Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 187Dec 07, 2015 8:16 am Hi Bradles, You can check out our build thread in my sig below - there are pictures throughout. Its a Carrington Grange, which we modified a fair bit. Their finished product is good (even better than some of the big name builders - when compared with my neighbors) - we've been living in our new house for a year & its been through some rigorous testing. Hi Newbuilderbill - How're you and how's the Mitcham after a year? Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 188Dec 07, 2015 10:48 am Hi iankun We are still thrilled to be living in our Mitcham house. Having previously built our own house, bit by bit, over the years, it is a joy to look at the workmanship of professionals. We did add a lot of extras, most of which we thought was worth the extra money. These include: * As much insulation as we could stuff into the house. R4 in the ceiling, (I think R2 in the walls is standard), 6mm thick laminated windows with a non conductive surface layer in many windows. Eaves wherever possible. The result of that has been to give us a house that is pleasant to live in on about 360 days of the year. We have used our ducted air conditioning very little, only a couple of times in the year. We put a large skylight over the kitchen (the Mitcham kitchen does not have a window) and can open that up on a hot evening and that creates a current which drags out the hot air. That can lower the interior temperature by about 2 degrees in an hour, not much, but better than nothing. The difference between the interior temperature and the exterior temperature has been up to 10 degrees on very hot or very cold days. We do use a ceiling fan in the bedrooms on really hot nights, but turn it off half way through the night. This is so different to our previous house. I think the main advantage of the house is what everyone is getting, a slab on ground house, and that gives a thermal mass which evens out the temperature. The timber floors on our previous house gave us large variations in temperature and summer nights in particular were very uncomfortable. We never felt frozen through the last winter in our new house. * We tiled the house floors throughout the whole ground floor, using the silver range of tiles, with an upgrade. This used the thermal mass to the best advantage. The top floor, even though we have all that insulation, still gets hot on a hot day. But we put 2 bedrooms on the ground floor and use these anyway. We had an exhaust fan system with a whirlibird put into the ceiling of the top floor but have not used that yet as nobody uses the top floor. * Over the year we have had a one or two things go wrong, but these were very small and were easily and promptly fixed by Elderton. * We like our big front door with obscure glass panels as this gives us privacy night and day. The same with the staircase over the stairs. It was also easy to move furniture in through the large front door, the removalists loved it. * We admire our new house everyday. It is located at North Parramatta where many of the existing houses are quite old. We think it is the best looking house in the street and fits in well with the nearby heritage houses due to our choice of brick and tile colours (red heritage brick with mahogany terracotta tiles). Outer Sydney councils require a certain percentage of surface materials other than brick for contrast. We modified the porch so it has a hipped roof and we also have no painted infills under the windows. Elderton was very accommodating in this. It meant the Parramatta Council approved it as being in keeping with the nearby heritage houses without any problems. But, just as important to us, it means we don't have to paint these sections in the future. (We are in Ross St if you want to look at the house). * We like our heated towel rails in the bathrooms are so useful, you can retro fit these if you have a nearby power point. * We love the storage space provided by Elderton throughout the house. We added storage under the staircase, a door under the lower section and a door under the higher section and the area under the stairs was lined with plasterboard. That is so useful. Where else do vacuum cleaners etc go? We only paid for Elderton's standard staircase with a closed in section under the treads, not like some on display, and that allowed us to use that extra space. * There have been no cracks in any walls or ceilings. The workmanship is excellent throughout. * I have compared our house with that of two of our adult children's house who had architect designed houses. Our taps etc don't look as expensive as do those in my children's houses. But they work perfectly well and look nice, so I have no complaints there. On the other hand, their houses, even though one won the architect an award, seem to have had more problems than we are getting. * I think the Mitcham house that we have built is a rather dark house, but I cannot complain about that as our side windows are 900mm from the side fences. You cannot have large picture windows and still keep the house an even temperature. Iankun, I hope you are as pleased with your house as we are with ours. Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 189Dec 07, 2015 5:14 pm Hi, can someone please give me an idea that after how many days we need to give the first payment? As we have no experience just wanted to have an idea Thanks Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 191Dec 11, 2015 7:45 pm Hi Emma, yes, the first progress payment, was just wondering after starting construction how many days it will be to the first progress payment? Thank you, appreciated Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 192Dec 11, 2015 10:18 pm They gave us an estimated timeline for each stage, once the stage is complete they fill invoice you. Each stage is different though. I'll attach the one they gave to me but it may have changed as it was issued a year ago and trades are much harder to get now. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 195Dec 18, 2015 2:48 pm Newbuilderbill Hi iankun We are still thrilled to be living in our Mitcham house. Having previously built our own house, bit by bit, over the years, it is a joy to look at the workmanship of professionals. We did add a lot of extras, most of which we thought was worth the extra money. These include: * As much insulation as we could stuff into the house. R4 in the ceiling, (I think R2 in the walls is standard), 6mm thick laminated windows with a non conductive surface layer in many windows. Eaves wherever possible. The result of that has been to give us a house that is pleasant to live in on about 360 days of the year. We have used our ducted air conditioning very little, only a couple of times in the year. We put a large skylight over the kitchen (the Mitcham kitchen does not have a window) and can open that up on a hot evening and that creates a current which drags out the hot air. That can lower the interior temperature by about 2 degrees in an hour, not much, but better than nothing. The difference between the interior temperature and the exterior temperature has been up to 10 degrees on very hot or very cold days. We do use a ceiling fan in the bedrooms on really hot nights, but turn it off half way through the night. This is so different to our previous house. I think the main advantage of the house is what everyone is getting, a slab on ground house, and that gives a thermal mass which evens out the temperature. The timber floors on our previous house gave us large variations in temperature and summer nights in particular were very uncomfortable. We never felt frozen through the last winter in our new house. * We tiled the house floors throughout the whole ground floor, using the silver range of tiles, with an upgrade. This used the thermal mass to the best advantage. The top floor, even though we have all that insulation, still gets hot on a hot day. But we put 2 bedrooms on the ground floor and use these anyway. We had an exhaust fan system with a whirlibird put into the ceiling of the top floor but have not used that yet as nobody uses the top floor. * Over the year we have had a one or two things go wrong, but these were very small and were easily and promptly fixed by Elderton. * We like our big front door with obscure glass panels as this gives us privacy night and day. The same with the staircase over the stairs. It was also easy to move furniture in through the large front door, the removalists loved it. * We admire our new house everyday. It is located at North Parramatta where many of the existing houses are quite old. We think it is the best looking house in the street and fits in well with the nearby heritage houses due to our choice of brick and tile colours (red heritage brick with mahogany terracotta tiles). Outer Sydney councils require a certain percentage of surface materials other than brick for contrast. We modified the porch so it has a hipped roof and we also have no painted infills under the windows. Elderton was very accommodating in this. It meant the Parramatta Council approved it as being in keeping with the nearby heritage houses without any problems. But, just as important to us, it means we don't have to paint these sections in the future. (We are in Ross St if you want to look at the house). * We like our heated towel rails in the bathrooms are so useful, you can retro fit these if you have a nearby power point. * We love the storage space provided by Elderton throughout the house. We added storage under the staircase, a door under the lower section and a door under the higher section and the area under the stairs was lined with plasterboard. That is so useful. Where else do vacuum cleaners etc go? We only paid for Elderton's standard staircase with a closed in section under the treads, not like some on display, and that allowed us to use that extra space. * There have been no cracks in any walls or ceilings. The workmanship is excellent throughout. * I have compared our house with that of two of our adult children's house who had architect designed houses. Our taps etc don't look as expensive as do those in my children's houses. But they work perfectly well and look nice, so I have no complaints there. On the other hand, their houses, even though one won the architect an award, seem to have had more problems than we are getting. * I think the Mitcham house that we have built is a rather dark house, but I cannot complain about that as our side windows are 900mm from the side fences. You cannot have large picture windows and still keep the house an even temperature. Iankun, I hope you are as pleased with your house as we are with ours. Hi newbuilderbill - apologies for the delayed response. I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying your new Mitcham. I agree that the house ventilation is great and along with the upgraded insulation it really reduces the need for aircon (for me anyways). We're quite similar in that we admire our house almost daily too. We went for larger windows all around and this made a big difference in how the home presents itself. It looks deceptively large from the outside. 1 year on and we're thoroughly enjoying the house. All the changes we made are being fully utilized and appreciated - especially the addition of a downstairs bedroom. I'll hopefully get around to sharing some pictures with the landscaping now 80% finished. Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 196Dec 30, 2015 8:39 am Emma1906 You're welcome. Glad I could help! @emma how did your handover go? hope it went well. to all, have a great 2016 ahead. Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 197Jan 24, 2016 10:40 am Hi Thanks for sharing your experiences. I am at the initial stages and our colour appointment is in few weeks time. They haven't provide us any colour samples to the kitchen which we think is essential to know before we go to the colour appointment. Really appreciate if you could share colour selections for kitchen. Thanks Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 199Feb 11, 2016 9:55 am I've received an email about some restructuring and my CSR (Jacqui p) left the company ...since then things are really gone slow as new person doesn't know anything about my file...there was no handover...I've been promised to get my contract when they open in Jan...but still waiting for it...,,anyone else experiencing the same?? Re: Elderton Homes - experiences & reviews 200Feb 19, 2016 5:33 pm get2rush I've received an email about some restructuring and my CSR (Jacqui p) left the company ...since then things are really gone slow as new person doesn't know anything about my file...there was no handover...I've been promised to get my contract when they open in Jan...but still waiting for it...,,anyone else experiencing the same?? Apparently there was a minor restructure and Jacqui now works for Elderton Luxury Homes. I think the delays may be caused in part by the large number of contracts / tenders that were signed at the very end of last year. We have been waiting a while for our variations to be completed correctly as well. How long has it roughly taken others to progress from contract signing until the next stage in the process? 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