Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1805Oct 11, 2018 4:11 pm By the way, update from us. We had an inspection today. They installed kitchen and bathroom cabinets. They have already started putting first coat of paint. All looks good. Estimated handover in 4 to 6 weeks. Very exciting time for us! Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1807Oct 11, 2018 7:32 pm the dream Oh update on our place We had our pre-lining inspection on Tuesday! Everything looks pretty good so far. Didn't find anything out of place at all. We have soundscreen as well. Nada did you get them to supply proof they put it in? I should message my SS and ask for a pic... Gyprock starts tomorrow, and we should have our staircase by the end of next week. regarding the acoustic insulation. no they haven't provided any proof at all. though they promised as we requested an inspection for that. after they installed gyprok they claimed that they will only provide the certificate for it. I believe they didn't want us to see it for a reason. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1808Oct 11, 2018 7:40 pm nada17 the dream Oh update on our place We had our pre-lining inspection on Tuesday! Everything looks pretty good so far. Didn't find anything out of place at all. We have soundscreen as well. Nada did you get them to supply proof they put it in? I should message my SS and ask for a pic... Gyprock starts tomorrow, and we should have our staircase by the end of next week. regarding the acoustic insulation. no they haven't provided any proof at all. though they promised as we requested an inspection for that. after they installed gyprok they claimed that they will only provide the certificate for it. I believe they didn't want us to see it for a reason. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1809Oct 22, 2018 2:03 pm Hi All, Just an update for us, Gyprock is up, had a little bit of a hiccup with the stairs. We almost had a 6 step riser going around the corner. Had to go to site to talk to the stair contractor. Got it sorted though. We are getting what I thought we were getting in the first place! Staircase should be going in today! yay! Lockup at the end of the month. It will be tight for us for a chrissy hand over. Most likely early Jan. nada17 - While i was on site the SS pointed out the difference in the insulation. The insulation was poking out the bottom of the gyprock. The soundscreen is a different colour to the normal stuff. You should be fine. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1810Oct 22, 2018 2:56 pm the dream Hi All, Just an update for us, Gyprock is up, had a little bit of a hiccup with the stairs. We almost had a 6 step riser going around the corner. Had to go to site to talk to the stair contractor. Got it sorted though. We are getting what I thought we were getting in the first place! Staircase should be going in today! yay! Lockup at the end of the month. It will be tight for us for a chrissy hand over. Most likely early Jan. nada17 - While i was on site the SS pointed out the difference in the insulation. The insulation was poking out the bottom of the gyprock. The soundscreen is a different colour to the normal stuff. You should be fine. happy to hear your build is progressing well! yeah we have noticed different colour insulation. I was more worrying not about the quality of works. you know, it is hidden and you cannot really see if anything is faulty. we have visited our site last weekend to take some measurements for fences. We of course checked out how the house looked like. they have already started downstairs tiling. kitchen installed including the benchtop. pantry shelving is done and looked painted. the garage door is in. they have also put the permanent locks and handles to the entry door. one of the main this is the electricity and alarm systems are on. all the switches, outlets, downlights are there. that's how much we could see from the outside I guess there is not much left, they have to finish tiles this week, then painting the walls and i guess that's it for the internal side. externally they need to do the driveway and footpath and some minor fixes we pointed out earlier. overall it looks good, we are very excited! unfortunately no date set for 1st PC inspection yet. we also wanted to invite our flooring guys to take some measurements of the upstairs and stairs for future flooring. we would like to finish it within 1 or 2 weeks after we get the keys and for that we have to place an order now. our SS didn't mind organize an inspection but didn't give us any exact time. just saying "maybe end of the week". I don't think we can arrange the flooring guys this way because they don't sound very flexible about time and date. looks like we may need to waste a few more weeks after handover to arrange the flooring. hopefully we will be able to move in until xmas. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1811Oct 23, 2018 3:41 pm hi guys! we are having another big battle with kurmond over a variation. so they are doing the driveway now and they sent us a variation for removal of soil under it. it all makes sense but when we saw how much soil they want to remove we were shocked! they say 2 loads of 12 tons truck! I am an engineer and deal with soil related calcs daily so I know how much soil can fit into the 2 loads of 12 tons stuck. Just FYI, when they did the excavation and soil removal for the house they wanted to charge us for 4-5 loads. then i arranged my own soil removal and it ended up being 2 loads of the same truck capacity. They say their contractor said it is this much and they put it into variation. Here is a picture of the driveway in current state. it is a 5.5m x 3m driveway + 4.5m x 1m footpath (not an airport runway!) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ there is a lot of sand and gravel on top of natural ground level which is actually a construction waste and should be removed by Kurmond as per our tender. what they are trying to do now is to make us pay extra for what they have to do anyway within the contract price. By my calculations they will need to excavate and remove around 0.5 load which of course will make them charge us for one full load. which i am fine with. and I didn't even include the amount of soil they will need to leave on site because on the right hand side they are going to do the dropped edge beam and they will need some soil to arrange it. Anyway this another example of how they want to rip off their clients. they just hope that clients are ignorant and therefore will pay for everything. Oh yeah, they also said if we are not happy with the variation, they may leave everything as it is and not to proceed with the driveway. Since we got the driveway free as a promotion they will not credit us for it and at the end it will cost us 7-10 k extra to finish it after handover. So basically they are just blackmailing us... We are certainly not going to pay for what we are not getting. If they don't fix the variation we are going to complain. It is also very close to the handover so they think they can push us harder because of that. on a good side, they say that they will do the cleaning next week and we will be able to do the first PC walk-though some time next week. The house is almost ready and the SS says he is happy to handover in 2 week. My concerns are that since the handover is close they will want to get away without fixing some things which we pointed out earlier. I hope they will fix everything without blackmailing us with the delays. Anyway guys, just need to release some steam and as usually warn you! Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1812Oct 24, 2018 11:10 am Hey Nada, I had something similar with the site scrape, my plan said there was going to be way more fill than cut, but there was still 3 loads left to be removed at the end of it. I had a vari to remove the extra dirt from the peirs too, they quoted me for three trucks but only ended up billing for 2 because thats what they ended up using. Honestly they have pretty good rates for the soil removal, its definently going to be cheaper to pay for 2 loads of removal than to pay for a new driveway unfortunately. But if you're not happy, why dont you ask them if they can just leave the soil there and you can get rid of it after? Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1813Oct 24, 2018 12:26 pm the dream Hey Nada, I had something similar with the site scrape, my plan said there was going to be way more fill than cut, but there was still 3 loads left to be removed at the end of it. I had a vari to remove the extra dirt from the peirs too, they quoted me for three trucks but only ended up billing for 2 because thats what they ended up using. Honestly they have pretty good rates for the soil removal, its definently going to be cheaper to pay for 2 loads of removal than to pay for a new driveway unfortunately. But if you're not happy, why dont you ask them if they can just leave the soil there and you can get rid of it after? of course we asked them to leave it on site. we asked them to take one load and leave the leftovers on site as we will anyway need it for landscaping (and we will need a lot!). they refused to do so saying there is no place. even if they say it is actually going to be slightly over 1 load so the leftover would be minor. we are treating this house construction as any other purchase we do. we are not paying for something we know is unfair. we have already saved thousands of dollars by not letting them charge us in situations like this. if someone wants to pay all the variations in order to have a hassle free journey, that's their right. And as I said earlier, they quoted our 2 loads of main excavation works as 4-5 loads. (so we saved $1650 only there). that's how good their estimates are. now guess, would they credit us back if in reality they ended up with 2 loads? Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1814Nov 01, 2018 11:29 am HI all, we are chugging along with our build. Up to the framework now. Kurmond were quick to issue us with the slab invoice, got it out while the cement trucks were still queued up in the street, ready to do the pour. So not much new to report, don't know what stage they will get to before the Christmas shutdown but its taken such a long time to get this far we have no expectations anymore. How is everyone else progressing? What stage are you all up to? ETA - Kurmond emailed us a 'progress photo' of the build - a single low res image from the back of the house. We both had a laugh at that. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1815Nov 01, 2018 11:56 am amegilla HI all, we are chugging along with our build. Up to the framework now. Kurmond were quick to issue us with the slab invoice, got it out while the cement trucks were still queued up in the street, ready to do the pour. So not much new to report, don't know what stage they will get to before the Christmas shutdown but its taken such a long time to get this far we have no expectations anymore. How is everyone else progressing? What stage are you all up to? ETA - Kurmond emailed us a 'progress photo' of the build - a single low res image from the back of the house. We both had a laugh at that. it should be much quicker now! They went to site in mid may and we are at practical completion stage now. We are actually expecting the first PCI invite any day now I hope we will have an inspection next week. They are doing cleaning and driveway this week. By the way, regarding soil removal for the driveway, we agreed that they put a provisional allowance for 1-2 load, subject to clients inspection. so they had to tell us when they were planing to do the works and we would come and inspect. Guess what, they never invited us for that inspection. we called SS and he told us that they have already started with driveway. I am not surprised as I thought there wouldn't be any soil removal at all... Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1816Nov 01, 2018 12:07 pm nada17 amegilla HI all, we are chugging along with our build. Up to the framework now. Kurmond were quick to issue us with the slab invoice, got it out while the cement trucks were still queued up in the street, ready to do the pour. So not much new to report, don't know what stage they will get to before the Christmas shutdown but its taken such a long time to get this far we have no expectations anymore. How is everyone else progressing? What stage are you all up to? ETA - Kurmond emailed us a 'progress photo' of the build - a single low res image from the back of the house. We both had a laugh at that. it should be much quicker now! They went to site in mid may and we are at practical completion stage now. We are actually expecting the first PCI invite any day now I hope we will have an inspection next week. They are doing cleaning and driveway this week. By the way, regarding soil removal for the driveway, we agreed that they put a provisional allowance for 1-2 load, subject to clients inspection. so they had to tell us when they were planing to do the works and we would come and inspect. Guess what, they never invited us for that inspection. we called SS and he told us that they have already started with driveway. I am not surprised as I thought there wouldn't be any soil removal at all... Will you pay a professional to do an inspection at handover? Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1818Nov 01, 2018 12:20 pm Hi all, We got our lockup invoice on tuesday this week. Drove past last night and the front door was wiiiide open. Was tempted to just go and shut it so that no one else decided it was a good place to break into! Still hoping for a pre-chrissy handover. However we have booked our after handover tradies in for Feb just in case. If they are as quick as they were for you Nada we might just make it! The neighbour is getting thier driveway this week, still havent heard from them regarding fencing though. Not sure how thats going to work as they had a fence included as part of their house and land package. But they are lower than us an need to include a retaining wall... We also have a neighbour behind us that is only up to frame stage, but there is a large retaining wall between us (they are high side), and the fence would need to go on top of the retaining wall. Not too sure about how to go about with access while they are building. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1819Nov 01, 2018 12:27 pm Friends at work built with another company, their SS gave them the lock combination for the front gate so they could walk through any time they wanted. I'm assuming Kurmond hasn't provided that kind of access to anyone? Door wide open - that's terrible, but unsurprising. Well, you are both well ahead of us. I think we signed the fixed priced tender in May 2017, when did you both sign? We are guesstimating handover around Easter 2019, based on nothing in particular. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1820Nov 01, 2018 12:32 pm the dream Hi all, We got our lockup invoice on tuesday this week. Drove past last night and the front door was wiiiide open. Was tempted to just go and shut it so that no one else decided it was a good place to break into! Still hoping for a pre-chrissy handover. However we have booked our after handover tradies in for Feb just in case. If they are as quick as they were for you Nada we might just make it! The neighbour is getting thier driveway this week, still havent heard from them regarding fencing though. Not sure how thats going to work as they had a fence included as part of their house and land package. But they are lower than us an need to include a retaining wall... We also have a neighbour behind us that is only up to frame stage, but there is a large retaining wall between us (they are high side), and the fence would need to go on top of the retaining wall. Not too sure about how to go about with access while they are building. what are you planing to do after handover? I mean anything major to finish? we only have 1st floor flooring and bedrooms shutters of major. We want to arrange the measure before handover. Our SS keeps telling us he will give us a day and time for that but keeps postponing. we want to get everything done within 2 weeks after handover we will also have landscaping done later on but we will do it after we move in. As for the fences, ask your neighbours for quote. If you are not happy with the quote you may get 3 quotes from other contractors and pay half of the smallest. 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 109681 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 26677 Wish you all the best. Once you signed the contract, they will find millions excuses to charge you. And have seen their sites unfinished for a long time. 4 25848 |