HENLEY Experience

We decided to build with Henley as their displays showed quality which justified the costing. What we have experienced is that the level of service deteriorates as you go along in the build process. We are at the last stage so you can imagine the service we are receiving. If you are someone who pays attention to detail's and want what was promised, then you better be prepared for surprises. The stage that we are at I would not recommend them to anyone. We have gone past the completion date and on a third supervisor. Victorian Construction Manager is also aware yet - No end date in sight so far. We have escalated the issue with DBDRV today which will add to our delays.

The issue – Poor Brickwork/ Poor Workmanship !!!!!

Brickwork which is basic and essential to every house. You would think they would have mastered this given they call themselves a bulk builder. They laid the bricks in January 2017 and since then we have brought it up on several occasions with supervisors, admin and construction manager yet no real resolutions apart from some sectional approach and no clear indications on how Henley wish to resolve the poor bricklaying in the entire build. I am happy to share our address and would recommend anyone to go and view the brickwork before signing up with them if you are considering them at the moment. It’s:

poor blending,

damaged mortar,

different colour of mortar,

poor laying process,

bed joints of excessive thickness,

lack of supervision during the masonry,

shrinkage of brick creating cracks in brick masonry joints the list is endless.

So here we are left in limbo with all expenses piling up with multiple mortgages. Stressed at the level of service and poor quality from Henley #Henley

Does anyone have much experience with DBDRV? We just submitted our application today. Hoping to get tips how best to prepare?


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DONOT BUILD with HENLEY!
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What did your own inspector say about the brickwork?

Unfortunately displays are builders very best, carefully built, hand picked trades with everything in it, BUT you will almost never get this quality, despite the fact that your entitled to this level of finish.
You just have to have your own building inspector, or your at the mercy of Russian roulette with little knowledge how to stop the ball rolling down the hill, I would get a inspector immediately if you don't have one, and read building experts website, best of luck.

We presented a 53 page inspection report back in June which included brickwork issues amongst others. Henley only started repairing the brickwork in July. They did pointing (or repointing unsure of the correct term) only on those areas. Not sure if that was the right approach as now some areas look fine with rolled joints. Rest look worse.

You are right Joker. Leaving displays aside when we look at houses on either side of our built the defects are so easily identified. One of our neighbours also built with Henley. When we asked Henley supervisor and construction manager how come next door brickwork looks so neat Henley staff have no answers or come up with excuse that their bricks are different. We did engage an inspector in June who prepared a 53 page report including brickwork defects.

I even sent Henley #Austral 's guidelines available on their website on blending and poor blending yet they seem to have no answers and keep harping that it's good workmanship.

Could you share some photos?

Having some trouble to upload images. Here is one example.

Here are some pics.

Hard to tell from the photos, can't see any major issues... apart from that one brick in the first pic with the thick mortar..and that main join.. but from what I've heard the main joins are always a bit wonky.

Probably something you need to see in person to see the overall effect.

In the second image the mortar is defective in the area. It's meant to have a rolled look however in reality it looks eaten into.

Better to look at pictures up close, when you zoom in on second picture, you start to see morter that looks like Swiss cheese, they do look poor.

What you have is brick mortar damaged by acid pitting. This happens when bricks are not cleaned soon after bricklaying and mortar gets hard and is then cleaned with stronger acid. Your rolled joints have been destroyed and your mortar now lookalike it has aged 50 years.
In any case your inspector should be able to guide you through the process of getting your brickwork rectified.

Thank you building expert - your explanation made sense in the area in the picture. The Henley supervisor and construction manager didn't want to explain the reason of the condition of the mortar. Since there are more focused on proving us wrong. There are multiple issues that are currently going on with the brickwork. So the building inspector didn't suggest any particular way to fix. The Henley staff did "pointing" as they thought this was best to fix the issue in some areas we identified.

Once you point it out I can see the issue. Think I was more focused on how straight it looked. That sucks ;; how do they fix that?

Still pending Dawn. Hasn't been fixed. Hoping DBDRV might be able to get Henley to address these issues.

Hello, im facing a very similar issue with my bricks with JG Kings. I would be very interested to hear how you went with the DBDRV as this may be my next step.

Which jg king office? We have had a stack of issues with our jgking build (bricks are literally the only thing we haven't had some sort of issue with so far) however we have found they are willing to fix everything and seem like they ultimately want to deliver a good house. Have you found Surtees thread on here (search for Memphis should find it)? He had mortar issues with jgking, they re-pointed, which didn't turn out well so they ended up pulling them down and starting from scratch.

Thank for your reply! We are dealing with the Melbourne office. I did read Surtees thread when we first came across the problem with our bricks. Glad to hear you've been successful in getting things rectified. At this point my main concern is delay in finding a re pointer.

Yeah I should have clarified "In their own time" we have had issues that haven't been rectified until after it has affected the next trade , even though we have been reminding them repeatably that it needs to be done before...

It's been 2 steps forward, 1 step back, the whole build!

Efficiency doesn't seem to be their thing!

Are you still within the contract time?

Only just... The contract end date is at the end of this month although they did claim quite a number of weather and trade delays very early on. Some were contested so im waiting to hear back about exactly when the record liquidated damages commencing but by my calculations its early next month.

Inside our house is essentially complete and its now been over a month of waiting for a resolution on how and when the bricks will be rectified. We've recently been told the delay is sourcing a re-pointer...