Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 81Oct 08, 2018 9:58 pm Week 20 Not a lot this week in terms of things actually done, but that is to be expected as most all things have been done. It is now just a matter of fixing a few issues, all of which in the greater scheme of things are relatively minor. On Monday we had Arden do there QA, which is essentially where the site supervisor and his manager do a walk through of the home and look for defects or things to be addressed. To my pleasure this was quite thorough as I found out at our practical completion inspection (PCI) which we had on Friday. For our PCI, my wife and I met up with our supervisor and essentially walked through each room of the house looking for potential defects. Again, there didnt seem to be too much wrong which is good. For the most part it was just minor defects in paint which we marked for the painters to come back and touch up. The whole PCI process took about 2 hours. We signed off one about 15 defects to be addressed prior to handover. This however did not include our shower screen which would make 16. This is an ongoing issue we have had with our ensuite which I have described in previous posts. I spoke with my site supervisor today and told him that we would like it replaced. Unfortunately it seems as though there is a delay at the moment with having shower screens made which I hope will not cause a delay, or too much of a delay. Other than the shower screen, the only other relatively big issue is with our vinyl flooring. The quadding has to be removed around the kitchen and there are a few planks that look like someone has walked on them with a chemical on their shoes which has put some red stains in them. These panels will be replaced, however it will likely mean that the skirting boards will have to also come off and also need to be repainted or touched up. We have been told to expect handover to be 19 October 2018. This would bring the complete build to a total of 22 weeks. In my opinion this is exceptional, especially when I am hearing some are on or above a year (that said, they are likely building much bigger, double story homes). We will just have to wait and see what the next couple of weeks brings, and in the meantime start (continue) packing! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 82Oct 09, 2018 1:55 am Kollosche Week 20 Not a lot this week in terms of things actually done, but that is to be expected as most all things have been done. It is now just a matter of fixing a few issues, all of which in the greater scheme of things are relatively minor. On Monday we had Arden do there QA, which is essentially where the site supervisor and his manager do a walk through of the home and look for defects or things to be addressed. To my pleasure this was quite thorough as I found out at our practical completion inspection (PCI) which we had on Friday. For our PCI, my wife and I met up with our supervisor and essentially walked through each room of the house looking for potential defects. Again, there didnt seem to be too much wrong which is good. For the most part it was just minor defects in paint which we marked for the painters to come back and touch up. The whole PCI process took about 2 hours. We signed off one about 15 defects to be addressed prior to handover. This however did not include our shower screen which would make 16. This is an ongoing issue we have had with our ensuite which I have described in previous posts. I spoke with my site supervisor today and told him that we would like it replaced. Unfortunately it seems as though there is a delay at the moment with having shower screens made which I hope will not cause a delay, or too much of a delay. Other than the shower screen, the only other relatively big issue is with our vinyl flooring. The quadding has to be removed around the kitchen and there are a few planks that look like someone has walked on them with a chemical on their shoes which has put some red stains in them. These panels will be replaced, however it will likely mean that the skirting boards will have to also come off and also need to be repainted or touched up. We have been told to expect handover to be 19 October 2018. This would bring the complete build to a total of 22 weeks. In my opinion this is exceptional, especially when I am hearing some are on or above a year (that said, they are likely building much bigger, double story homes). We will just have to wait and see what the next couple of weeks brings, and in the meantime start (continue) packing! Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 83Oct 09, 2018 4:58 pm Kollosche Week 18 So week 17 was posted a week late, but I am posting this weeks a little on the early side! So it was not till Wednesday that the flooring was installed which was a little later than I was expecting. They also had a house clean done today so most things look very neat. However this clean may have been a little premature as the carpenters have to come back to install the skirting boards still. This may happen tomorrow, if not next week. Arden's QA inspection has also been pushed back to next week as a result of the skirting boards not being installed or painted. This is fine, it is not a big delay. Now unfortunately for the disappointing points. We paid a significant sum of money to have the the flooring installed with no quadding, especially around the kitchen area. The contract actually states that the money we paid to have the floor installed with no quadding was for having trades return to install the caesarstone waterfall edges over the flooring and to install fake kickers under the kitchen cabinets so that there is no visible quadding. Unfortunately this has not happen, in the photos below you cannot really see this, as I took the photos to primarily show off how nice the floors look rather than the fault, but it does look very cheap in the kitchen area. I have raised this already with my supervisor as I was quite disappointed with this. To his credit, he did reply after hours to my text message to reassure me that he was aware of the issue and that we would discuss it further tomorrow. I will not be accepting this and if it holds up handover, so be it. I expect a completed house at handover to the contract specifications. Hopefully this will not be a too time consuming fix! The other issue is the tiling in the ensuite. I spoke with the site supervisor last week about this as he told me that shower screens had been measured that week. He also advised me that the tilers were going in this week and would correct the tiles in the shower before the screens were installed. Unfortunately this never happened, but the shower screens have now been installed. This was another thing I raised in my text message and I outlined how disappointed I was that I was told it would be rectified and it wasnt. I do not know if this was deliberate, but I would more likely assume that it was the trade who did not follow instructions or "forgot". Either way I am also not handing over till this is rectified. I will post an update at some point tomorrow once I have actually had a chance to talk to my supervisor. But enough dwelling on the negatives, just look at our fantastic flooring! Very happy with our choice! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Stunning flooring and love your colour palette kollosche _________________________________________ Regards Manj https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88256 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 84Oct 09, 2018 5:34 pm Manj Kollosche Week 18 So week 17 was posted a week late, but I am posting this weeks a little on the early side! So it was not till Wednesday that the flooring was installed which was a little later than I was expecting. They also had a house clean done today so most things look very neat. However this clean may have been a little premature as the carpenters have to come back to install the skirting boards still. This may happen tomorrow, if not next week. Arden's QA inspection has also been pushed back to next week as a result of the skirting boards not being installed or painted. This is fine, it is not a big delay. Now unfortunately for the disappointing points. We paid a significant sum of money to have the the flooring installed with no quadding, especially around the kitchen area. The contract actually states that the money we paid to have the floor installed with no quadding was for having trades return to install the caesarstone waterfall edges over the flooring and to install fake kickers under the kitchen cabinets so that there is no visible quadding. Unfortunately this has not happen, in the photos below you cannot really see this, as I took the photos to primarily show off how nice the floors look rather than the fault, but it does look very cheap in the kitchen area. I have raised this already with my supervisor as I was quite disappointed with this. To his credit, he did reply after hours to my text message to reassure me that he was aware of the issue and that we would discuss it further tomorrow. I will not be accepting this and if it holds up handover, so be it. I expect a completed house at handover to the contract specifications. Hopefully this will not be a too time consuming fix! The other issue is the tiling in the ensuite. I spoke with the site supervisor last week about this as he told me that shower screens had been measured that week. He also advised me that the tilers were going in this week and would correct the tiles in the shower before the screens were installed. Unfortunately this never happened, but the shower screens have now been installed. This was another thing I raised in my text message and I outlined how disappointed I was that I was told it would be rectified and it wasnt. I do not know if this was deliberate, but I would more likely assume that it was the trade who did not follow instructions or "forgot". Either way I am also not handing over till this is rectified. I will post an update at some point tomorrow once I have actually had a chance to talk to my supervisor. But enough dwelling on the negatives, just look at our fantastic flooring! Very happy with our choice! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Stunning flooring and love your colour palette kollosche Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 85Oct 10, 2018 7:40 am kathysangel My God it looks great but your edges are shocking should look like this I have a tiled floor Not to worry kathysangel, the pictures of our flooring were taken before the skirting boards were installed, it looks a lot more finished now! the next photos I upload will be of the completed home with the floors fully finished! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 86Oct 10, 2018 5:32 pm Kollosche kathysangel My God it looks great but your edges are shocking should look like this I have a tiled floor Not to worry kathysangel, the pictures of our flooring were taken before the skirting boards were installed, it looks a lot more finished now! the next photos I upload will be of the completed home with the floors fully finished! Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 87Oct 16, 2018 8:23 pm Week 21 Given the lead up to handover, one would have thought that there would be a lot of action in getting this finished up. However this week saw little to no action. The only things we could see that had been actioned was that the fly screens had been installed, and our Powerwall 2 has also now finally been installed. It would also appear that one of the downpipes that had been installed crooked has been moved straight and reattached. My wife and I also took to some earthwork over the weekend. Arden's earth movers appeared to have not removed quite a large pile of dirt with them and when I questioned my site supervisor about what they were doing with it his response was "nothing". To be fair, he was not our site supervisor from the start so he never saw the block before the house was literally on it, so he would not have known that the dirt pile was never there to begin with. That said, whilst it is a fair bit of dirt which takes some time to move, our house is sitting quite a bit off the ground around the sides and back, so relocating this to where it is needed will save us money in having to try to bring in fill. Our site supervisor did also say he would see what he could do if we wanted it removed. At the time of writing this post-weekly update, our supervisor has advised that we are still a go for handover on Friday 19 October. However, there is still a lot that needs to be addressed in terms of the PCI report. My supervisor told me that a lot of trades were going to be working in the house on Wednesday (17/10/2018.). He told me that if there is going to be a hold up on handover it will be because a trade has let him down on Wednesday. He did tell me that he would give me a call on Wednesday afternoon to confirm handover, or a delay. Fingers crossed for a handover on Friday (with all/most issues fixed!). Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 88Oct 17, 2018 7:26 am That's exciting. Fingers and toes crossed. Although the chance of a lot of trades coming through with the goods all on one day... I certaininly wouldn't have night expectations haha. Looking forward to more photos. Exciting times for you... Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 91Oct 21, 2018 8:30 pm Ezza78 Hi there. Keen to know how long from QA, to PCI to handover. We are due to have QA next week Typically Arden tries to have QA, then PCI a week later, and handover the week following. In theory this gives Arden enough time to fix up most issues raised in QA prior to PCI and then enough time prior to handover to actually address the issues you raise prior to handover. However our experience was/is a little different. QA was pushed back and PCI wasn't pushed back as far so we ended up having QA and PCI in the same week (I think, I may have mentioned it in a previous post). Handover was then originally going to be scheduled for the next week, but given some of the issues that needed to be addressed our supervisor told us it would most likely be 2x weeks away (which was last Friday). I am about to write up my next weekly post which will address this a little more. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 92Oct 21, 2018 8:47 pm Week 22 As I had expected, we were again delayed for handover. On Wednesday (17/10/2018.) afternoon my site supervisor gave me a call and advised me that the ensuite showerhead and the replacement kitchen tapware (which was stolen) had not arrived and he had expected them to arrive that day to be installed by the plumbers. This resulted in a push of handover from Friday (19/10/2018.) to Tuesday (23/10/2018.). This delay did not seem too bad. My wife and I then decided that we would go down on Wednesday evening to see what work had been done by the trades considering there were so many of them going in to fix our outstanding issues and our fencer had also started. We discovered that our fencer had only really put up the posts (which was fine), but the trades decided to leave the house completely unlocked! I guess it was good in that we were able to go through, but the fact is they should have locked up so no one could get in who was not supposed to!! We discovered that the trades did a sh*t job for most cases and failed to address the vast majority of issues, but they did leave a big sh*t in one of our toilets which stunk the whole house out! I had to fill a bucket with water and try to flush it down! I should not have to do that! The plumbers were also meant to connect the toilets to the water supply on that day which obviously did not happen! After our walkthrough I sent a text message to my supervisor just addressing the things that had been missed. He had told me he would be walking through on Thursday so I thought I would just give him a heads up on what I had noticed for him to check out himself. On Thursday I receive a call from him and he was fuming! He said the trades had not done a lot of what he had asked and went as far as to tell me that he was not paying the carpenters because they did not do the job at all! With this, he said that he would need to push that handover back to Friday (26/10/2018.). However he assured me that this would be the handover day and would do everything to make it happen. I am not overly disappointed with this as it was my expectation that there would be a delay. However what I am disappointed with was that in the 2x weeks that Arden was given post PCI, almost nothing was done during that first week. Not the end of the world though, just gives us a little more time to pack and clean I guess. We also took the last 2x weekends to move some dirt in preparation for having the driveway done. Our supervisor has told me that he will be at the property on Monday and Tuesday to ensure things are done properly. He asked for Wednesday and Thursday just to be sure that if there were any hold ups that he would have a few days to address the issues. On a side note though, handover this Friday gone likely would not have happened anyway as the bank took over 2x weeks to process our request for final loan drawdown, that was a nightmare to deal with and I did not receive the cheque till after midday on Friday! Hopefully with some luck we will be able to have handover this coming Friday. It is looking promising at this stage, however it wouldn't take much to result in another delay, but they cannot delay me by any more than another week as we told out landlord we would be out by 4 November!! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 93Nov 02, 2018 2:09 pm Week 23 This update is LONG overdue, mainly for the fact that we were handed the keys to the house on Friday (26/10/2018.) and we were frantically moving everything in and getting things organised! The handover process proceeded quite smoothly. Most of the issues we had were addressed, with only a few outstanding which we knew of (i.e the ensuite shower screen... plus more but ill get to that later...). Things that were done on the day of handover included the connection of the gas to the house, installation of appliances and installation of the hot water service. We also had the painter through to do some touch ups, however this would not usually be the case for a typical handover... It was that the painter was lazy and didn't come before hand, but I digress... As part of the handover process, we went through the house with our supervisor to note of things that had/had not been addressed, and noted any other issues that we saw (which were limited really). Once that had been done, we handed our supervisor the cheque, he provided us with the keys (and went and showed that the Arden master key no longer works) and we were also given a pack from Arden with a few nice things in it as a congratulations gift. With regards to having the internet connected, I inquired with my supervisor on numerous occasions as to whether the electricians would install the NBN box in the garage wired services cabinet ("WSC") to which I was told that they would. However on the day of handover the electricians were on site installing the ethernet ports in the WSC and I asked them about the NBN box, to which they replied "NBNco do that, not us" which is what my original understanding was! It seems there was a miscommunication between myself and my supervisor as to what the NBN box was that I was referring to!! So those building in new estates, note that you should get in contact with your preferred RSP to get the process moving along asap! The trades had left by around midday and the house was finally ours! We spent most of the day moving everything in as we rented a truck. I also received a call from Origin energy (Arden's provider) regarding the switch of the power and gas from Arden to ourselves... They really took no time at all to swap that out of their name! I also noticed that the solar inverter did not seem to be working. I checked the switch board and the switch for the inverter was locked to the off position, which I found strange... this I investigated further the following week. Finally, regarding our ensuite... Not only is the shower screen wrong, but also the height that they roughed-in the pipe for the shower head/rail was way to low. This was a result of the plumbers not considering that we custom ordered a shower head and rail and they roughed-in the connection at their standard height, rather than an appropriate height for the fitting. This will mean significant works to be done to address this... more in the next update. Overall we are very happy with the quality of the home. There are the odd things that we would have liked done differently and some things that we think were not done very well, but for most things the job has been done fantastically! We are very happy with our new home and can forgive some of the minor annoyances (as these should be fixed). Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 94Nov 02, 2018 2:39 pm Week 24 This will be the last "weekly" update as the house is now completed (except for minor maintenance and repairs). This week has seen a number of "teething" issues crop up which are or have been addressed. I will try to start from the start as to which trades have been through the house this week. Let's start with the electricians. These guys returned on Monday to fix 2x issues that I had noticed over the weekend, one much more serious than the other. The serious one was that they left a live double power-point out of the wall in the ensuite. This wall-point was taken off so that they could put a power-point in the hot water system cavity, however they forgot to come back in and connect the point back to the wall!! Due to the issues with the ensuite we have not been using this room anyway so it was not too much of an issue. The second issue was that 2x of my ethernet (data) points were not connected at all and one was not connected properly... They addressed this also in their visit. The electricians then returned the next day also as the antenna was not installed (i.e. it was forgotten about). So this was installed on Tuesday. I then attempted to set up my wireless access point for the WiFi and networking and was having significant trouble with this. I ended up determining that the cable that runs to the location of the wireless access point on the roof has been damaged somehow and does not work properly. This makes 4 out of my total 7 data points faulty on handover... poor form electricians! I'd hate to be someone who has no clue about this stuff! The electricians have not yet been out to fix the cable for the wireless access point (they should be coming tomorrow morning, nice and early... sigh...). Next will be the plumbers. One of my worst fears came true... Blocked sewerage pipes. We noticed that the toilets were not flushing properly at first, but it took a day or two to fully realise the problem. When my wife was in the shower I noticed that all the drains were "bubbling" air up from them, it was rather odd, I then proceeded to have a shower and the shower base was filling with water, till all of a sudden it wasnt. I figured that there must have been enough pressure to remove the blockage... how I was wrong! It turned out that the water rose to such a height that it began overflowing into the backyard!! We required a drainer to come out and clear the blackage, we have not had an issue since fortunately. However my supervisor informed me that the first drainer noticed that there was a crack in once of the pipes and sent another guy out to fix that. However I was not aware of this so I told the drainer not to worry and sent him home. Looks like I will be having them back yet again to fix the pipe. In my defence, my wife who was home when the first drainer was working told me that the first drainer had told her there was no damage to the pipes, so I was not to know any better! The plumber did also come back on Thursday to start works on the ensuite by removing the relevant tiles to raise the pipe for the shower rail. He also tightened a leaky tap out the front. I think it is still leaking a little though, so I will have to look into this more. Next will be the carpenter. He came back to install the lock on our second smaller master bedroom door. He was also to correct our lounge room sliding doors which were not originally installed correctly. I also had him fix our striker plates for our doors (the best he could, still not great but better than it was) as the latch for the internal doors were hitting the door frame before the striker plate, damaging the frame and the paintwork. The privacy lock for the master bedroom was also installed on the ensuite toilet door instead, so this was to be changed, long-story short here is that we are going to be provided with another privacy lock for the master bedroom door instead due to issues with removing it from the ensuite toilet door. We had a cauker in briefly on Thursday just to touch up under the island bench as well. In terms of getting the internet sorted, the process actually were smoother and significantly faster than I thought! From signing up with our internet service provider on handover day (Friday), NBNco came out on Tuesday and hooked up the connection from the street and since I was home they also installed the relevant hardware in the garage. I was connected to the internet the same day. 3 business days to connect is amazing and quite lucky, but I am very happy with this! My brother and I have also started mounting security cameras and other security equipment. I think I am also getting someone today to install all our light fittings, one of my brothers friends who is a licensed electrician. My brother (who is a carpenter) will also be getting up in the roof this evening to connect the security cameras. Other than that, we had furniture delivered and have been cleaning and unboxing things all week! I'm certainly glad I took a week off of annual leave to get all this sorted, but man I feel like I havent rested in a week! So much for rest and relaxation on annual leave! Once we are settled and have done some landscaping I will post some completed pictures. I will also do some more updates here and there as I go! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 96Nov 15, 2018 10:39 am MangoC Any updates? I am sitting on the edge of my seat for some final photos Most things are in now, I will see to some pictures when I am home tonight from work! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 97Nov 19, 2018 5:55 pm Interior Pictures Here are some pictures of our nice and clean areas, most other bedrooms are full of stuff still! Entry way Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Master Bedroom Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Ensuite (Still work to do on the shower, hence no image of shower) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Lounge Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Lounge Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Living/Dining/Kitchen Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Dining/Kitchen Like ⋅ 1 comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Living Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Kitchen/Fridge/Pantry Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Pantry Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ So much room in our new home, we love it! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 98Nov 19, 2018 6:46 pm Kollosche how beautiful! What lovely taste you have. It has all worked out so nicely. What was your living area floor choice? Colour and type? How delightful for you xx Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 99Nov 20, 2018 2:39 pm Treedance Kollosche how beautiful! What lovely taste you have. It has all worked out so nicely. What was your living area floor choice? Colour and type? How delightful for you xx Thank you! The flooring is vinyl planks from Perfect Timber Floors in the colour Nevis. We also upgraded to "no quad". Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 100Nov 20, 2018 4:54 pm You've done that up really nice! I am going to push the friendship and ask for outside shots! This is lime a display home for us as we are building the same house. As you probably know there's no displays on atm. Well done May I ask why you chose not to use GJ Gardiner? I'm actually meeting with one of the sales guys tomorrow for an appointment. Definitely not signing anything yet… 3 13247 The warning is on the sticker on the door too. Second the aluminium powdercoat 6 18195 Hi, can anyone recommend a custom home builder who can build in north east area? Looking to build a custom 4-br energy-efficient home with a max budget of 750k. If they… 0 22812 |