Building with Kurmond Homes

Big Mama · Jan 15, 2014 8:13 pm

Happy 2014 everyone!

We just chose our internal and alfresco tiles. Still need to finalise the roof colour then hopefully things will be lodged with council by end of next week.

(Planning phase:
Big Mama - building Sierra with personal modifications)

mckz · Jan 15, 2014 10:06 pm

Thanks for the info guys. I have Narellan pools giving me a quote on Saturday and I will definitely contact Coral Reef as well now. What sort of pool heating and any other extras did you go for?

ihaveaquestion · Jan 20, 2014 9:20 am

Hi,

Has anyone upgraded the to powdered aluminium windows that have the woodgrain finish to them (as seen at Kellyville homeworld 5 on the middle display home?) I was hoping to find out roughly home much that costs? Also to upgrade to wood grain garage door?

I went brick shopping and am looking at the Boral Blackheath bricks as an option. I have seen many people using ironstone/surf-mist as gutter/fascia options, does anyone have pics of this with cedar/wood look alike garage door + windows, trying to picture what will look the best without being so dark!

Thanks in advance

mars78 · Jan 21, 2014 7:50 am

mckz

Thanks for the info guys. I have Narellan pools giving me a quote on Saturday and I will definitely contact Coral Reef as well now. What sort of pool heating and any other extras did you go for?

We’re getting 4 spa jets, 2 LED colour changing lights and a heat pump for heating.

mars78 · Jan 21, 2014 7:53 am

ihaveaquestion

Hi,

Has anyone upgraded the to powdered aluminium windows that have the woodgrain finish to them (as seen at Kellyville homeworld 5 on the middle display home?) I was hoping to find out roughly home much that costs? Also to upgrade to wood grain garage door?

I went brick shopping and am looking at the Boral Blackheath bricks as an option. I have seen many people using ironstone/surf-mist as gutter/fascia options, does anyone have pics of this with cedar/wood look alike garage door + windows, trying to picture what will look the best without being so dark!

Thanks in advance

Hi,

Not sure about the windows, but the garage door supplier has changed, so the pricing might be a little different. We went with the B&D Timbercoat which from memory was around $700 to upgrade. I also found it hard looking for photos with the correct colours. Cedar though should look fine with the Boral Blackheath.

ihaveaquestion · Jan 21, 2014 1:23 pm

Thanks mars78!

Still tossing up between going for the cedar look or going for surfmist to brighten it up! so many decisions!!

UpsizeTime · Jan 22, 2014 7:13 pm

Looks like it is all going to start. Woohoo!

I got the letter from the bank today for I to show finance all approved. I have he start date for our pool 10th FEB! They need 1 week for pool to go in, so I have told K we are ready to go from the 17th Feb. Can't believe we have systems go.

unrealhome · Jan 22, 2014 7:20 pm

CONGRATULATIONS Upsize -

on getting to the next phase with bank approval and pool time is coming! Well - next summer anyway. How very, very exciting for you and the family. Another milestone ticked off!!!

melon168 · Jan 24, 2014 10:17 am

~FINALLY~
We signed off on the tender (Rev C) and plans (Rev F) ... DH just got to the stage of "lets just get the bl00dy house built", so we signed....

Took exactly 4 months from draft plans through to signing off - so not too bad, just felt like very looooong 4 months.

The sales person we dealt with mentioned that we are able to have a variation of up to $14K in the tender - has anyone made the variations? and what were they? Im assuming you are able to delete/add/change items on the tender? is this true?

UpsizeTime · Jan 27, 2014 1:42 pm

Variations there favourite!

Now you have signed you will move to the next stage of externals, internals, sentinel, electrical, stairs, flooring (part of internal but different variations.

We had all of the above as variations each with a $$$ figure on it. All ours added up to approx $12 000

Good luck

mars78 · Jan 30, 2014 2:25 pm

Upsize,

you wouldn't believe it...we have the same issue with the sewer pit which is well inside our block where we wanted to put the pool. How did you manage with that issue? We'll either need to sacrifice open space or reduce the pool size if the pool cannot go closer to the house. Kurmond I think need it to be a minimum of 1m away from the house.

UpsizeTime · Jan 30, 2014 5:14 pm

Mars our backyard from the house was 16 metres in length so we had a bit of space to work with. We ended up moving the pool 1.5m from the sewer outlet. This was approved. We will need to pave over the sewer access but they can't be concreted just in case they need to access it.

What backyard space do you have to work with?

Also, check your levels, final house alfresco level with the actual ground level. Ours ended up being 800mm, there fore we'll need some steps as you go into the pool as we don't want to have retaining walls that high around our boundary, the cost would be too much.

mars78 · Jan 31, 2014 6:48 am

Upsize,
That's good news for you and hopefully for us also. Our yard length is 8.7m from house to boundary. The sewer line runs 2m off the back fence. So if we have to be 1.5m away from it, we'll be over a metre from the house.

My concern was that we needed to be 3m off the sewer as per the zone of influence. Did you have to do a Sydney Water pegout?

We have received our preliminary final plans with the levels. It doesn't look too bad. However there are a number of things Kurmond needs to update. Our assigned customer service person seems very helpful and proactive though, which is a good sign.

unrealhome · Jan 31, 2014 1:17 pm

Oh the joys of pools! The way the temp has been down my way, I am beginning to think I should have had one as part of the design :-)

Upsize & Mars - hopefully you can overcome any pool connection issues! Well done Mars on getting those prelim plans back .. hope Kurmond keep giving you the proactive support you need.

UpsizeTime · Jan 31, 2014 4:58 pm

Mars yes we had to have a water peg out. They where very good, P from CR called them and negotiated a 1.5m distance. Think we got that distance because out outlet is an end point for the sewer. Good lunch P from CR will know all the info he was very good.

Mustang69 · Jan 31, 2014 5:01 pm

Hi everyone

I've been reading these forums for so long now, I feel like I know you all :lol:

We purchased our block near Blacktown in May last year and started looking at builders. We spoke with K in September last year, gave them all our requirements and the plan (custom) to get the ball rolling. We thought once we started with that it would only be a few months and we'd be on our way, so we put our house on the market not knowing how long it might take to sell. To our surprise, it sold in the first few weeks and as of mid November, we've been in a rental property and hanging to get our tender sorted! 5 months and it feels like 5 years! ::wornout::

Anyhow, we've submitted the last few changes now, so hopefully should have the final and correct tender by next week, fingers crossed!

It's exciting to read everyone's experiences and I've gained a heap of knowledge along the way. It's great to be able to share experiences and ups and downs with people who actually know "exactly" where you're coming from.

I'm not looking forward to choosing the externals, I have already done a little bit of research and it's doing my head in. Need to make some time and actually head out and physically look at some stuff so we're more prepared when the time comes, which will hopefully be VERY soon.

Anyhow, enough of boring you to tears...hope you all have a good weekend and look forward to sharing.

G + C · Feb 02, 2014 6:44 pm

Congrats upsize! We are getting closer to starting our build also. This is our first ever build and let me tell you, have we learnt allot!! If we ever do this again we are definitely going to go down the track of owner builder. I reckon we would save thousands!!! Its horrendous the amount of $$ we have spent and at times we have felt helpless with the cost that keep getting thrown our way (the unexpected cost), not a nice feeling......

mars78 · Feb 03, 2014 10:20 am

We didn't want the pool to hold up the building. Again Kurmond has been flexible about allowing the pool builder to work in parallel. Our customer service girl has been amazingly proactive and so we are just moments away from CDC submission. We went in last week to finalise some minor details with selections.

mckz · Feb 03, 2014 8:49 pm

G'day all

Just an update on our build. We've been allocated a new customer service rep who so far is quite enthusiastic and is at least replying to my queries and returning my calls. She says that they expect to have the CDC ready to submit this week but I have 0 confidence in that. We signed the contract 4 months ago and I believe the 149 cert and the 3 month window expires in a few days. I'm going to put up a battle if they ask me to pay for another one - I just can't believe how long this has taken. Is this length of time normal for builders ( > 4 months between contract and CDC)???.

For anyone who has built with Kurmond, how long did it take to start building after the construction cert was issued?

Anyway, the good news I suppose is we went with custom pools for our inground pool (came to roughly 35k including electric heat pump, deck jets + all the other equipment - no landscaping or fencing though). The CDC for that is getting submitted this week I believe and he's said he's pretty much ready to go once its approved.

UpsizeTime · Feb 03, 2014 9:21 pm

That's great mckz that you have decided on the pool.

For us K isn't really working parallel with the pool. Our pool is scheduled for next week, excavation on Monday, pool shell Tuesday and then hopefully finalised by end of week. I need to keep K updated for when they are finished and pool fenced off, then the property is handed over to K to build house. This is when they will start organising everything. First our Supervisor will need to go inspect land and start planning everything. So, not 100% on time between pool part 1 and house start. Hoping not too long.