Building The Hudson by Simonds - The Range, Melbourne

Hi J, are you next to the two Simonds houses? You're probably our new neighbour if so. Are you building soon?

Hope you had a lovely honeymoon!

Cheers

So far so good with Simonds. When we were reviewing builders we found that there were both horror stories and glowing reviews attributable to any building firm that we came across. We had some very specific design requirements so we started there and eliminated according to who had anything near what we were after. Simonds came closest and were also willing to make changes to really get us what we wanted in the design, plus our initial sales guy was genuinely helpful, and both of those pushed us over the line with Simonds. The main thing is doing lots of research regarding reputation and having the design and relationship feel right, and that can take time.

Are the other Le Grew people on this forum? It would be nice to meet the neighbours!

Site costs is one that is most difficult to judge. Most people I have spoken to who built in the range have had to upgrade the slab with there builds from M to H class slab. I'd check how much compact fill is on the lot you are looking at purchasing. If there is some then ask AL for the compaction report.

I thinks its a requirement to connect to recyled water. That about 2-3k, depends who you build with. The estate also has a bunch of design requirements. You can get that from AL.

Would be interested to know what came back on your soil test, homeontherange? M, H or other?

We finally got to our site for the first time in three weeks this weekend and loved everything about the progress since we've been away.

First things first. During our holiday we had our first building inspection with our independent inspector and we're enormously glad that we did. He said that overall the quality and structure was great, but our slab had been not been blocked properly before it was poured and there'd been some leakage that could have meant problems for us down the track (something about an unacceptable reduction in the cavity required next to the slab). There was also an internal water pipe that was sitting in a way too big hole in one of the beams. Some other minor stuff like not enough nails being used for a couple of things and not meeting national building standards. We forwarded the report to Simonds and they had the slab people come in and 'shave' off the excess concrete. They also had a plate put over the too big pipe hole and put the extra nails in when required. We're please with Simonds' response and very pleased that we went for an expert to do our inspections. A couple of things he found were structurally important and could have come back to bite us down the line with internal water leakage etc, and they were just not defects we would have even known we were looking at. If anyone is pondering whether or not to use an independent inspector, we would definitely recommend it.

Now for the proper build update...

Our roof is on and our windows are in and we LOVE them. Here's the front (guest) bedroom window, it is so much larger than I had in my head - none of the Hudson displays has our facade, Prairie, so we had had to use our imaginations when choosing the external features. The Woodland Grey window frames/guttering/fascia all look even better than we'd though they would. We were actually going to go for a lighter gutter/fascia (so that it would match more with the Surf Mist render rather then the tiles), but I'm so glad that we were talked out of it:

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Here's the view of our alfesco area. The glass sliders to the left go into our main living/dining/kitchen open area and the glass sliders on the right go through the master bedroom (a lifelong design dream of mine and one of the clinchers for the Hudson base floorplan and using Simonds):

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This one's the view to the back of the house and the master bedroom windows which will be on either side of the bed (we're having bedside pendant lights placed midway between the edges of the windows). These windows weren't on the Hudson base design but they were another wish list thing of mine, and Simonds were great in finding a way to make it happen.

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And finally, we have a roof!

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It was! Must admit it was difficult and there was significant separation anxiety from our build while we were away, but to come back to so much progress was great. Knowing that we had the inspection during that time and that the inspector and Simonds were excellent in communicating with was was very helpful, though.



We went with New Home Inspections http://newhomeinspections.com.au/ because they came really well recommended to us from somebody in the industry. Typically one inspection costs around $440. For that you get the inspection, an easily understandable but detailed report with photos and recommended fixes for any defects. We basically just forwarded that report onto Simonds and they fixed/responded to each point. When we got that response we sent it back to our inspector and he said he was satisfied with the fixes. He will review them when he does the Pre-Plaster inspection as well. We'll probably do three inspections: Frame, Pre-Plaster and Handover. It's already money well spent for us

Oh wow... What a welcome back surprise!

The windows look lovely, you have chosen very well.
Glad Simonds have responded well to the Building Inspectors finds, very good to hear.

Just phoned Australand. They said it is available now. So you won't have any issues.

I don't think so. They just left it there. There is some piping coming out of it. I'm assuming it has something to do with running running cabling to the back of the lot. I'm not sure to be honest. All I know is that there is a hole in what would be the front yard. AL had NFI about it. It doesn't look like issue. It actually looks like it is meant to be there. I just want to know why it is there.