Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 17, 2017 10:08 am Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 2Mar 11, 2017 8:46 pm MightyAnt Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Hi MightyAnt As you have probably seen from the main Wisdom thread, we are also building Wisdom's M52, currently @ bricking stage. There a couple of active members who are building the same. We changed the master plans quite a bit to suit our block and preferences. I think the build ends up being close to 59sq W's inclusions are very good, we paid for the Prestige package in our contract last year. We had variations on most things, it really comes down to personal preferences and budget. Electricals, we will do some after handover, but most things will be done by W on the ground floor. AC we upgraded to the ESP Plus. The included system will work fine, the ESP Plus a little more efficiently. We added a couple of extra zones and also some slimline grilles. Landscape we were quoted something ridiculous by W, the driveway $17k. Very doubtful we will be doing much with W here, they are just too expensive. We will use the $5k voucher for something. Kitchen & butlers fitout was our biggest upgrade. Any questions you have, happy to try and answer. Good luck with the build. Oz. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 3Mar 16, 2017 11:22 am HI Oz thanks for the reply. We signed the $1000 to get the tender drawn up on 17 dec and am still waiting for the tender to be completed. We too will be upgrading the air con to the ESP as we previously had it on the house we just sold and it worked like a dream. Do you happen to remember the cost of your add on for the air con? and/or electrical costs? I saw somewhere that the LED lights were like $130 each or something. some tiles we are upgrading others we are taking the standard (from what we have seen at Di Lorenzo) but a bit scared of this add on especially with the large Sqm area We are building in Harrington Grove in NSW and I dont know any landscapers so will have to get multiple out to work out who's who if you know what I mean. Who did you get allocated for the Kitchen? Knebel or Timpelle. I quite like the display kitchen which was Timpelle (finishes were great) Do you have any say in which one? I am justt getting really frustrated with the lack of speed getting the tender. Did you have delays in the beginning or am I just being impatient? Thanks Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 4Mar 16, 2017 12:02 pm MightyAnt HI Oz thanks for the reply. We signed the $1000 to get the tender drawn up on 17 dec and am still waiting for the tender to be completed. We too will be upgrading the air con to the ESP as we previously had it on the house we just sold and it worked like a dream. Do you happen to remember the cost of your add on for the air con? and/or electrical costs? I saw somewhere that the LED lights were like $130 each or something. some tiles we are upgrading others we are taking the standard (from what we have seen at Di Lorenzo) but a bit scared of this add on especially with the large Sqm area We are building in Harrington Grove in NSW and I dont know any landscapers so will have to get multiple out to work out who's who if you know what I mean. Who did you get allocated for the Kitchen? Knebel or Timpelle. I quite like the display kitchen which was Timpelle (finishes were great) Do you have any say in which one? I am justt getting really frustrated with the lack of speed getting the tender. Did you have delays in the beginning or am I just being impatient? Thanks Hi MA, We signed up in February 2016 for the tender (paid initial deposit), the we received our 1st tender on 12 March 2016, so not too much of a delay. However the tender had multiple errors throughout. We still signed the tender and paid the $5,000 at this point as were advised that the process would be quicker to change the tender/plans if we accepted the tender. I would advise not to do this, as it did not speed up the process to correct errors, as we did not get to contract signing until the end of June 2016 (and only then because I was basically screaming at W at that point). Also, once you accept the tender, your 6 month countdown is on to get to construction. W are very very slow throughout admin. They do make mistakes, but try to get the final docs correct to make the construction process flow easier. Its very difficult not to get frustrated during admin (I did multiple times), but by choosing W (and probably most other builders), you need to accept that the process will be slow. I think W are busier now than what they were when we started out with them, as long as their resources have grown during their growth, then I would expect the journey to be not much different to what we experienced. Lots of patience is required. If time is important to move into the new build, I would not choose W. Have a look at post #4639 on the main Wisdom Build thread, another owner has posted the ESP Air cond system in question with costs of extras. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?p=1684717#p1684717 The upgrade cost to the ESP+ was $5,500 but included 4 zones and the WIFI module. Electrical costs we are going to do a fair bit post handover. We ensured that all downstairs was fully down or at least provisioned with wiring. Downlights were $130 installed, we mainly went with Downlight provisions which were $71 each (we will provide our own downlights later.) I will try and find a list of standard electrical costs and post. Di Lorenzo were big upgrades for us. Due to size of the house and number of bathrooms, variations were expected. But this area is very subjective to what you actually want, so costs vary a lot here. Harrington Grove is a nice area. Lots of big homes around there. Landscapers will be busy, but there should be quite a number around to get quotes off. WL will be very very expensive, but there is the convenience factor. Again, personal choice but we aren't doing a lot with them, and will source our own after handover. We are building down in the Wollongong area. We were allocated Knebel. They were really good. We again spent a bomb with them on upgrades (mainly the caesarstone and waterfall edges), as we changed the standard kitchen design to includes an island bench as well as extending the butlers pantry out. From memory, they gave me a choice as to whom I wanted to go and see for the kitchen appointment. Hang in there. It will be slow, but the end product is what we are all after, and the consenus is that W generally deliver on this. Regards, Oz Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 5May 19, 2017 1:34 pm Hi Oz I saw your latest photos and they look fantastic. As this house is not on display would you be willing to give me your address so that we could see at least from the outside in person? Id be happy to give you my mobile to sms to if it was ok with you. looks like itd be getting exciting now for you. thanks MightyAnt Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 7May 27, 2017 12:39 pm Hi there, Newbie here to the homeone forum and a first-time builder. I too am building the Manhattan 52 with a third garage. Similar to Oz we've made some changes to the design where the size is more like 60 now. Opted for the Santa Fe facade too. Costs-wise we've added around $200K to the base price. This excludes landscaping as we have a 2000sqm block. Not looking forward to the WL quote! Currently at admin stage. Appointments are done, just waiting to go to developer and council for approval. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 8May 27, 2017 2:37 pm ChizCake Hi there, Newbie here to the homeone forum and a first-time builder. I too am building the Manhattan 52 with a third garage. Similar to Oz we've made some changes to the design where the size is more like 60 now. Opted for the Santa Fe facade too. Costs-wise we've added around $200K to the base price. This excludes landscaping as we have a 2000sqm block. Not looking forward to the WL quote! Currently at admin stage. Appointments are done, just waiting to go to developer and council for approval. HiChizCake Welcome to the forum. The 52 design throws a lot at you and the rooms are also very decent sizes. We r happy with how our build is going, air con rough in done with electrical rough ins next week before our independent inspector looks over the build before it gets covered up by the plasterboard. Nice size block as well, there aren't a lot of those left around. May I ask loosely where r u building? Hopefully the rest of your admin process runs smoothly. Oz Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 9May 27, 2017 3:18 pm Thanks Oz. Yes, on the plan the sizes look decent indeed. It's a shame though that there's no display to give you an actual feel for it. I'm building in Pitt Town near the Hawkesbury. Wow, sounds like it's all happening for you now in terms of your build progress. Please keep those progress pic posts coming as they're very inspiring! Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 10May 27, 2017 3:38 pm ChizCake Thanks Oz. Yes, on the plan the sizes look decent indeed. It's a shame though that there's no display to give you an actual feel for it. I'm building in Pitt Town near the Hawkesbury. Wow, sounds like it's all happening for you now in terms of your build progress. Please keep those progress pic posts coming as they're very inspiring! Hi Yes there is nothing on display for that size but I know there are a few 52s being built on sydney that W may be able to quickly take u through. I know I requested that and they took me thru one that was part way built (in Harrington Park) before I signed up with them. But I can say that the rooms are big, compared to what you see at the display homes. We reconfigured the master bedroom (took out parents retreat) and I think now have a smaller bedroom than the kids (but we added in the rear balcony as an extra off the master to compensate) If you are doing the Santa Fe facade then W probably worked off our plans for that, as they told us we were the first 52 to use that facade. Good luck with the build. Any questions happy to answer. Our SS is pretty strict regarding access to the block so inside pics are hard to get. Hopefully your SS is a bit more relaxed in that regard. But I can commend my SS so far on speed of the build. Hoping to have it finished by end of September., so we'll see how we go. Oz Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 11May 27, 2017 6:00 pm Great idea Oz! I'll ask the question when I speak to our consultant next. We opted for the rear balcony too (as we have views of the blue mountains that would be a waste if we didn't) but also had to widen the foyer by moving the garage sideways to increase the width of the facade. This was needed to comply with regulations around the triple garage not exceeding more than 50% of the total facade. Santa Fe looks great and bang for buck I think since the glass handrails are included. We also asked them to quote the same for the rear balcony but based on the price (which seemed to be most of the cost of the facade itself) we opted to do this post-handover. September completion is impressive. I would choose speed over access any day! How long would that be since they first broke ground? Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 12May 27, 2017 7:48 pm ChizCake Great idea Oz! I'll ask the question when I speak to our consultant next. We opted for the rear balcony too (as we have views of the blue mountains that would be a waste if we didn't) but also had to widen the foyer by moving the garage sideways to increase the width of the facade. This was needed to comply with regulations around the triple garage not exceeding more than 50% of the total facade. Santa Fe looks great and bang for buck I think since the glass handrails are included. We also asked them to quote the same for the rear balcony but based on the price (which seemed to be most of the cost of the facade itself) we opted to do this post-handover. September completion is impressive. I would choose speed over access any day! How long would that be since they first broke ground? It will be a great looking facade if you had to widen it even more, and be unique to your house The glass balcony drew us on it as we also have some escarpment views to the south and west. The rear balcony we stuck with included brick just to give a little bit of privacy as we do have rear neighbours. W did scrape our lot in early December but with xmas shutdown the slab didn't get started until the last few days in January. That's when the contract period starts. Ours is a 34 week contract build. Even with all of the rain that we had in March we are still on schedule for that 34 week period, even though there has been approx 3 5 weeks of rain days. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 13Jun 05, 2018 4:54 pm ozmonkeyoy MightyAnt Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Hi MightyAnt As you have probably seen from the main Wisdom thread, we are also building Wisdom's M52, currently @ bricking stage. There a couple of active members who are building the same. We changed the master plans quite a bit to suit our block and preferences. I think the build ends up being close to 59sq W's inclusions are very good, we paid for the Prestige package in our contract last year. We had variations on most things, it really comes down to personal preferences and budget. Electricals, we will do some after handover, but most things will be done by W on the ground floor. AC we upgraded to the ESP Plus. The included system will work fine, the ESP Plus a little more efficiently. We added a couple of extra zones and also some slimline grilles. Landscape we were quoted something ridiculous by W, the driveway $17k. Very doubtful we will be doing much with W here, they are just too expensive. We will use the $5k voucher for something. Kitchen & butlers fitout was our biggest upgrade. Any questions you have, happy to try and answer. Good luck with the build. Oz. If ok can you send me a copy of your design plan Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 14Jun 09, 2018 7:19 pm CS199 ozmonkeyoy MightyAnt Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Hi MightyAnt As you have probably seen from the main Wisdom thread, we are also building Wisdom's M52, currently @ bricking stage. There a couple of active members who are building the same. We changed the master plans quite a bit to suit our block and preferences. I think the build ends up being close to 59sq W's inclusions are very good, we paid for the Prestige package in our contract last year. We had variations on most things, it really comes down to personal preferences and budget. Electricals, we will do some after handover, but most things will be done by W on the ground floor. AC we upgraded to the ESP Plus. The included system will work fine, the ESP Plus a little more efficiently. We added a couple of extra zones and also some slimline grilles. Landscape we were quoted something ridiculous by W, the driveway $17k. Very doubtful we will be doing much with W here, they are just too expensive. We will use the $5k voucher for something. Kitchen & butlers fitout was our biggest upgrade. Any questions you have, happy to try and answer. Good luck with the build. Oz. If ok can you send me a copy of your design plan Hi all Sorry we ended up pulling out and not building with wisdom, admin was horrendously slow. Hope everyone the best with their builds. I can help with general knowledge as we are just about at lockup Thanks Mightyant Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 15Jun 09, 2018 9:00 pm Hi everyone, Might sound like an odd request but for that have built or currently building, can you confirm if all bathroom exhaust fans are effective and that they all vent externally. Any idea what model exhaust is being used? (Plenty of steam with these cooler nights and stacks of condensation being vented hopefully externally. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 16Jun 19, 2018 11:06 pm ozmonkeyoy ChizCake Great idea Oz! I'll ask the question when I speak to our consultant next. We opted for the rear balcony too (as we have views of the blue mountains that would be a waste if we didn't) but also had to widen the foyer by moving the garage sideways to increase the width of the facade. This was needed to comply with regulations around the triple garage not exceeding more than 50% of the total facade. Santa Fe looks great and bang for buck I think since the glass handrails are included. We also asked them to quote the same for the rear balcony but based on the price (which seemed to be most of the cost of the facade itself) we opted to do this post-handover. September completion is impressive. I would choose speed over access any day! How long would that be since they first broke ground? It will be a great looking facade if you had to widen it even more, and be unique to your house The glass balcony drew us on it as we also have some escarpment views to the south and west. The rear balcony we stuck with included brick just to give a little bit of privacy as we do have rear neighbours. W did scrape our lot in early December but with xmas shutdown the slab didn't get started until the last few days in January. That's when the contract period starts. Ours is a 34 week contract build. Even with all of the rain that we had in March we are still on schedule for that 34 week period, even though there has been approx 3 5 weeks of rain days. When and how do you get the notification that your build is still on schedule of 34 weeks? Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes Slab done 19 March 2018 Frame done 20 April 2018 Bricks done 31 May 2018 [i][i][i]Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes[/i][/i][/i] Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 17Jun 19, 2018 11:10 pm MightyAnt CS199 ozmonkeyoy [quote="MightyAnt"]Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Hi MightyAnt As you have probably seen from the main Wisdom thread, we are also building Wisdom's M52, currently @ bricking stage. There a couple of active members who are building the same. We changed the master plans quite a bit to suit our block and preferences. I think the build ends up being close to 59sq W's inclusions are very good, we paid for the Prestige package in our contract last year. We had variations on most things, it really comes down to personal preferences and budget. Electricals, we will do some after handover, but most things will be done by W on the ground floor. AC we upgraded to the ESP Plus. The included system will work fine, the ESP Plus a little more efficiently. We added a couple of extra zones and also some slimline grilles. Landscape we were quoted something ridiculous by W, the driveway $17k. Very doubtful we will be doing much with W here, they are just too expensive. We will use the $5k voucher for something. Kitchen & butlers fitout was our biggest upgrade. Any questions you have, happy to try and answer. Good luck with the build. Oz. If ok can you send me a copy of your design plan Hi all Sorry we ended up pulling out and not building with wisdom, admin was horrendously slow. Hope everyone the best with their builds. I can help with general knowledge as we are just about at lockup Thanks Mightyant[/quote]Hi MightyAnt, When is it declared as lock up stage? Do you mind to advise? Thanks Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes Slab done 19 March 2018 Frame done 20 April 2018 Bricks done 31 May 2018 [i][i][i]Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes[/i][/i][/i] Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 18Jun 19, 2018 11:32 pm Kazi ozmonkeyoy ChizCake Great idea Oz! I'll ask the question when I speak to our consultant next. We opted for the rear balcony too (as we have views of the blue mountains that would be a waste if we didn't) but also had to widen the foyer by moving the garage sideways to increase the width of the facade. This was needed to comply with regulations around the triple garage not exceeding more than 50% of the total facade. Santa Fe looks great and bang for buck I think since the glass handrails are included. We also asked them to quote the same for the rear balcony but based on the price (which seemed to be most of the cost of the facade itself) we opted to do this post-handover. September completion is impressive. I would choose speed over access any day! How long would that be since they first broke ground? It will be a great looking facade if you had to widen it even more, and be unique to your house The glass balcony drew us on it as we also have some escarpment views to the south and west. The rear balcony we stuck with included brick just to give a little bit of privacy as we do have rear neighbours. W did scrape our lot in early December but with xmas shutdown the slab didn't get started until the last few days in January. That's when the contract period starts. Ours is a 34 week contract build. Even with all of the rain that we had in March we are still on schedule for that 34 week period, even though there has been approx 3 5 weeks of rain days. When and how do you get the notification that your build is still on schedule of 34 weeks? Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes Slab done 19 March 2018 Frame done 20 April 2018 Bricks done 31 May 2018 Its not until you get to pci that you really know when the build is finishibg. Once pci is done within two weeks the house is yours. SS dont really like questions regarding the contract timetable and when the house is built. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 19Jun 19, 2018 11:34 pm Kazi MightyAnt CS199 [quote="ozmonkeyoy"][quote="MightyAnt"]Anyone in the progress of building Manhattan 52? Due to the size of the house I am interested in your experiences and costs re Electrical AC Landscape, specifically Driveway (we are having a triple) Anything else that blew you away Thanks Hi MightyAnt As you have probably seen from the main Wisdom thread, we are also building Wisdom's M52, currently @ bricking stage. There a couple of active members who are building the same. We changed the master plans quite a bit to suit our block and preferences. I think the build ends up being close to 59sq W's inclusions are very good, we paid for the Prestige package in our contract last year. We had variations on most things, it really comes down to personal preferences and budget. Electricals, we will do some after handover, but most things will be done by W on the ground floor. AC we upgraded to the ESP Plus. The included system will work fine, the ESP Plus a little more efficiently. We added a couple of extra zones and also some slimline grilles. Landscape we were quoted something ridiculous by W, the driveway $17k. Very doubtful we will be doing much with W here, they are just too expensive. We will use the $5k voucher for something. Kitchen & butlers fitout was our biggest upgrade. Any questions you have, happy to try and answer. Good luck with the build. Oz. If ok can you send me a copy of your design plan Hi all Sorry we ended up pulling out and not building with wisdom, admin was horrendously slow. Hope everyone the best with their builds. I can help with general knowledge as we are just about at lockup Thanks Mightyant[/quote]Hi MightyAnt, When is it declared as lock up stage? Do you mind to advise? Thanks Building Ambassador 41 Wisdom Homes Slab done 19 March 2018 Frame done 20 April 2018 Bricks done 31 May 2018[/quote]Lockup is when all external doors are installed usually after the plasterboard/gyprock is done. Then they commence your interior cabinetry and finishings. Re: Building Wisdom Manahattan 52 20Jun 20, 2018 11:35 am I have just built a Wisdom home. I wish we had built with another builder. We have had nothing but problems. i'm currently going through trades coming back to fix a lot of issues with now includes a wall being replaced, floors being pulled up, apparently our kitchen needs some replacing, i'm currently in discussions with Fair Trading and i'm mentally exhausted. I will never build with WH again. Hi, guys! If you've built with Wisdom Homes, would you mind sharing images of your front facades once they're all rendered? I'm considering signing up with them for a wide… 0 13889 Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 18473 In fairness nobody gave a crap about the ACCC and the gag clauses continued in the pro forma templates of a few other builders after the ACCC took on Wisdom, and more… 19 73505 |