume anything.

Anyway enough talking. Here’s some pictures to show you what we’re up to.


Site was cut and drilled for pierings. We have a bit of a slope on our block.


Formwork started a week later.


Slab poured a day after.

Our SS is making sure that things are moving along nicely, but I don't want him rushing things up at the expense of quality. There's a couple of things he missed already and a few things he needs to rectify:


Exposed waffle pods after formwork was removed.


Exposed reo bars across the bottom of the slab.

Australian Standards require slab reinforcement (reo bars) to have a minimum cover of 40mm of concrete. Corrosion and cracking are of concern when steel bars are exposed to the elements.

External drainage was installed today.





Next stage is installation of termites barrier and by mid next week timber frames should be delivered on site.

Fencing is up and portaloo on site today. Timber framework delivered yesterday.
Rentokil Homeguard Red termite barrier installed on the perimeter of the slab.
Not so sure whether they've done the same around pipe penetrations as stated in the tender.

From memory, these are some of the prices for colour upgrades & electricals back in 2015:
(bear in mind that some of these items might have been included as luxury inclusions now)

Converting a theatre into a 5th bedroom $3500 (with a built-in and an ensuite)
Timber coat garage door $750
Non-standard COLORBOND colour for window frames/doors/flyscreens $750
Omni entrance set $340
Methven pull-out sink mixer $300
Water purifier $350
Window splashback in kitchen $690
Glass splashback $2500
Extra soft close drawers $180 (big/kitchen) & $90 (small/bathroom)
2 tone colour choice for kitchen cabinetry $350
Polytec sheen finish $900
Waterfall edge for island bench $2200
Towel ring $60
Double towel rail $40
Extra garden tap $380
Facade price does not include render or tiles. These are upgrades you have to pay extra for.

Batten light point $55
External junction box $75
11W LED downlight $137/$142
15W LED downlight $160/$166
Downlight provision $65
Single powerpoint $55
Double pp $65
Quad pp $95
Single outdoor powerpoint $115
Double opp $125
Single digital TV point $70
Foxtel prewire $240
Phone socket $100
2 way/3 way switching $50/$90
Single dimmer switch $90
Data point CAT5e $100
Data point CAT6 $113
Alarm system $1290
Remote control (1 pair) $370
Video Intercom $1350

Tips: Rawson uses Clipsal and Beacon Lighting for their electrical selections. If there is something you like from the shop (for example: the Saturn LED range from Clipsal or the latest pendant lights from Beacon Lighting), you can notify your electrical consultant during your appointment and get them incorporated into your electrical selection.

Also, if you are not happy with the standard range of tiles and carpet from Tile Direct or Rawson’s Colour Centre in Rhodes, check out Accent Carpets showroom in Bella Vista. They have a great range of tiles, carpets, and timber flooring that you can select as an alternative. Again, most of these would be an upgrade.

Good idea for a thread MS! Have been waiting for a general Rawson thread to pop up!

I am in early stages with Rawson too and your posts have been very useful for me. Do you mind if I ask what were some of the mistakes you picked up in the tender and plans? Just want to make sure I don't miss anything either!

Hi SS,

Welcome to the thread!

We made some modifications to the original Huntley design. Instead of having a "U" shaped kitchen, we redesigned it to have an island bench. Because of this we deleted a lot of cupboards space from the kitchen but we only received very little credit for the deletion. We also upgraded our ground floor to have engineered timber and Rawson has forgotten to credit us with the tiling allowance when they calculated the extra cost. We stood to lose $4000 if we didn't pick up on this. Everything was sorted out at the end, but I just want people to be diligent about these things. They also miscalculated our site cost in the tender and we ended up having to pay more for it before they lodged the plans to council.

Framework started last Friday but no one has been working on site since.


Tips: If you cannot find a Taubmans paint that you like for your colour selection, you can choose a Dulux colour and Rawson will colour match it with a Taubmans copy. This is really handy especially since Dulux is well known for their whites & neutrals for the interior walls.

Hi,

Does anyone know what the standard Taubmans white colour Rawson use for architraves, doors and skirting and is it a gloss or semi-gloss?

Thanks

Standard ceiling and cornice: Ceiling White
Architraves and doors: Not sure if there's a standard colour for these. Our trims are the same with the wall colour.
Standard finish to wood work: Hi-Dura gloss

Thanks for the reply, need to patch a door I might try a tin of just the normal white in the dura gloss and hopefully that works.

So I attempted to paint some of a door with the same ceiling white and the paint is a lot lighter. The doors and architraves seem to have a tinge of yellow which is probably causes by the gloss.

The only way to be sure is to go back & see the colour selection records for your house and find out what colour they used for them. But If you don't have the list, this can be tricky.

For anyone wondering this, the standard colour is Crisp White.

Hi Morningstar,

Which timber did you go with for the ground floor?

Hi Katran,

We use the commercial grade KronoSwiss Giant range. It's supposed to be really tough and scratch resistant.

After 10 days of inactivity on site, they started framing again on Monday.
First floor is now up. Roof still has a little bit to go.


Next: plumbing rough in and delivery of bricks.

Looking good!

Thanks, Red!

Framework has now been completed. Windows and glass doors are installed and coated with a protective film.
I like that! Plumbing rough in is done too. This is first floor hallway.


Bricks were delivered yesterday. Sand & brick layers are scheduled for next week.


The carpenters left the house really clean and all the rubbish at the front of the house was removed from site. Very happy with that. It shows that these people care and that's what you want to see obviously.

Tips: There is a thread in this forum about Daikin A/C system for those with Rawson Homes. It's worth having a look if you are considering where to put the controller or how many zones you need, etc. I wrote a couple of posts there. Check it out:
http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=83832&p=1630879&hilit=rawson+daikin#p1630879

I'm going through the external colour selection stage now. I'm with you on some of the mistakes their drafting department made. It certainly made me feel like there wasn't some degree of review that should've been done before being sent out to the client. I've pointed out a few items that were blatantly wrong or inconsistent.

How did your external colour selection and drawings presentation go? How detailed was the drawings presentation? Did they go through all the measurements? Was there anything pointed out to you that you may have not otherwise considered? Did you feel rushed? Did you feel the presenter had the appropriate knowledge?

I recall seeing only a 30 minute block with the colour consultant - was this sufficient time to go through your colours? Did they model your housing using selected colours? Did the consultant have any valuable input or were you already set on the colour scheme?

My understanding is that the drawings presenter provides pricing of any changes you would like to make a couple of days after the presentation itself. Were they prompt in that respect? Were the items individually priced?

What were the next steps from here? Looking at the Rawson timeline brochure it looks like we need to provide Rawson with a copy of the pre-approval before they submit to council. Do they provide a revised copy of the tender with your changes from the presentation incorporated? I've found that most lenders would want to see a copy of the contracts before providing pre-approval but I can't really tell whether Rawson does this. How long was it between the drawings presentation and submitting the pre-approval documents? What was the time frame before Rawson submitted to council? Does internal selections occur while the application is with council? I know they have a showroom for internal selections but I've found it quite inconvenient that its only open on weekdays. How did you manage to look through and decide on the internals (e.g. Tapware)?

Were there any notable "must have" upgrades you made? Was the kitchen bench deep enough? If you had raised ceilings, did you increase the height of the kitchen bulkhead cupboards?

Apologies for all the questions. Its always good to have someone a few steps ahead to help set some expectations.

I was pretty happy with our plan presentation meeting. We had Ron go through the plans with us and he was great and had several good ideas we wouldn't have thought of. Most of the things we changed were priced in the spot. From memory our front door was the only thing we had to wait for quotes on because we didn't like any of the options they showed us. They price all the options and you choose which to keep.

After we went through the plans someone else talked through colours and she was great too. They don't mock up the colours which was a bit disappointing but we did a rough mock up ourselves in Photoshop.
After you sign the initial contract, everything else comes back as a variation.
We used the tender for bank pre-approval then got full approval on the total cost just before construction started.

Internal colours and electrical happened after council approval for us, but we deliberately delayed because we had a tenant in the house and we were waiting for the lease to expire before knocking down.

As for must have upgrades, I think that is very much down to individual priorities. We made a lot of changes but I think the only true essential was probably to add lots of powerpoints because there really aren't enough.