Building with Ausbuild at Harrington Estate, Bridgeman Downs

Looks ready to move in Irish! What's left?

I think some minor things, like shower screens, pantry shelves and such. But not much left...

It feels like such a long wait from lock-up with to completion!
A few houses in the estate seem to be taking forever to get to hand-over after painting, light fixing and external concreting

Great, you will be in there soon!

How’s your build going?
They’ve given us approximate practical completion date of 14 Feb.

That's not that far! It feels like your house was one of the nicely done ones in stage 2 (at least timewise)!

Today, we were told the tilers have finished and the painters will be in there for the next 10-14 days. So far so good.

Yes I think they’ve been quite quick and mostly did a good job.
After painting you’re on the home stretch

Could anyone on here share at what point can or should we bring the inspector for the practical completion stage? Can we bring them in prior to handover? We were advised by Ausbuild that no more inspections can be scheduled until practical completion. Just wondering if that’s correct.

I think that's when you'd really want to be bringing the inspector in - once practical completion has been reached (and probably as soon as possible after). That way if your inspector finds anything, it can be addressed between then and handover.

Hi Irish
Just wondering what choices you have for your cabinets & benchtops in bathroom pics?
All looks great!

Thank you!!!
Davenatjack, tiles are Atlantis Ghiaccio from the National tiles, both floor and walls.
Benchtop is Silestone Marengo.
Cabinets are Laminex Mushrooms linea.

Hi Irish,

Just wondering how you went with your PCI on your build? Ours is scheduled for March 28, so interested to see if you picked up on anything that we should look out for. We are on Sarsfield Place

Hi Benji,
We had an external inspector at our PC walkthrough. He said that our house was one of the better ones at Harrington (our inspector has done several PC inspections at the estate) and that Ausbuild has improved their processes a lot in the past few months... this was encouraging to hear.
There were no major issues, although quite a few areas required paint touch ups or cleaning. The biggest things were a power point too close to a down pipe and wrong colour splashback on one of the kitchen walls. About half of the issues were rectified before handover which was a week ago. The rest of the outstanding items would be rectified within four weeks (items from inspector’s report).
Although since moving in we’ve noticed that one of the downlights is going on and off which we will be reporting.
I recommend to get an inspector, even just to get reassurance that there are no major issues.

Congrats on your PC date! It’s so exciting once you get the keys and walk through the house for the first time by yourself and realise it’s yours

Thanks for the info! its reassuring to hear that you didn't have any major issues. We've tried to keep on top of things and were out at our house every weekend looking at things and our SS has been pretty good at rectifying any issues we found along the way. If you don't mind could you possibly share with me the details of the inspector you used, just send me a PM or something

We used AllInspect (recommended by someone from stage 1), they’ve done quite a few inspections at the estate. Our inspectors name was David something, we got the report that same evening. Another one I’ve heard of people using was KSpec.

I was the first to use All Inspect in the Harrington Estate and recommended David from All Inspect to many. David is great. The Ausbuild guys dislike him very much simply because he is so good at his job.

Just a word of warning, our handover was 06/12 and were advised the outstanding items from PCI would be rectified by Christmas.

We still have items outstanding and it's been almost 4 months. Only this week a few of the outstanding items have been resolved after threatening further action.

Once they have your money you go straight to the bottom of the priority list.

Also, sinks have been dropping out in several of the houses in the estate. The stone installer was using the incorrect glue. So keep an eye on this and if it happens ensure they use epoxy to rectify. It's a known issue.

Hi everyone, so our slab goes down tommorrow....just see that most of you used Kspec- wondering if u can advise what their pricing is approx? I am thinking of engaging them for stage inspections.... cheers Emma

Hi Emma it's around $2000 ish all up from memory ! Hope your build is off to a great start!

Hi Valandra, how’s your build going?