Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 641Nov 14, 2018 1:15 pm I know they say ducting location is up to the installer, but if you haven't changed the house design too much, you'd think they would have sorted this sort of thing out by now. If the assigned ACD is empty, maybe you can reclaim that corner. Did you upgrade carpet? Does it affect your electrical layout/lighting? How big is the robe on the other side, would it take too much space if you put it in there? Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 642Nov 14, 2018 2:43 pm Hi guys Just 5 days or so after I payed "Internal linings" bill, I received "Fix-out" bill straight away. Does anyone has similar experience? Also how about the last payment for "Practical completion"? Can I hold it for a while before they fix most of defects? Thanks. Cheers Aib Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 643Nov 14, 2018 7:08 pm According to the contract, 21.3, you give the builder written notice of things that need doing for practical completion. They can accept it or reject it. Remember the air conditioning or hot water (or some other appliances) don't need to be installed to meet contractual practical completion. How is the house looking? Has all the work been done? Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 644Nov 14, 2018 7:09 pm AIB Hi guys Just 5 days or so after I payed "Internal linings" bill, I received "Fix-out" bill straight away. Does anyone has similar experience? Also how about the last payment for "Practical completion"? Can I hold it for a while before they fix most of defects? Thanks. Cheers Aib You cannot withold any payment as per the contract for almost any reason what so ever. The contract is heavily in favour of them n Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 645Nov 14, 2018 7:26 pm G1NOSAUR Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone's had a similar experience to me and what they did about it. I have a corner that's meant to be just a normal regular plain corner. However, after my first site visit, the site manager has said that there now has to be a duct that's going to be boxed in. The first photo below is the duct and the second photo is what it will look like. Now I think about it, I think they've made an error. There was already a duct located in the WIR which I think they've forgotten. I'm not very happy about this as it wasn't in the finalised plan submitted to the council, if we were to do this kind of change by request, Rawson would've charged us a drafting fee with a few delays. Has anyone complained and had the layout changed to suit the air duct? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Has similar. But in my case they took the wardrobe space behind. I was not happy to say the least. However if they did what they have at your place I would go off my nana big time. And as the poster below said you would think with their standardised designs provided you didn’t make any big changes they should be able to make the structure such that the ducts can can where they need as per tha plan. My opinion the a/c installers do what ever is easy for them not what is best for the client or the long term. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 646Nov 14, 2018 10:47 pm luxbuild According to the contract, 21.3, you give the builder written notice of things that need doing for practical completion. They can accept it or reject it. Remember the air conditioning or hot water (or some other appliances) don't need to be installed to meet contractual practical completion. How is the house looking? Has all the work been done? Hi Luxbuild So far so good. Kitchen in, staircase installed, doors installed and first round of paint finished. As far as I can see, things still outstanding are drive way, tiles and flooring... etc. Hopefully handover before Xmas. BTW, does anyone have a general checklist for handover? Also I assume Rawson will have IOC ready before H/O. Thx. Best regards Aib Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 647Nov 15, 2018 4:54 pm Hi AIB, I've been thinking about your ducting problem, and I can't believe Rawson think that is acceptable and presented it to you, instead of solving the problem and building it as agreed. For myself, I surprised that I am dealing with a builder that can't build to their plans. I would be interested to know why this happened. If the ceiling went up before the a/c guy came in and did the ducting, well they should have held off on the ceiling so something like didn't become the 'solution'. I think altering the room layout like this is really poor on Rawson, obviously they'd never accept it in their display home. Why didn't they use the allocated space? How could they miss something like this at design stage? Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 648Nov 20, 2018 10:50 pm DR-JEKL Were just getting the contract signe dnow, and will be having our electrican interior colour selection in a few weeks time. When initially choosing rawsons they said for newcastle they source through winning appliances, to upgrade appliances it can easily be done through them. Now were being told that no this is not possible, Rawsons use westinghouse, electrolux & AEG exlcusively.. For some items I'd be happy with the aforementioned product ranges, but their inbuilt rangehoods are severely lacking and I'd prefer neff oven and induction cooktop... So may I ask for those whom have been in this predicament before, am I best to say accept included appliances, source my own after handover and have them fitted then? In the contract it did state that items such as hot water A/C and kitchen appliances may be installed after handover.. Regarding the apppliances, the short answer is, that from our experience, if you want something non-standard or even if you want to supply/fit your own appliances after handover, then just dig your heels in and stand your ground... you'll eventually get your way. The longer version is that our appliances saga started when we enquired about an upgrade to an induction cooktop. Firstly they told us we could choose from a westinghouse, electrolux or an AEG but they flat out refused to say the upgrade price until the internals appointment. We looked at the models on offer and didn't like them so we researched (here at H1) and found previous customers who were either allowed to choose anything from Winnings or were allowed to supply and fit their own appliances after handover. We pursued the latter option. First response was that they were "required to install all units and appliances in order to get an OC". This I assure you is BS. So we told them so, with reference to customers who previously did this and still managed to get an OC. Second response was that "this is an option that we use to offer but we no longer do as it caused too many issues, this will not be possible". To which we said, rubbish, we're not proceeding until this BS is sorted out. The third response was "OK, you can supply your own appliances after handover, but you will need to give us all make and models of all supplied appliances". This process took 26 days to work through. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 649Nov 21, 2018 9:23 am luxbuild Did you or anyone put any dimmer switches in, I think those 20 downlights are dimmable? Also, did you get the $4k tile allowance? Did anyone upgrade carpets and what was the price like? What sort of cost is it above the standard range? You can install your own dimmers after handover I believe (my old man use to be a sales rep for Clipsal and he advised me to do it after handover - were doing bulk of our electrical after handover!) Hmm unsure on the tile allowance TBH (I cant recall an exact figure I'm guessing the exact amount would vary on what house you're building (smaller house require less tiles thus lower tile allowance factored in?) We're going to try and use mostly tiles from the standard range (We really like tiles direct their stock has changed a bit in the last 6 months) and just use some upgraded tiles for feature wall, splashback in kitchen etc We're going for an upgraded carpet just awaiting for the price variation but... Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 650Nov 21, 2018 9:36 am robw17 DR-JEKL Were just getting the contract signe dnow, and will be having our electrican interior colour selection in a few weeks time. When initially choosing rawsons they said for newcastle they source through winning appliances, to upgrade appliances it can easily be done through them. Now were being told that no this is not possible, Rawsons use westinghouse, electrolux & AEG exlcusively.. For some items I'd be happy with the aforementioned product ranges, but their inbuilt rangehoods are severely lacking and I'd prefer neff oven and induction cooktop... So may I ask for those whom have been in this predicament before, am I best to say accept included appliances, source my own after handover and have them fitted then? In the contract it did state that items such as hot water A/C and kitchen appliances may be installed after handover.. Regarding the apppliances, the short answer is, that from our experience, if you want something non-standard or even if you want to supply/fit your own appliances after handover, then just dig your heels in and stand your ground... you'll eventually get your way. The longer version is that our appliances saga started when we enquired about an upgrade to an induction cooktop. Firstly they told us we could choose from a westinghouse, electrolux or an AEG but they flat out refused to say the upgrade price until the internals appointment. We looked at the models on offer and didn't like them so we researched (here at H1) and found previous customers who were either allowed to choose anything from Winnings or were allowed to supply and fit their own appliances after handover. We pursued the latter option. First response was that they were "required to install all units and appliances in order to get an OC". This I assure you is BS. So we told them so, with reference to customers who previously did this and still managed to get an OC. Second response was that "this is an option that we use to offer but we no longer do as it caused too many issues, this will not be possible". To which we said, rubbish, we're not proceeding until this BS is sorted out. The third response was "OK, you can supply your own appliances after handover, but you will need to give us all make and models of all supplied appliances". This process took 26 days to work through. Hmm only just had our electrical appointment yesterday... Haven't signed anything yet but.. TBH my wife wasn't keen on upgrading any of the kitchen items (trying to keep build costs down) but I hate cheap crap appliances and I think its ludicrous to spend $550-600k on a house build and just leave standard cheap appliances in.. Yes getting prices for the upgrades was somewhat difficult, had to choose the model etc then ask for it (anything AEG was crazy miele type pricing almost lol) we'd been advised beforehand that the westinghouse induction was no cost, electrolux MW with grille no cost and electrolux pull out rangehood $225. Found out the induction cooktop was extra same with the microwave with grille. They gave us the MW upgrade for free (due to the error on their behalf) told them to wack in the WH electric cooktop as included in standard range, as I've checked the dimensions I can get a Neff induction 90cm cooktop to drop in for ~ $1500. Thing that really annoyed me was the standard rangehoods, absolute crap and upgrade range isn't that great.. I'd much prefer a decent integrated qasiair or something similar.. These are obviously somewhat more difficult to DIY 'upgrade' after handover. Not really keen on a pull out, but it was the only one that I could live with whereas the AEG was $1450 and I couldn't find any positive reviews on it.. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 651Nov 21, 2018 10:06 am Out of interest Westinghouse, Electrolux and AEG are all the same company and some products are identical. They must do a good deal with Rawsons for them to be the standard gear. What I don’t follow is if they use Winning Appliances why don’t they just say your budget is X from any item at Winning. I would have much rather had Bosch in my place. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 652Nov 21, 2018 10:26 am AJW Out of interest Westinghouse, Electrolux and AEG are all the same company and some products are identical. They must do a good deal with Rawsons for them to be the standard gear. What I don’t follow is if they use Winning Appliances why don’t they just say your budget is X from any item at Winning. Suppliers offer cash rebates to the building Co's to use their products. (my old man use to be with clipsal and mentioned they'd do this for the building Co's they have exclusive suppliers to) So if you use the aforementioned brands, Rawson would get a cash rebate on them I'm guessing, and winning appliances are just merely the retailers for the AEG group. In this scenario if you were to get a Bosch item through winning's Rawson dont get a cash rebate from AEG? Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 653Nov 21, 2018 10:32 am DR-JEKL AJW Out of interest Westinghouse, Electrolux and AEG are all the same company and some products are identical. They must do a good deal with Rawsons for them to be the standard gear. What I don’t follow is if they use Winning Appliances why don’t they just say your budget is X from any item at Winning. Suppliers offer cash rebates to the building Co's to use their products. (my old man use to be with clipsal and mentioned they'd do this for the building Co's they have exclusive suppliers to) So if you use the aforementioned brands, Rawson would get a cash rebate on them I'm guessing, and winning appliances are just merely the retailers for the AEG group. In this scenario if you were to get a Bosch item through winning's Rawson dont get a cash rebate from AEG? Yeah that makes sense but still should be able to get an “allowance” to buy another brand. Though of course it would be a lower allowance compared to Electrolux group products. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 654Nov 21, 2018 1:50 pm Got a questions for you guys regarding your electrical: In your two storey home standard for ducted A/C is 2 zones 1 controller. I'm thinking a 2nd controller would be beneficial (rawson didnt have a price for second controller but im sure I read somewhere it was $450?) or can you install one dedicated controller on say the stairway wall and adjust the temp for upstairs/downstairs there? In your two storey home how many zones did you go for? (we're building the Balmoral 38) They asked where we'd like the modem point in the house to be? I hadnt even thought of this... With a two storey house where did you guys place yours? (i.e is it best on ground floor or first floor, I'm assuming with a large home you'd need two wifi routers one for each floor or do you use extenders?) Did you guys install a doorbell after handover? We didn't like the intercom system and we're glad to get a $210 refund on that... Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 655Nov 21, 2018 2:00 pm DR-JEKL Got a questions for you guys regarding your electrical: In your two storey home standard for ducted A/C is 2 zones 1 controller. I'm thinking a 2nd controller would be beneficial (rawson didnt have a price for second controller but im sure I read somewhere it was $450?) or can you install one dedicated controller on say the stairway wall and adjust the temp for upstairs/downstairs there? In your two storey home how many zones did you go for? (we're building the Balmoral 38) They asked where we'd like the modem point in the house to be? I hadnt even thought of this... With a two storey house where did you guys place yours? (i.e is it best on ground floor or first floor, I'm assuming with a large home you'd need two wifi routers one for each floor or do you use extenders?) Did you guys install a doorbell after handover? We didn't like the intercom system and we're glad to get a $210 refund on that... Unless they have changed things, they way they do zone control is with mechanical light switches and then they use a standard (single) Navease controller. The big problem with this method is even if you have a second slave controller you can only have one thermostat source which for a double story house is useless. And with mechanical zone control you cannot program zone changes. So for example you might want the heater to come on downstairs in winter mornings but unless you change the switch before going to bed it won’t work. What I would do is ask for the proper zone controller and either a slave controller or remote thermostat. These are bit on the ugly side but work well enough. With these can you program what zones come on when and choose which thermostat to use. Master, slave, air return provider the installer enables them. The ultimate way to go is to not have a Dakin controller at all. There are third party providers that provide zone control and more complex and nicer controllers. But you would be paying for it and doubt Rawson would allow it to be done during the build. That said if the basics of what they install are good it can be retrofitted later anyway. Again at more cost. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 656Nov 21, 2018 5:36 pm DR-JEKL Hmm only just had our electrical appointment yesterday... Haven't signed anything yet but.. TBH my wife wasn't keen on upgrading any of the kitchen items (trying to keep build costs down) but I hate cheap crap appliances and I think its ludicrous to spend $550-600k on a house build and just leave standard cheap appliances in.. Yes getting prices for the upgrades was somewhat difficult, had to choose the model etc then ask for it (anything AEG was crazy miele type pricing almost lol) we'd been advised beforehand that the westinghouse induction was no cost, electrolux MW with grille no cost and electrolux pull out rangehood $225. Found out the induction cooktop was extra same with the microwave with grille. They gave us the MW upgrade for free (due to the error on their behalf) told them to wack in the WH electric cooktop as included in standard range, as I've checked the dimensions I can get a Neff induction 90cm cooktop to drop in for ~ $1500. Thing that really annoyed me was the standard rangehoods, absolute crap and upgrade range isn't that great.. I'd much prefer a decent integrated qasiair or something similar.. These are obviously somewhat more difficult to DIY 'upgrade' after handover. Not really keen on a pull out, but it was the only one that I could live with whereas the AEG was $1450 and I couldn't find any positive reviews on it.. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We're wrestling with the same issue, with the amount we're spending on the house should we spend a little more to get better appliances? Westinghouse, as a brand, seem to score reasonably well on the Choice reviews, but the included models are only entry level stuff. The ovens are not even pyrolytic cleaning types. We were really frustrated by their refusal to provide upgrade prices, that's what drove us to pursue the supply/install after handover option. Interesting to hear about the crazy prices they gave you for appliance upgrades. At the moment we're thinking Siemens induction cooktop, Neff oven (the one with the slide away door), Bosch dishwasher and Panasonic microwave. Be careful with retrofitting an induction cooktop. Whilst some have the same benchtop cutout size, they often have very different cooling ventilation requirements. Theres many complaints of induction cooktops failing within warranty but warranty being refused because the ventilation is not as per manufacturer requirements. Compared to the standard/included electric cooktop the Siemens induction we're looking at requires deeper gaps to anything below plus a 20mm vertical ventilation gap at the back of the cupboards. Siemens, Neff and Bosch seem to be the same company with identical installation/cooling/ventilation requirements so the requirements for your Neff cooktop is probably the same as for our Siemens. The easiest place to find the requirements is on Winnings site, but be warned... you can go crazy looking at this stuff. Regarding rangehoods, when we visited Winnings, the salesman was adamant that the included rangehood wasn't adequate. It may have just been a sales pitch, but he went on and on about it. We haven't looked further into that yet. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 657Nov 21, 2018 6:27 pm AJW DR-JEKL Got a questions for you guys regarding your electrical: In your two storey home standard for ducted A/C is 2 zones 1 controller. I'm thinking a 2nd controller would be beneficial (rawson didnt have a price for second controller but im sure I read somewhere it was $450?) or can you install one dedicated controller on say the stairway wall and adjust the temp for upstairs/downstairs there? In your two storey home how many zones did you go for? (we're building the Balmoral 38) They asked where we'd like the modem point in the house to be? I hadnt even thought of this... With a two storey house where did you guys place yours? (i.e is it best on ground floor or first floor, I'm assuming with a large home you'd need two wifi routers one for each floor or do you use extenders?) Did you guys install a doorbell after handover? We didn't like the intercom system and we're glad to get a $210 refund on that... Unless they have changed things, they way they do zone control is with mechanical light switches and then they use a standard (single) Navease controller. The big problem with this method is even if you have a second slave controller you can only have one thermostat source which for a double story house is useless. And with mechanical zone control you cannot program zone changes. So for example you might want the heater to come on downstairs in winter mornings but unless you change the switch before going to bed it won’t work. What I would do is ask for the proper zone controller and either a slave controller or remote thermostat. These are bit on the ugly side but work well enough. With these can you program what zones come on when and choose which thermostat to use. Master, slave, air return provider the installer enables them. The ultimate way to go is to not have a Dakin controller at all. There are third party providers that provide zone control and more complex and nicer controllers. But you would be paying for it and doubt Rawson would allow it to be done during the build. That said if the basics of what they install are good it can be retrofitted later anyway. Again at more cost. Thanks for the reply its appreciated!! Hmm damn, I'd assumed that a 2nd controller would be a 'daikin' controller and operate the same on either levels... hmm.. I'd lived in a two storey terrace years ago it had the controller downstairs and by memory witches upstairs to turn bedroom on etc. I'd assumed we'd advanced a lot since then!! I'm guessing it wouldnt be possible to retrofit the third party zone controllers after handover since itd be much easier to do it all beforehand on a two storey home? Do you know what the names of the third party providers are? Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 658Nov 21, 2018 6:38 pm robw17 DR-JEKL Hmm only just had our electrical appointment yesterday... Haven't signed anything yet but.. TBH my wife wasn't keen on upgrading any of the kitchen items (trying to keep build costs down) but I hate cheap crap appliances and I think its ludicrous to spend $550-600k on a house build and just leave standard cheap appliances in.. Yes getting prices for the upgrades was somewhat difficult, had to choose the model etc then ask for it (anything AEG was crazy miele type pricing almost lol) we'd been advised beforehand that the westinghouse induction was no cost, electrolux MW with grille no cost and electrolux pull out rangehood $225. Found out the induction cooktop was extra same with the microwave with grille. They gave us the MW upgrade for free (due to the error on their behalf) told them to wack in the WH electric cooktop as included in standard range, as I've checked the dimensions I can get a Neff induction 90cm cooktop to drop in for ~ $1500. Thing that really annoyed me was the standard rangehoods, absolute crap and upgrade range isn't that great.. I'd much prefer a decent integrated qasiair or something similar.. These are obviously somewhat more difficult to DIY 'upgrade' after handover. Not really keen on a pull out, but it was the only one that I could live with whereas the AEG was $1450 and I couldn't find any positive reviews on it.. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We're wrestling with the same issue, with the amount we're spending on the house should we spend a little more to get better appliances? Westinghouse, as a brand, seem to score reasonably well on the Choice reviews, but the included models are only entry level stuff. The ovens are not even pyrolytic cleaning types. We were really frustrated by their refusal to provide upgrade prices, that's what drove us to pursue the supply/install after handover option. Interesting to hear about the crazy prices they gave you for appliance upgrades. At the moment we're thinking Siemens induction cooktop, Neff oven (the one with the slide away door), Bosch dishwasher and Panasonic microwave. Be careful with retrofitting an induction cooktop. Whilst some have the same benchtop cutout size, they often have very different cooling ventilation requirements. Theres many complaints of induction cooktops failing within warranty but warranty being refused because the ventilation is not as per manufacturer requirements. Compared to the standard/included electric cooktop the Siemens induction we're looking at requires deeper gaps to anything below plus a 20mm vertical ventilation gap at the back of the cupboards. Siemens, Neff and Bosch seem to be the same company with identical installation/cooling/ventilation requirements so the requirements for your Neff cooktop is probably the same as for our Siemens. The easiest place to find the requirements is on Winnings site, but be warned... you can go crazy looking at this stuff. Regarding rangehoods, when we visited Winnings, the salesman was adamant that the included rangehood wasn't adequate. It may have just been a sales pitch, but he went on and on about it. We haven't looked further into that yet. Yes personally I think spending an extra say $5-10k on appliances is money well spent. Gives the house a much more premium feel and generally offer superior performance. I dont have anything against westinghouse as a brand (Decided to just use their DWS & oven wasnt keen on the oven but the wife didnt want to spend $4-5k on Neff) Hmm I'd asked EU appliances what cooktop they offer for the cutout size of the WH electric cooktop, their response was the NEff model I was laready considering. But interesting to know regarding the vertical ventilation gaps I'll have to take a look. The standard RH's are crap, the standalone westinghouse one didnt look to bad on the specs TBH, but we wish to go for integrated on this kitchen it just looks a lot neater... The upgraded Electrolux RH, I'm not that keen on, but it was a compromise... Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 659Nov 21, 2018 7:58 pm DR-JEKL Hmm I'd asked EU appliances what cooktop they offer for the cutout size of the WH electric cooktop, their response was the NEff model I was laready considering. But interesting to know regarding the vertical ventilation gaps I'll have to take a look. Also, you should provision for a bigger electrical circuit. The standard electric cooktop is 6.4 kW, the Siemens/Neff induction are 11.1 kW. Re: Rawson Homes - General Thread 660Nov 21, 2018 8:12 pm robw17 DR-JEKL Hmm I'd asked EU appliances what cooktop they offer for the cutout size of the WH electric cooktop, their response was the NEff model I was laready considering. But interesting to know regarding the vertical ventilation gaps I'll have to take a look. Also, you should provision for a bigger electrical circuit. The standard electric cooktop is 6.4 kW, the Siemens/Neff induction are 11.1 kW. AFAIK cooktops have their own dedicated circuit? (well at least in my current property) Therefore a larger load breaker could just be retrofitted if required? but I did think of that to ask my electrician as I'm no sparky myself! I guess it all depends on how the rawson sparky wires it up... You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 14121 Just started the Build process for Chifley 42 with Rawson homes, will keep you all posted with the Build progress. 0 2463 Hi, Apologies - I know there is plenty out there on this but struggling to put together the puzzle. We're planning our garage/external laundry to master bedroom and… 0 11121 |