Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Provincial Homes 243Feb 21, 2015 10:43 am Building Nu Caprice 35 Accepted Tender 3/14 Construction Cert 11/9/14 Slab poured 19/11/14 Frame completed 21/1/15 Bricks completed 26/3/15 Roof completed 29/5/15 Lockup 15/6/15 Walkthough is NEXT! Re: Provincial Homes 244Feb 22, 2015 8:40 pm Jahasabe couldn't have worded it any better myself. Plenty of highs and lows. I am pretty amazed at how much work has been done in the past two weeks. Went by the house on Sunday not expecting anything, but we have a front door, laundry, door and I could see that plastering had been done. I can't wait to see what the inside looks like, might try and see if I can catch the SS onsite if he is visiting next week just for a walk through and a few happy snaps. Fingers crossed the pace continues. Took two mediocre photos which are up on the blog, realized I wouldn't be able to get anything decent from outside so I didn't really bother taking anymore. We were told our tile choice for alfresco and portico has been discontinued, so trying to see if they will allow us to remove it altogether to save us from another trip to Di Lorenzo. Will see what happens, if it doesn't save us anything we'll go and re-select. Re: Provincial Homes 245Feb 27, 2015 10:28 am We have another surprise stored for us.... Apparently, the soil that came out of from piering stage has to go. I am told by Provincial that it would cost $2k approx to have it taken away and I will have to pay for that. (No provisional allowance for soil removal in my tender). So guys, here I am trying to find another 2 grand for this extra work......... God knows, how many such extra hidden charges are laid in my build path. It is just like an IED, hits when things look all settled and working well.... At this stage, looks like we will have the slab poured next week, all the piping work, steel work has been completed. Will visit the site during the weekend for some photographs, etc. My building TIMELINE =================>>>>>>>>>>>> Provincial Fixed Price contract signed - 30th Aug 2014 Settlement of Land Purchase - 25th Sept 2014 HIA Contract signed - 26th Sept 2014 DA in council - 15th Oct 2014 Internal color selections - 12th Nov 2014 DA approved from council - 14th Nov 2014 Electrical selections - 21st Nov 2014 Final Electrical and Internal variations document signing - 4th Dec 2014 Final contract after variations signing - 8th Dec 2014 Construction certificate issued - 5th Feb 2015 Commencement of work on site - 12th Feb 2015 Piering complete - 18th Feb 2015 Slab complete - TBA Frame complete - TBA Roof complete - TBA Lock up complete - TBA Final completion - TBA Key Handover - TBA Re: Provincial Homes 246Feb 28, 2015 5:11 pm Surprised that they didn't include removal of soil in your tender. More surprisingly, the 2k amount quoted in my tender is the same amount you're being charged, despite you possibly having more soil due to 2.5m piers! Who was your sale consultant? Re: Provincial Homes 247Mar 02, 2015 7:29 am Hi ProgD, sorry to hear you had to pay for soil removal. If it was excess from the piers I can understand. I would say the worst of it is now over and you can enjoy the rest of the ride. I guess there are surveys that can be done to give a better indicator of site costs, but these would cost a few grand to do, and then you would find you would need to pay extra for site costs anyways, the survey money could have then gone to site costs lol. If it gives you any comfort, from my following other threads on other builders, it's not uncommon for them to have similar things happen no matter who the builder is. I guess it's easy for Provincial to stick an amount in as a Provisional Allowance which may help with the lender, but then may not be needed in the end. Hope that makes sense. Hopefully I get to do a walk through sometime this week, Plaster, Water proofing, tiling, and kitchen cabinets should be in this week. Be prepared for picture overload. Re: Provincial Homes 248Mar 05, 2015 4:53 pm We have the SLAB poured today..... Was told by Provincial about the date as today and it was on dot. Had a look around while it was being poured early in the morning and returning back to the site, it is all nice dry and with a fence blocking the site. So could not get inside but looks pretty good. Now I can only wish for some rain to help the slab become more firmer. Looks like earliest we can get any rain is Sunday. But all in all, it is done and dusted. Took some photos as usual. It''s always the next step in the process, so what next ??? ( I guess the first installment had to be paid ). But we are moving. More updates soon. My building TIMELINE =================>>>>>>>>>>>> Provincial Fixed Price contract signed - 30th Aug 2014 Settlement of Land Purchase - 25th Sept 2014 HIA Contract signed - 26th Sept 2014 DA in council - 15th Oct 2014 Internal color selections - 12th Nov 2014 DA approved from council - 14th Nov 2014 Electrical selections - 21st Nov 2014 Final Electrical and Internal variations document signing - 4th Dec 2014 Final contract after variations signing - 8th Dec 2014 Construction certificate issued - 5th Feb 2015 Commencement of work on site - 12th Feb 2015 Piering complete - 18th Feb 2015 Slab complete - 5th March 2015 Frame complete - TBA Roof complete - TBA Lock up complete - TBA Final completion - TBA Key Handover - TBA Re: Provincial Homes 249Mar 16, 2015 10:37 am So a long overdue update from me. Lots of progress seems to have been made, I will do a blog post soon with some photos (in the next day or two). Let's see, so we received our first water and gas bill. The useage is pretty much nothing so you get hit with the daily charges that they do for supply. Budget I think about $1 a day for gas and water, from when it gets connected. our electricity hasn't been connected yet. Our site supervisor gave us a walk through, and we had a chance to look at the work done Plastering has been done, and I really can't fault the work, everything looks straight and no visible bumps or grooves. Quality of work seems to be top notch. There is one minor error with a niche that has been made into an open cavity. This will be corrected. Doors have been installed, and they look pretty good. We were going to change one or two after handover to those lin 1 doors, but they look good with the three vertical lines that we will leave it as is. Probably only change the laundry door at some stage. One door had a few holes in it so it needs to be replaced. Benchtops have been installed, along with most of the cabinets. The carpenter has also been in doing the skirting and shelving. Looks really good so far. Tiles was a completely different story. A while back we paid the $250 fee to change our tile selection. We used sliced pebbles in the face of the niches, and then trio flax gloss as the wall tiles. Floor tiles were all the same, and from the beginning we had assumed our Porch and Aflresco tiles were the same so we didn't bother checking or changing them. We got a phone call from Di Lorenzo to let us know that our Porch tiles were discontinued, so we went in and re-selected what we thought were tiles for the Porch and Aflresco (same tile again as we had originally planned). So we got to site and were waiting for the site supervisor. I noticed the tiles in the garage and right off the bat one set looked wrong, like they had sent the wrong alfresco and porch tiles. A few phone calls to Di Lorenzo later and somehow we ended up with a different tile which I had signed off on as the tile for Alfresco. So I guess Di Lorenzo in some ways have been good in allowing us to change the tile, but they charged us 20% re-stocking fee, a new delivery fee. And here is the kicker. The delivery guy they use won't pick up the wrongly ordered tiles, which forced me to drive to site, load up the car with 16 boxes of tiles, and then drive them to Di Lorenzo's warehouse. not th ebest process and a serious pain in the behind. I guess let that be a lesson to everyone, never trust what's written down on the selection form, check it and check it again. Tick it off, take photos of the selection form beside the tile. So all up I have or will have paid about $450 in penalties to Di Lorenzo. Not the best thing to have happen, but I guess at least we caught it before the tiles were laid, and I guess di Lorenzo could have played hard ball and refused to do anything about it and lay the wrong tiles for us. Anyways there is my long overdue update. Photos will follow shortly. ProgD where are these photos you have mentioned ? Load them up into photobucket and link them through. Re: Provincial Homes 250Mar 18, 2015 8:56 am I have updated the blog for my experience with Di Lorenzo to date. Not a fan of this company anymore. I have had so many phone calls with them, that the phone number they use is now implanted in my head. They have really just worn me out, hopefully the tiling is spot on so I will never have to deal with them again. I am expecting perfection, no lips no nothing. I reckon next time I build, I'll have a try and negotiate a different tiling company. Re: Provincial Homes 252Mar 18, 2015 9:10 pm kavehman Finally had a chance to update my blog with some photos of internals. Enjoy !! Just checked out your blog. Looking awesome. Loving all the selections. Shame about your tiling experience though. As long as they do a good job laying them now though I guess that's what matters in the end. Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=75302 Re: Provincial Homes 253Mar 30, 2015 7:22 am MrRevhead, ProgD how are you guys going ? I stopped by my build on Saturday to find that a lot of progress has been made Tiling had been done. The tiler actually sent me a few photos last week when he was trying to source the alfresco tiles. So I think it must have been finished a week and a half ago. The painters were working at it quite hard on Saturday and when we popped by they had started the Moroka and internals. I guess one of the benefits of building a single storey is that it moves a lot faster. A massive site clean had also taken place, I managed to snap a few quick pics on my camera, but will see if I can get some photos this weekend. Everything is looking good so far. Re: Provincial Homes 254Apr 02, 2015 10:14 am Hi Kavehman, I am loving your tiles in your bathrooms. We are looking at building with Provincial and I am also considering extra tiling after handover and it's interesting for me to see how they have finished it now and how the full wall tiles would look. I am worried they might not be able to match up well, but I think it could work. Did you get a special deal on the rest of the order for the extra ones ? Were these tiles you selected and the niche's from the standard range from Provincial or did you have to pay a lot more for this choice. It looks amazing and I am following along with special interest. Keep the photo's coming, its looking great. Sarah Re: Provincial Homes 255Apr 02, 2015 1:45 pm Hi Sarahcraigy, I don't think you can go wrong building with Provincial. My build has been very smooth with few issues. Issues will pop up but I think it's moreso how the builder goes about fixing the issues more than anything else. Additional tiling costs for us where Extra Floor to Ceiling tiles for Main and Ensuite Approx $1,700 about $30sqm, and to be honest the tile pricing isn't too bad, I did find a retailer in QLD selling the same tiles for $22 a square meter, but everyone in Sydney was comparable in price. Besides you need tiles from the same batch number from what they tell me. Having seen the tiling, I am confident doing it after handover will work out pretty well. I can see us having to remove the mirrors, and a few tiles in the main bathroom for it all to line up. I am yet to decide if we will join the edge of the tile at the cornice or have someone come in and remove and reinstall the cornice's. This will costs us about $400 including new cornices from what I have researched. Smart Wastes are $38 each Our Niches cost us approx $200 for the small one and $300 for the large one. All our tiles were from the standard range, however we incurred additional costs for the larger floor tiles, all up our bill was $1,200 extra for upgrades in the standard tiled areas. I have updated the blog with some painting photos now. It's in final stages now I imagine. Re: Provincial Homes 256Apr 08, 2015 9:39 pm We have long been reading the posts here which have been invaluable in getting us started with our first KDR home build with Provincial. The hours spent reading the posts have saved us making numerous mistakes and prepared us (hopefully) for what to expect! We are building a Woollahra 40 in Sydney and have been though a lot of the initial steps already and are currently very patiently waiting for construction to begin... We had high hopes that the building will be complete by Christmas so we wouldn't endure a month downtime while paying exorbitant rent but are losing hope! We are keen to hear any experiences from projects where the construction started about now! You can follow our adventure on the blog we have started at the link below. ___________________________ Nik & Andy's Woollahra 40 Build http://niknandysprovincialhomeswoollahra40.blogspot.com.au Re: Provincial Homes 257Apr 09, 2015 12:23 am Welcome niknandy! Such an exciting (& patience-testing....) time! We are building the nu caprice and although everyone's experience & timeframe is different, personally I wouldn't hold your breath to be done by Christmas. Sorry. That being said, we did have a lot of delays during December last year & the excuse we were given was that they had lots of homes to rush to be finished for Christmas so maybe you can push them at the end? Our experience feels like it has been a slow & frustrating one, but understand, we are very happy with Provincial overall & the work that has been done so far. It just seems to be an unnecessarily slow process. We have watched other houses around us go up much faster than ours, and even within this blog - kavehman & us were only a week or 2 apart to start with but there is a huge difference at this stage, months down the track. Perhaps that is to do with being 2storey compared to single storey? Or perhaps we were unlucky with weather at the start? Who knows... But here is our timeline to give you a bit of an idea: Construction cert recd 11/9 (it took them almost 4 weeks after that just to deliver the fill to be levelled) Piering wasn't done til 28/10 (6+ weeks after construction cert) Slab poured 19/11 Bottom floor frame erected 13/12 Top floor frame was delivered on 18/12 (but then sat on our block for the whole Christmas break) Top floor frame erected 17/1 Bricks started ground floor 3/2 Scaffold setup 23/2 Bricks started top floor 24/2 (unbelievably... They had calculated incorrectly and ran out of bricks with one room to go!!) More bricks finally delivered & bricks all finished 26/3 Now we are 2 weeks after bricks finished still waiting for the next thing to happen. We are told roof tiles are to begin Friday - fingers crossed! So it is 7 months since our construction cert was recd. Given a month for Christmas break, I would have still imagined to be further along by the 6 month mark, but I guess, it depends on when they finish, rather than the time in between? I was last told it will be about 10 more weeks. We shall see.... I don't fault the work, nor do I regret choosing a Provincial home. I think it will be wonderful, once we get in there! I found the process up to construction fantastic, but just find the construction process very stop/start, which causes a lot of frustration. Happy days when work is happening, not so happy during the quiet weeks! Even their communication is fine, some have said not so but I've never had a problem communicating with anyone from provincial, but because I don't want to be bothering the SS every day to find out what's going on, there is a lot of thumb twiddling going on instead! I have written like this before & been told that my timeline is not that bad, so as I have said previously perhaps I am just unreasonable with my expectations, but I honestly thought the construction process would flow much more smoothly. Just my opinion, hopefully it's helpful. I wish you a speedy & stress free build. I will be eagerly following as I do with all the other forumers on here Building Nu Caprice 35 Accepted Tender 3/14 Construction Cert 11/9/14 Slab poured 19/11/14 Frame completed 21/1/15 Bricks completed 26/3/15 Roof completed 29/5/15 Lockup 15/6/15 Walkthough is NEXT! Re: Provincial Homes 258Apr 13, 2015 10:07 am Welcome NikNAndy it's fantastic to see someone else with Provincial start a blog, I'm looking forward to watching yours. I think there are only 3 or 4 out there, and half of them don't run through to finishing off the house. I plan to keep mine going through the maintenance phase, landscaping, and fit out phase. Jahasabe there are two double storey provincial homes going up near us, and whilst ours is almost complete those two have moved at a slower pace, and one started at the same time (Nu Caprice), and the other (Wollahra) a month or so before ours. Double storey homes are a lot harder to work on and build from what my site supervisor has told me. It's a lot easier to get trades to come to single storey homes as well for some reason. I stopped by our house over the Easter weekend, Our area is still developing and there is a lot of activity. I found the security fence wide open in 3 spots mainly around the side and back and one of the doors wide open as well. No one was around and my neighbor confirmed it had been like that all day Friday, so rather than risk having any damage done over a long weekend I closed it up myself. Whilst you aren’t supposed to go on a construction site, I couldn’t just walk away and leave it open. They had done a site clean-up and installed the drain pipes which was probably why the gates were open. I did take a peak around and am overall pretty happy with everything on the inside, they aren’t finished yet so I’m not sure if it’s fair to comment on anything on the inside. Having said that the few things I did notice were mainly cosmetic i.e. joins on the ceaserstone where they sandwich 2 x 20mm sheets so obvious in some spots, door that had a hole in it during our original walk through was obviously patched up, scratches on the guttering where they joined the two (not sure why they just didn’t cut the scratched section off and use a nice piece, they had the chance too as I know they ran out of guttering at that exact spot !!), a missed cap on the guttering by the front porch. I do realize a lot of the detail gets sorted out towards the end though . There is a list of things that I’ll be checking come my next walk through, mainly being. 1. If the articulation joint that I think is needed, and plans, and building standards say is needed will be done. 2. If the water that was in the pipe from inside the wall to the underside of the kitchen island was sucked out (at our first walk through it hadn’t been, and I don't want no funky smells 6 months from now, and I don't think it's safe having electrical cables going through water. This is a pretty major concern too me. 3. Down-pipes are in compliance with regulations. I feel they aren't, especially when I run the roof dimensions through the calculator, and judging by one of the downpours we had recently were I watched water overflow over the gutter edge they aren’t. The guttering guys/ downpipe/ plumbing guys so far are the trades I have the least amount of faith in . I’m almost tempted to get someone in with a camera to look through all the pipes and make sure nothing is leaking. Having said all of that the framer, brick layer, tilers, painter, carpenters do seem to be doing a pretty good job. I have received a lot of questions through my blog and via pm on what I would change if I were to do it again, and will put a thorough list together by the end of the build. The one thing I would suggest to anyone going through the motions right now is to consider the following. 1. Sound insulation in between walls. 2. Bricks - Dry Pressed just look so much better than the coated or wire cut bricks, obviously a personal choice though. 3. Tiles - Check out the standard range and get floor to ceiling tiles included at tender/color stage and not when you go to see Di Lorenzo if it’s a desire. 4. Termite Treatment - And this is the biggest thing I wish I was aware of/researched when building. Provincial uses termimesh through the slab to prevent termites coming up the drain pipes etc. But the perimeter is a chemical reticulation system that requires yearly checks, and recharges every 3 to 4 years otherwise the warranty is useless. I would upgrade this to a complete termimesh system or a Kordon system like what Mcdonald jones home uses. I imagine the chemical reticulation system is installed for free, they include one recharge but you will need to recharge it again after your landscaping is done ($3 - $400). I will add that this system is used by a lot of builders because I imagine they can get it installed for free. 5. I would ask and pay extra (if required) for waterproofing to not be done to the minimum standard. Living in a home with a leaky shower (which I have done) is not fun, I'm not so worried in a single, but in a double I would be. 6. Site costs – whilst there is no guarantee that you won’t be hit with additional charges, keep in mind that if you want more certainty then you have to pay for more tests. The tests aren’t going to provide 100% certainty either. So instead of paying $2-$3k for tests set it aside as a buffer. The other key thing is blow outs happen with any builder. Based on my experience Provincial aren’t in the game to wack you with additional costs if they aren’t needed. 7. Be prepared for some additional BASIX costs, or just get upgraded insulation included in the get go in your tender. I have detailed my additional costs before. Again do your own research though, everyone has an opinion on everything. The other question I get a lot is if I would build a second house with them ? At this stage yes I would, definitely. They are a bit slower but I think it will be worth it in the end I'll update when our build is finished but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head. That’s it from me, the wife and I have been drawing up a landscape plan, and are looking forward to finishing off the house. Re: Provincial Homes 259Apr 16, 2015 10:13 pm We have now signed the tender agreement to build a Nu Caprice in Blacktown area as a KDR. As soon as I can work out how to do it I will create a blog and post some plans and pics as we go along the journey ! I feel like I have done so much research already and then I read something else and think oh yeah, good idea ! Re: Provincial Homes 260Apr 17, 2015 8:33 am Congratulations Sarahcraigy, I spoke to my site supervisor yesterday, he said we should be doing a walk through sometime next week to pick up anything that needs attention. The few larger items I raised with him and he is taking care of them which is good to hear. The remaining items that need to be done to make it a home are starting to sink in, I guess that's where all the real fun begins. The Dulux colour consultants are awesome. If you show them the photos they should be able to figure it out for you straight away 1 2090 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 110980 Hi there! 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