Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 61Sep 10, 2018 8:32 pm I am following this build intently and appreciate the time you have put in to detailing your progress. We too are building the Genoa verve, however we are right in the beginning stages having our first colour familiarisation session this weekend. Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 62Sep 10, 2018 8:36 pm MangoC I am following this build intently and appreciate the time you have put in to detailing your progress. We too are building the Genoa verve, however we are right in the beginning stages having our first colour familiarisation session this weekend. It really is a great house design imo. We have been very happy with everything for the most part, which is about as much as you can ask! We have had a few different site supervisors in the early stages which was a little worrying, but our current supervisor JS is very good. Word of advice, remember when you are doing your electrical to get a power point for the hall lights by the garage entry door. We were not told and now we will have to have it done after the fact lol. Feel free to PM me if you have any queries! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 63Sep 11, 2018 4:38 pm Kollosche MangoC I am following this build intently and appreciate the time you have put in to detailing your progress. We too are building the Genoa verve, however we are right in the beginning stages having our first colour familiarisation session this weekend. It really is a great house design imo. We have been very happy with everything for the most part, which is about as much as you can ask! We have had a few different site supervisors in the early stages which was a little worrying, but our current supervisor JS is very good. Word of advice, remember when you are doing your electrical to get a power point for the hall lights by the garage entry door. We were not told and now we will have to have it done after the fact lol. Feel free to PM me if you have any queries! Awesome. Thanks. Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 64Sep 19, 2018 2:24 pm I see you are paying the fee for the removal of quadding at the end of the build. We too hate the look of quadding however the price they are charging for the removal of it at the end is ridiculous. Did you explore any other avenues. Asking the builders to leave the skirting off for you to attach on your own over the flooring? Or even having the flooring done by another company after the build? By the time you get credited the flooring by Arden, get someone else to do the flooring and then avoid that 3k removal of quadding fee you may have saved money? Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 65Sep 19, 2018 2:40 pm MangoC I see you are paying the fee for the removal of quadding at the end of the build. We too hate the look of quadding however the price they are charging for the removal of it at the end is ridiculous. Did you explore any other avenues. Asking the builders to leave the skirting off for you to attach on your own over the flooring? Or even having the flooring done by another company after the build? By the time you get credited the flooring by Arden, get someone else to do the flooring and then avoid that 3k removal of quadding fee you may have saved money? I agree that the cost is quite ridiculous but we still believe it was worth paying to have the nicer finish we desired. To be honest we did not think to explore other avenues or get separate quotes for the flooring without quad. We are not that handy either so DIY was out of the question. We simply paid what was quoted as it was the easiest option. You will find that if you do things later or arrange things yourself that the cost will be less as Arden won't be tacking on their fee, but at the end of the day this just means that you are responsible to organise those things, work around Arden's trades if you even can and you won't be warranted by Arden for that item. It all ends up being too hard, at least for us. Having the flooring done later would be a good way to save a buck, but we were after a completed house at handover (except for garden/fence/exterior). We did not want the hassle of having to have more things arranged when we want to move in. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 66Sep 19, 2018 4:37 pm Kollosche MangoC I see you are paying the fee for the removal of quadding at the end of the build. We too hate the look of quadding however the price they are charging for the removal of it at the end is ridiculous. Did you explore any other avenues. Asking the builders to leave the skirting off for you to attach on your own over the flooring? Or even having the flooring done by another company after the build? By the time you get credited the flooring by Arden, get someone else to do the flooring and then avoid that 3k removal of quadding fee you may have saved money? I agree that the cost is quite ridiculous but we still believe it was worth paying to have the nicer finish we desired. To be honest we did not think to explore other avenues or get separate quotes for the flooring without quad. We are not that handy either so DIY was out of the question. We simply paid what was quoted as it was the easiest option. You will find that if you do things later or arrange things yourself that the cost will be less as Arden won't be tacking on their fee, but at the end of the day this just means that you are responsible to organise those things, work around Arden's trades if you even can and you won't be warranted by Arden for that item. It all ends up being too hard, at least for us. Having the flooring done later would be a good way to save a buck, but we were after a completed house at handover (except for garden/fence/exterior). We did not want the hassle of having to have more things arranged when we want to move in. Yep, I completely get your point of view. No fuss. Thought I'd ask the question though. Might have saved me some time in further research. 😂 One thing is for sure and that is we aint gonna live with quading either! Have you had much progress this week? Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 67Sep 19, 2018 4:58 pm Speaking of flooring, we should be getting our flooring installed today. I won't be able to go down and check tonight, but I will be for sure tomorrow. They tell me that a house clean is booked for tomorrow so we shall see! I am yet to post an update for the previous week, but I just havent had a chance to reflect as of yet, have been just so busy with fencing and other things! Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 68Sep 20, 2018 9:18 pm Week 17 So this week (last week at time of posting) was meant to see the installation of our vinyl flooring. Unfortunately Perfect Timber Floors apparently did not receive the email the site supervisor sent them which resulted in a delay by a week. This has also as a result pushed back our expected hand over by about a week, we are now looking at early October rather than the end of September. No matter, the end is still in sight! Although the vinyl flooring didn't go down, the carpets have gone in, the caulking through the house has been done, the bath installed, as well as the tapware! The tapware looks greats, couldn't be happier! We did upgrade our ensuite shower tapware and as it was quite a bit more expensive it has not yet been installed. I have attached some pictures and I managed to get a picture of the house from the front. The plasterers also appear to have come back to attempt to fix the missing cornicing over the fridge cavity. Unfortunately they only fixed the corncing partially as they did not take down the overhead cabinets and as such did not cornice where they could not reach... Obviously this will involve them coming back yet again to finish the job... So next week (this week at time of posting), the vinyl flooring is now due to be installed. Hopefully this will actually happen! Arden has also told me that their internal QA walkthrough is due. I'm pretty sure this stands for Quality Assurance and involves our site supervisor walking through the house with his manager to check for fixes before booking in a PCI with us as the owners. Hopefully all goes well! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 69Sep 20, 2018 9:36 pm 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 ⋅ Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 72Sep 22, 2018 9:06 am Ezza78 That’s frustrating about the quadding. What’s wrong with your tiling? Otherwise it’s Looking great though. Check out some of the pictures of the tiling in post 58. They essentially stuffed up the tiling for the shower by first installing the door frames in the shower, and then the cut the tiles around the door frame when laying them. When the door frame was removed to fix the issue with the door, they decided that they would just bog the hole that was left. It now looks like my new tiles are just a cheap repair job. Paying good money for a new home, not for them to cheap out on a cr*ppy looking patch job to fix a mistake they never should have made in the first place. Pse The flooring looks awesome. Can you please share how much did Arden charge to upgrade the flooring to Vinyl? Our vinyl flooring was from memory a Category 3 upgrade. It is Perfect Timber Floors Nevis. It covers most of our home so the cost of the upgrade was about $2,500. The upgrade to have no quad was about $2,700, which is why I am so devastated that they have currently installed quadding... This should be addressed and they will not be getting another dollar out of me till it is 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 73Sep 25, 2018 5:23 pm Met with the site supervisor today with regards to the shower screen. From what he showed me they have made the shower screen too big. To be honest, I wouldnt have had a problem with this, but the tilers have gone and put a slight cut in the tiles where the shower screen should be. This cut is not deep and has not been grouted so it looks odd and out of place. It looks like a mistake. So I told the supervisor that we should have the shower screen replaced so that the cut is covered. I just hope that removing the shower screen does not cause any damage to the tiles. The supervisor has told me it wouldn't and that if it did then they would replace the tiles, but given their track record with not fixing tiles that I deem to not be good enough, idk what to expect. Arden's QA was also supposed to be tomorrow, however this has AGAIN been pushed back as a result of the carpenters not coming back to install the skirting boards. They were booked for Monday, failed to show, then today, but failed to show. So as a result of slack trades the QA has been again postponed to Monday. The supervisor also told us to expect the practical completion inspection (PCI) on Thursday next week, with handover the following week. This however may still be unlikely given that the gas has not been connected and an occupancy certificate has not been issued. Without the occupancy certificate and an invoice, I cannot request the bank to release the funds for final drawdown. Of course the bank will want to do its thing and inspect the property etc before handing over the remaining balance, so I can see this taking a good week or two... So best case scenario we are still looking like we are at least 2x weeks away, or worst case scenario end of October. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 75Sep 26, 2018 9:47 pm Ezza78 Good luck! So close. Does the bank really come and view the property? I double checked but yes it seems so. A final inspection of the property will be required by our bank prior to payment of the final invoice. Our bank will want at least 5 business days notice prior to handover for this too. Just another thing to cause delays. The bank will also require the certificate of occupancy and a home insurance certificate of currency with out bank specified on the policy as a mortgagee interest. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 76Sep 30, 2018 9:30 am Week 19 So as I mentioned above, I caught up with our site supervisor this week. I won't repeat myself, so what happened is outlined in post 73. My wife and I actually went to visit the house the following day and she noticed something that I hadn't - our awesome kitchen tap-ware had disappeared! As I would later confirm, this tap was stolen by a trade along with all of our door handles which were in boxes in the cabinets under the sink from which the tap was stolen... Absolute scum of a person! We also decided to head over to my parent's investment property which is being built by Arden over the road. Their build is a little way behind ours as they do not yet have a garage door (but will do sooner than planned now...). Now this is NOT the fault of Arden, just to make that point abundantly clear. As part of our builds, we are both the receive 5.4KW solar systems and a Tesla Powerwall 2 wall battery. This typically will be installed closer to handover so it is less likely to be stolen or damaged. However the contractors who were engaged by Arden to install this system installed what was meant to be our Powerwall on my parent house!! Likely due to the fact that we share the same surname, are building the same design, are on the same street and are directly opposite each other... That said, this is highly unprofessional, installing such an expensive piece of equipment on the wrong house is utterly unacceptable. I called our supervisor to ask him about this as I suspected that it was ours and it had been installed on the wrong house as ours has a garage doors and theirs does not yet. He did confirm that it was meant to be installed on ours and it was installed on my parents in error. As you could imagine he was none to pleased... On a more positive note, our skirting boards have been installed over the vinyl throughout, albeit a couple days later than expected (just my opinion, but I am pretty sure that those carpenters were the ones who took our tap-ware, as I think our supervisor was quite annoyed with them about them not coming to do the skirting boards when they said they would last week....). Anyway, the end is in sight. QA should be tomorrow evening (hopefully) and I suspect that PCI will be close to the end of next week. However I still doubt that handover will be for another few weeks given some of the errors I will not be handing over with unaddressed, Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 77Sep 30, 2018 12:45 pm Kollosche Week 19 So as I mentioned above, I caught up with our site supervisor this week. I won't repeat myself, so what happened is outlined in post 73. My wife and I actually went to visit the house the following day and she noticed something that I hadn't - our awesome kitchen tap-ware had disappeared! As I would later confirm, this tap was stolen by a trade along with all of our door handles which were in boxes in the cabinets under the sink from which the tap was stolen... Absolute scum of a person! We also decided to head over to my parent's investment property which is being built by Arden over the road. Their build is a little way behind ours as they do not yet have a garage door (but will do sooner than planned now...). Now this is NOT the fault of Arden, just to make that point abundantly clear. As part of our builds, we are both the receive 5.4KW solar systems and a Tesla Powerwall 2 wall battery. This typically will be installed closer to handover so it is less likely to be stolen or damaged. However the contractors who were engaged by Arden to install this system installed what was meant to be our Powerwall on my parent house!! Likely due to the fact that we share the same surname, are building the same design, are on the same street and are directly opposite each other... That said, this is highly unprofessional, installing such an expensive piece of equipment on the wrong house is utterly unacceptable. I called our supervisor to ask him about this as I suspected that it was ours and it had been installed on the wrong house as ours has a garage doors and theirs does not yet. He did confirm that it was meant to be installed on ours and it was installed on my parents in error. As you could imagine he was none to pleased... On a more positive note, our skirting boards have been installed over the vinyl throughout, albeit a couple days later than expected (just my opinion, but I am pretty sure that those carpenters were the ones who took our tap-ware, as I think our supervisor was quite annoyed with them about them not coming to do the skirting boards when they said they would last week....). Anyway, the end is in sight. QA should be tomorrow evening (hopefully) and I suspect that PCI will be close to the end of next week. However I still doubt that handover will be for another few weeks given some of the errors I will not be handing over with unaddressed, Oh my how flaming annoying and disappointing. I empathize with you! Are you going to get compensated for the items missing? In re to the power wall i get that the surname, street, and house design are the same but wouldn't alarm bells ring for the installers when they see the hose at much earlier stage in the build process. Especially with the flaming garage door not being installed. What is the resolution for this? On another note the house is coming up to almost finished. Its exciting and looking good. You went with a higher ceiling height which looks fantastic. Does the ceiling height continue through the entrance hallway? I noticed a bulk head in your photos. Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 78Sep 30, 2018 1:06 pm MangoC Oh my how flaming annoying and disappointing. I empathize with you! Are you going to get compensated for the items missing? In re to the power wall i get that the surname, street, and house design are the same but wouldn't alarm bells ring for the installers when they see the hose at much earlier stage in the build process. Especially with the flaming garage door not being installed. What is the resolution for this? On another note the house is coming up to almost finished. Its exciting and looking good. You went with a higher ceiling height which looks fantastic. Does the ceiling height continue through the entrance hallway? I noticed a bulk head in your photos. Since handover hasn't happened, Arden will still need to replace the missing items. It's not my responsibility to ensure the house is adequately locked-up and that their trades are not thieves. I'm sure they will have replacements prior to handover, especially considering if they didn't we wouldnt have any door handles. Essentially with the Powerwall it will mean that we will be getting ours closer to handover. It is unfortunate. My parents were not due to have theirs installed for another two weeks. My site supervisor was incredibly unimpressed. It doesnt take much brain power to clearly see that it should not have been installed on their house without a garage door, but here we are :/ The higher ceiling is throughout (it is higher again after the bulk head, good pickup though!) and makes a massive difference. My parents investment over the road is only standard height and you can definitely sense the difference. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 79Sep 30, 2018 2:26 pm How long before the oldies move into their place? If it's a couple of months, or so, get them to ensure the installers have slipped the battery control into storage condition. Re: Building Arden Homes Genoa Verve 26 in North East VIC 80Sep 30, 2018 2:30 pm kks How long before the oldies move into their place? If it's a couple of months, or so, get them to ensure the installers have slipped the battery control into storage condition. They will not be moving in, it is just an investment property for them. I will mention this "storage condition" to the site supervisor though as they are still a whiles away to completion. Build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90888 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 13458 The warning is on the sticker on the door too. Second the aluminium powdercoat 6 18409 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 23049 |