Builder won't let us...

archangel · May 15, 2008 10:27 am

Hi all,

Reaching the end of the planning/selections stage (feels like an eternity!) and just discovered our builder won't let another flooring company install our solid timber flooring during construction... Something about insurance!

Now, I wouldn't mind using their contractor, except their price, for the same flooring, is $11000 more!!!

I know it can be installed after handover, but I don't want to lose half my skirting board and I'd like it under the kitchen cabinets!

Has anyone else been in this same situation? Any solutions?
Why can't a contractor of my choosing enter the site?

Cheers...

kyton · May 15, 2008 12:19 pm

I think that a lot of volume builders will be like this with any contractor not of their choosing. It would have something to do with their insurance from memory.

Something that we did when we were in the same situation was have the skirting boards and kickboards just tacked into place which meant they could be removed at the later date to have the flooring installed. Then the floor layer reinstalled them once he was finished.

Rajasthan Doors · May 15, 2008 12:30 pm

Nothing to do with insurance, but more about their 25% margin. Try and push harder and call their bluff.

stevec · May 15, 2008 12:30 pm

upgrade to 92mm skirtings. It is the easiest and cheapest way. It will be extremly hard to avoid using quad with volume builders as they are not very flexible about th skirts.

Even PD display homes have the quad so even if you went through the builder you would have to specify that you did not want quad

Rachelle · May 15, 2008 12:53 pm

I'm in the same boat, I think it's pretty standard. I really don't want the additional skirting and yeah, I'd also like the flooring under the cabinets (hadn't thought of that one).

stevec · May 15, 2008 12:59 pm

Ideally we would all love it under the kitcken cabinets and skirtings but the builders dont seem to allow it. If you can convince your site supervisor to let you do it that would be great but I did not want to risk this and be left with a tiny skirting board. This is why I decided to upgrade (Only about $600). This means the quad would only take up the extra bit of skirting board so they would not look tiny.

I found that the standard Australian Colonial skirtings provided by PD had the same profiles in the 67mm and 92mm and was the best solution for me as they wont look diffrent when I put the floorboards down after handover

Another issue would be that the kitchen will go in way before the floors anyway so you probably wont be able to avoid quad around that anyway

natbut · May 15, 2008 1:45 pm

Same thing happened to me. They were happy to just tack the skirting boards on, but are charging me to do it. Even though its less work.

I'm sick of how sooo many builders can get away with whatever they want!!!!!

kiwi056 · May 15, 2008 2:16 pm

natbut

I'm sick of how sooo many builders can get away with whatever they want!!!!!

I hope this doesn’t come out all wrong…

Granted not all of us like how some of the group builders tend to inflate prices to ridiculous levels, but at the end of the day it’s our decision to build with them or not. They are well within their rights to allow/refuse access and work during construction because at the end of the day it belongs to them. It’s no different to us allowing who we like to enter our homes after handover.

If there is anything we’re not happy with then change builders, or get the work done afterwards, although getting anything major done afterwards can in itself create problems when it comes to laying blame with problems occur with the house.

This is why we ended up paying more to get a custom built house so that we could have any and everything we wanted to be installed during construction. But this is not for everyone since it requires more effort on your part to ensure things keep moving.

PhoenixStar · May 15, 2008 2:18 pm

LOL, this sounds so familiar....

In the end we went with the upgrade to 92mm skirts and we are getting the timber boards laid after handover.

Our building gave us 3 options:

1. Keep the standard 67mm archs
2. Tack them on (yes for an additional fee)
3. Leave them off and we do it oursleves, which included the cutting, painting and installation.

We then asked if they would raise them a certain height to accomodate for the timber underneath, but they said no.

So we then suggested that we upgrade to 92mm archs so that even with the 15mm flooring, there was still heaps of architrave left for a low profile quad t be used...

Unfortunately larger builders will not accomodate such requests....

I suppose it depends what's more important, i'd be going with the $11K saving that alone would change my mind to put up with a little bit of quad.

Good Luck though.

natbut · May 15, 2008 2:23 pm

kiwi056

natbut

I'm sick of how sooo many builders can get away with whatever they want!!!!!

I hope this doesn’t come out all wrong…

Granted not all of us like how some of the group builders tend to inflate prices to ridiculous levels, but at the end of the day it’s our decision to build with them or not. They are well within their rights to allow/refuse access and work during construction because at the end of the day it belongs to them. It’s no different to us allowing who we like to enter our homes after handover.

If there is anything we’re not happy with then change builders, or get the work done afterwards, although getting anything major done afterwards can in itself create problems when it comes to laying blame with problems occur with the house.

This is why we ended up paying more to get a custom built house so that we could have any and everything we wanted to be installed during construction. But this is not for everyone since it requires more effort on your part to ensure things keep moving.

Believe me if money was not an option I would definately not be using a project builder. Unfortunately, my house is a 'special' deal and because of this the builders have been able to get away with charging for things that I would normally argue about.

I also wish more of the building contracts (ie the standard HIA one) weren't so biased for the builder.

kyton · May 15, 2008 2:33 pm

Rajasthan Doors

Nothing to do with insurance, but more about their 25% margin. Try and push harder and call their bluff.

I beg to differ here. Yes they all make margins on installing special orders but at the end of the day a high volume project builder will normally just wash their hands should you try to "call their bluff". Very few of the larger companies worry should you threaten to walk away - they're of the opinion that someone else will soon walk in to take your place.

There has been a number of alternatives posted here - and from the looks of it possibly approach your builder with the same idea as Phoenix - seems to be a sensible alternative.

arkraider · May 15, 2008 3:12 pm

natbut

kiwi056

natbut

I'm sick of how sooo many builders can get away with whatever they want!!!!!

I hope this doesn’t come out all wrong…

Granted not all of us like how some of the group builders tend to inflate prices to ridiculous levels, but at the end of the day it’s our decision to build with them or not. They are well within their rights to allow/refuse access and work during construction because at the end of the day it belongs to them. It’s no different to us allowing who we like to enter our homes after handover.

If there is anything we’re not happy with then change builders, or get the work done afterwards, although getting anything major done afterwards can in itself create problems when it comes to laying blame with problems occur with the house.

This is why we ended up paying more to get a custom built house so that we could have any and everything we wanted to be installed during construction. But this is not for everyone since it requires more effort on your part to ensure things keep moving.

Believe me if money was not an option I would definately not be using a project builder. Unfortunately, my house is a 'special' deal and because of this the builders have been able to get away with charging for things that I would normally argue about.

I also wish more of the building contracts (ie the standard HIA one) weren't so biased for the builder.

I love the standard HIA contract... especially Schedule 3, Method 1 Progress Payments......

"Lock Up Stage" means = "The stage when a home's external wall cladding and roof covering is fixed, (here is the bit I love) the flooring is laid and external doors and external windows are fixed (even if those doors and windows are only temporary"...

If your flooring is not laid when they present you with the lock up invoice, point this out to them, this is the contract and this is final... Don't point it out any earlier.... If they damage your floors before handover they are liable....

archangel · May 15, 2008 5:04 pm

Thankyou all for your replies... Much appreciate it...

Yep, I know it's their ball game and you can play elsewhere, if you don't like their rules, but what ever happened to the customer is always right?

Seems like the building industry gets everything its way!

Just have a look at all the posts on this website... Obviously things ain't right when all these people have a complaint or querie about something!

Sorry, I'll get off the soapbox now...

Cheers...

oznow · May 15, 2008 5:11 pm

If you are confident that the trademen that you are hiring will do the quality job, considered it done after handover. it will save you heaps.

For the floor tiles, my friend was able to save $900. On the top of that she does not need to pay 25% of tiler charge.

It is your call!

SouthBris · May 20, 2008 12:45 am

I would in NO way ever defend builders... In my experience with Adenb***k they are SOOO greedy, even to the point where when I offered one tradie a bit of cash on the side for a tiny extra job and he told me the SS would pull his work down if they didn't make their margin on it.

Having said that I do understand that if you lay floors and then they damage it that they will have to fix it. In my business I wouldn't take on any liability if I wasn't making money on it.

IMO they do have a right to make you wait until after handover. Your tiler/carpenter could do a **** job and you could claim that one of their tradies were to blame.

Yak_Chat · May 20, 2008 9:29 am

Quote:

Lock Up Stage" means = "The stage when a home's external wall cladding and roof covering is fixed, (here is the bit I love) the flooring is laid and external doors and external windows are fixed (even if those doors and windows are only temporary"...

If your flooring is not laid when they present you with the lock up invoice, point this out to them, this is the contract and this is final... Don't point it out any earlier.... If they damage your floors before handover they are liable....

Think your definitions might be out there a bit gaz

Flooring is different to floor coverings

Steve

Helyn · May 20, 2008 10:22 am

Quote:

In my experience with Adenb***k they are SOOO greedy, even to the point where when I offered one tradie a bit of cash on the side for a tiny extra job and he told me the SS would pull his work down if they didn't make their margin on it.

We are getting flooring installed by builder so my comments are not directly about the topic but....

In fairness to builders, I must mention that ours has let us do other things outside the contract without any hassle.
For example, we are doing the airconditioning ourselves, builder has been fine with that from the beginning, even though this means there is no builders mark-up on it and aircon installer has had free access to pre-install the ducting etc before the ceilings went on, also we are paying an outside company to install roller shutters, they were allowed to pre-install the wiring and the builders own plasterer is orgainisng a decorative archway for us, we are paying him privately for costs of this and there has been no issue from the builder about any of this.

joaninhac · May 21, 2008 3:44 pm

we had the same problem, but we asked the builder about it before signing papers... we ended up asking the builder to leave out the skirting board out from the whole house except wet areas, so that we could lay the floor boards after handover, which also means we now need to install the skirting boards ourselves also!! It's the only way out i think...

They won't let any other contractors on site due to OHS

Good luck

Craigburn2008 · May 21, 2008 6:21 pm

Hi all,

Our building is cutting, painting and then tacking the skirtings down that that we know where they are meant to go, they are ready to be laid properly etc. but we can pull them up and put our flooring underneith. This might be another option that is less work that cutting and laying them yourself.

ahuang · May 22, 2008 2:05 pm

Our builder "tacked" the skirting boards. But after all the experiences with timber flooring (see 3 posts from my blog below). I would suggest NOT to install any skirting boards and install them after your flooring boards done if possible.

http://building-our-first-house.blogspo ... ted-1.html
http://building-our-first-house.blogspo ... ted-2.html
http://building-our-first-house.blogspo ... ted-3.html