KDRB Bentley Homes Kyalami 370

Hi all
Rarely see any reviews on Bentley Homes so thought I should share our experience as we go along to help anyone else considering them.

We are doing a KDRB in Melbourne eastern suburbs for Kyalami 370, Will update as we go along as our estimated finish time is October 2018. Finding a builder was challenging given the fall of our site is higher (3.6m front to back), most builders we saw wouldn’t do it.

The pre build process generally went ok, color selection etc was done ok, although given the time delay between this and site start a lot of what we chose ended up discontinued or otherwise unavailable so had to rechoose. But on the whole everything went ok and there was decent comms to keep us updated. I will point out 2 things though,

• Bentley like a lot of builders use the standard HIA contract, not much you can do about this but it is as you imagine, loaded heavily in favour of the builder rather than customer
• Despite the new rules in Vic against builders appointing building surveyors*, Bentley ‘highly recommend’ using the surveyor of their choice and make it very annoying (and costly) for you to not go along with them. I have a feeling this is common for a lot of builders, and this sort of practice defeats the purpose of having the rule in place which is meant to protect consumers. In the end we went along with what they ‘recommended’, and didn’t even bother appointing an independent inspector, as from what we heard even if you do get one, the builder has no obligation to effect any changes that your inspector puts forward…

I guess these aren’t complaints per se as they are common industry practice, but it is still annoying.

*See https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/building-and-renovating/plan-and-manage-your-building-project/domestic-building-consumer-guide

The paperwork and delays to getting site ready with KDRB is really tedious and lengthy, summarised below:

Council
Demo company will do the build/demo permit, but owner has to get asset protection, which involves a fee $250, and a bond ($3k for us).

If the demo guys damage any council assets during the works, the owner is up for any damages, and I found that all demo companies are like this (ie don’t accept responsibility for damage caused, which I find highly suspect)…

Abolishments
Removing any connections for utilities (mainly gas and electricity), small fee involved and potential for delays (as we had), really need to keep chasing people up to make sure it gets done

Fencing
Some demo companies will supply it as part of the cost, ours didn’t so we used SSS, which were the lowest cost (although most were similarly priced), about $300 for 12 weeks hire (just along the front).

Underground pit
Builders usually want you to put one in to supply power for the build (or charge you for a generator), and this involves talking to distributor (ie no choice) to get one put in.

This was by far the worst part of this whole experience to date. United Energy are shocking

• About 2 months delay all up thanks to them outsourcing to offshore people who cant even speak English (this is after the mandatory 20min+ wait to even get through the phone lines), and then seem to not know what theyre doing, or even be able to find your work order
• They tell you to email them, and then no one looks at it until you call to follow up, and then they may push it to another area who also sits on it for ages
• Eventually they’ll finally get around to it, and then charge you a fortune. Ours cost $5k (wtf??), and reading on forums im sure this was more like $2k only a few years ago. There was cost due to extra cabling which I cant understand even today as our pit is right in front of our site and the setback to the house is not unusually long…profiteering?
• And then another month of delay after paying them, saying it will be installed by such date, and it not being done. I had to physically inspect the site and prove to them it was in fact not done (they do it via contractor), to get them to go and actually do it
• In total, 4 months wait and $5k spent to finally get a pit put in. sadly I cant let anyone benefit from this and not go with United, as given they are a distributor there is no choice (id avoid them at all costs if there were)…

Demo
The most costly part of a KDRB. We looked around as the quotes varied by up to $10k, ours was more costly as we had a lot of trees and an extension which had to be removed by hand. Builders want you to clear the site including tree stumps, and theres all sorts of stories about bad jobs being done especially if theres asbestos not removed properly…

The 2 companies I seriously considered was A1 Demolition and Gravity Demo.

• A1 impressed me by the knowledge of their owner, telling me a lot of helpful info, including sewer capping (which is usually a plumbing job, but given it requires excavating usually the demo guys are well placed to do it). Unfortunately their quote was nearly $30k
• Gravity had a lot of good reviews and also one of the lower quotes at $19k, and we ultimately went with them

house before

demo started

end result

I have to say I have nothing but praise for Gravity, as they did the job timely and professionally. Took them just over 1 week, and they left a perfectly clean site, with all the trees and stumps removed, and no debris left. And they didn’t damage any of the neighbouring fences or council assets so we got all our bond back. And all this for one of the lowest quotes that we got too.

I would recommend Gravity to anyone needing a demo job done.

Finally site is ready, Build permit took a while as builders had to go back to council after being asked to revise drainage
Site started end November! under 6 months after we start the abolishment/demo process…
I have been told that first steps (base and frame) will be done quickly, but rest takes longer as different trades are brought in.

cut and fill has resulted in sizable elevation difference from road level to the house (as expected), I guess this is something to consider when buying in the future,

• No slope is obviously best and will save a lot of money
• If you have to have a slope, I would prefer sloping upwards from road level so that your house will sit higher (and give better views?), which is the opposite of what we have

Great update. Watching your thread and build with interest. I too am doing a KDR with Bentley at the moment.

We are also building with Bentley, but not a KDRB. We’re about to start painting. Looking forward to following your build.

update Dec 2017

i never got to see the slab by itself as within 1 week after slab pour and i got to site to meet supervisor..frame was started
so no photos of our slab which needed piers too

about a month after slab pour frame is not quite done
the cut left quite a big gap in height so want to see if builder will do anything about it as we go along
a bit worried at the moment
other than that everything seems ok

front and back:




and this is the inside where we have the 500mm stepdown

Just curious are you using Darbecca to do inspections?

do you mean the surveyor?
we had to go with DJM under Bentleys 'recommendation'

We also went with an independent on top of DJM. I find that DJM reports on the major stuff where as independent goes into detail with anything that is slightly off .. however they do also tell you if it’s major or minor. It’s a great experience to get both as it gives us more understanding and confidence on the building process. We are also on the last stage hoping to move in soon yei 🙂

I will echo what Marlbling said. Darbecca are a lot more picky than DJM.

i asked for a copy of the frame stage inspection report and see if we should get an independent
a few of my friends who did get one seem to all say the builder tends to not act on their reports...

update
frame stage largely done, roof tiling finished and some of the piping is started





and another photo of the poor cut and fill at the back...probably should have made sure they did this property before the base but never got around to inspecting until after slab pour
they did say they will level it out but...

They are pretty good with us .. our very first independent report was ok but the second one I got no reply and the others after we asked them about it and they commented on parts that are already fixed and to be fixed. I think depends on your csa as they are the ones reporting to you .. ours now is great I hope she stays on because ours changed I think 4 times ..

Hi neb880,

Thanks so much for doing these posts. I too am currently building the Kyalami 37 with Bentley homes in Melbourne's north-eastern suburbs. Although we had a vacant block of land so no house to knock down. We started to cut out the land in the first week of November 2017 and are only just nearing towards the end of frame stage now. It seems your build is progressing MUCH faster than ours!
We also were concerned initially about the cut out being too deep but it seems over time, the land has levelled with the introduction of rock and use of machinery.
Have you experienced any delays so far? We have already had delays with scaffolding and solar panels being put in the wrong location. Anyone else had these kinds of problems/delays so early on with Bentley?

We were told verbally that our house should be done within 6 months when we were at contract stage.. we’ll we are on the 7th month now and still on the last stage. Am waiting eagerly for the house to hurry up and finish hopefully it’s not gonna be 9 months as it says on the contract 🤕.

Our friend building with Alfred construction on the same street as ours had their house build in 4months. Such a disappointment but oh well sh** happens

We too were told verbally that it would take 5-6 months. They seemed pretty sure at the time that would be the longest it could take despite the contract dates at 9 months. Silly me believed them as my previous builds have all been less than 6 months, some as quick as 4 months. Plus, I didn't think they would make such false promises to a pregnant lady knowing I needed to move in before my first baby was born! So stressful!

I have my fingers crossed for you that you'll be in your new home soon

Aweee bummer .. shame it’s not good to lie to a pregnant lady ☺️☺️ Thanks hun there’s still quite a bit to be done .. this will probably be the longest completion stage ever 🤣🤣

not much delays after build started, but about 2 months before site start due to permits and changes made to plans.
also with the frame they had to go back and put some extra beams in but its common for frame inspections to require 1 or 2 followups to fix issues,.today they just put up the scaffolding so i cant tell you about that

i did note earlier that we had site cut issues, my view is that they rushed the site cut and base to get paid sooner, which meant that there was not enough time for the power to go through to the underground pit, and they had to run generators, which they are now charging me for ...10 days $1500. and they didnt ask me before they ran them, and sent the invoice 2 months later...
not happy about that, going to see if i can do anything about it

i was told today by supervisor that when you finish fixture stage, think of the house as about half done...as in the time/work needed to finish it still
which is interesting because in terms of progress payments, thats 90% paid for 50%..?

update
bricking started and likely to finish in 2 weeks, and the lockup stage by end of month or early March
site cut issue still not fixed, but hopefully soil will be imported to level out the areas soon...

parts of the balcony and garage roof apparently may not get done until after lockup though...due to vague definitions in HIA contracts...great

seems that a lot of internal stuff gets done while exterior is done too

piping put in


view from 2F, windows put in



view from back, scaffolding not yet finished


front view at present