Thomas Archer

Rm19 · May 24, 2020 11:52 pm

Does anyone have experience building / working with Thomas Archer? I’ve only found a couple of posts on here and no completed builds. I’d love any thoughts (particularly since there are no current displays and only limited reviews online).
Thanks!

Blacktea2sugars · May 26, 2020 6:30 pm

Rm19

Does anyone have experience building / working with Thomas Archer? I’ve only found a couple of posts on here and no completed builds. I’d love any thoughts (particularly since there are no current displays and only limited reviews online).
Thanks!

I have a build thread

Rm19 · May 26, 2020 8:34 pm

Blacktea2sugars

Rm19

Does anyone have experience building / working with Thomas Archer? I’ve only found a couple of posts on here and no completed builds. I’d love any thoughts (particularly since there are no current displays and only limited reviews online).
Thanks!

I have a build thread

Thanks! Yes I’ve been following with interest and your plans are looking great. It sounds like you are pretty happy with them so far?

Did you speak to anyone with a finished home or see any finished properties before you made the decision?

Blacktea2sugars · May 26, 2020 9:54 pm

Went through 3 homes. Spoke to owners, one of which was townies.
Took it all on board. Lots to weigh up

You can never do too much research.

Norfolk · May 27, 2020 7:51 am

Rm19 it’s a good sign there are limited reviews online for Thomas Archer. Most likely reason is that they have Some integrity, and are not commissioning their own 5 star reviews like most other builders, inspectors, demolition etc. do. Any anonymous 5 star review is meaningless, a 4 star one is suspect. Anything that’s balanced might be real!

KathM78 · May 31, 2020 7:18 am

We accepted hand over a few months ago on our two storey TA home. I haven’t written any formal reviews as we are still waiting for rectification works since our 90 day building inspection.
Build ran well (really fast), with minimal issues or variations. Our site manager was in touch regularly and generally contactable if we had queries. Once the contract was signed the office was hopeless - could never get a hold of anyone when you needed to and getting a call back was a challenge.
Finished product - we are happy in our home and came out of the building process reasonably unscathed. The build quality is good, but not great. Mainly let down by poor finishes towards the end of the build by TAs subcontractors. Painting is a very poor job (building inspector commented on this), carpets have lumps and joins everywhere, and upstairs floor has a lot of squeaks which need fixing.
Would I build with them again? Maybe. But I certainly learnt a lot and don’t believe all the high quality design marketing spin - unless you’re full custom and spending well over a million $ with them.

Rm19 · Jun 04, 2020 2:44 pm

KathM78

We accepted hand over a few months ago on our two storey TA home. I haven’t written any formal reviews as we are still waiting for rectification works since our 90 day building inspection.
Build ran well (really fast), with minimal issues or variations. Our site manager was in touch regularly and generally contactable if we had queries. Once the contract was signed the office was hopeless - could never get a hold of anyone when you needed to and getting a call back was a challenge.
Finished product - we are happy in our home and came out of the building process reasonably unscathed. The build quality is good, but not great. Mainly let down by poor finishes towards the end of the build by TAs subcontractors. Painting is a very poor job (building inspector commented on this), carpets have lumps and joins everywhere, and upstairs floor has a lot of squeaks which need fixing.
Would I build with them again? Maybe. But I certainly learnt a lot and don’t believe all the high quality design marketing spin - unless you’re full custom and spending well over a million $ with them.

Thanks Kath this is really helpful - good to hear a review from the other side and particularly a pragmatic one.

I’d love to hear how you go with the rectification works. Are there any lessons you’d recommend keeping in mind / things you would do differently next time (if you would consider building again?)

sifntdaz · Jun 26, 2020 2:44 pm

To those of you who are following this thread and building with TA, have you appointed your own surveyor? Or did you go with what they recommended.

If you have self appointed, mind sharing details?

If you haven't self appointed, would be keen to understand why.

Sorry for the slight derail.

BigDaddy · Jun 28, 2020 7:37 pm

sifntdaz

To those of you who are following this thread and building with TA, have you appointed your own surveyor? Or did you go with what they recommended.

If you have self appointed, mind sharing details?

If you haven't self appointed, would be keen to understand why.

Sorry for the slight derail.

We went with whom TA recommended. But in saying that I was not educated on the building process to realise that I could have appointed our own surveyor. Also since we will be using Independent inspectors I thought it was ok.

kathz · Aug 04, 2020 5:28 pm

KathM78

We accepted hand over a few months ago on our two storey TA home. I haven’t written any formal reviews as we are still waiting for rectification works since our 90 day building inspection.
Build ran well (really fast), with minimal issues or variations. Our site manager was in touch regularly and generally contactable if we had queries. Once the contract was signed the office was hopeless - could never get a hold of anyone when you needed to and getting a call back was a challenge.
Finished product - we are happy in our home and came out of the building process reasonably unscathed. The build quality is good, but not great. Mainly let down by poor finishes towards the end of the build by TAs subcontractors. Painting is a very poor job (building inspector commented on this), carpets have lumps and joins everywhere, and upstairs floor has a lot of squeaks which need fixing.
Would I build with them again? Maybe. But I certainly learnt a lot and don’t believe all the high quality design marketing spin - unless you’re full custom and spending well over a million $ with them.

Hi Kath, thanks for sharing this. TA rep is saying they only offer 3 months maintenance warranty, which I thought it's REALLY short compared to all the builders we have spoken to. Did they offer the same for you too? How did it go with rectifying those issues?

sifntdaz · Sep 02, 2020 2:31 pm

Hi All

For those building with TA, was there anything in the contract specification document that you would have received along with the HIA contract that you had an issue with?

I've just received the draft / template document for review and it seems very 'industry standard', so wondering if anyone had any additional feedback

thanks

Blacktea2sugars · Sep 12, 2020 4:59 pm

sifntdaz

Hi All

For those building with TA, was there anything in the contract specification document that you would have received along with the HIA contract that you had an issue with?

I've just received the draft / template document for review and it seems very 'industry standard', so wondering if anyone had any additional feedback

thanks

It is pretty industry standard I think.
The 30 days extra to build time if you engage any private inspector is painful, but work does continue at a good speed and they always seem to finish ahead of schedule.

Do you have a particular concern/query?

sifntdaz · Sep 14, 2020 12:06 pm

Blacktea2sugars

sifntdaz

Hi All

For those building with TA, was there anything in the contract specification document that you would have received along with the HIA contract that you had an issue with?

I've just received the draft / template document for review and it seems very 'industry standard', so wondering if anyone had any additional feedback

thanks

It is pretty industry standard I think.
The 30 days extra to build time if you engage any private inspector is painful, but work does continue at a good speed and they always seem to finish ahead of schedule.

Do you have a particular concern/query?

No nothing specific, I was more interested to know if anyone challenged anything in the document and what was the outcome, or whether there was anything in there that was wildly outside industry expectations.

Blacktea2sugars · Sep 14, 2020 12:14 pm

sifntdaz

Blacktea2sugars

sifntdaz

Hi All

For those building with TA, was there anything in the contract specification document that you would have received along with the HIA contract that you had an issue with?

I've just received the draft / template document for review and it seems very 'industry standard', so wondering if anyone had any additional feedback

thanks

It is pretty industry standard I think.
The 30 days extra to build time if you engage any private inspector is painful, but work does continue at a good speed and they always seem to finish ahead of schedule.

Do you have a particular concern/query?

No nothing specific, I was more interested to know if anyone challenged anything in the document and what was the outcome, or whether there was anything in there that was wildly outside industry expectations.

I don't think anything is outside scope.
They build pretty quickly in first few stages.
Covid mays slow things down a little, but don't think any contracts have been amended for that, yet?