Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Home Buyers Centre in Pearsall WA :) 161Feb 11, 2012 1:22 am My building forum: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=49650&p=756654#p756654 Building the 'Ultimate St Marks' with Home Buyers Centre Re: Building with Home Buyers Centre in Pearsall WA :) 166Mar 06, 2012 3:40 pm Hi Kaz! The general rule of thumb for a first home buyer company is they do not like to allow owner nominated trades / supplies. Under some situations they will but this has to be done in the early stages.. If you supply your own materials, you need your own insurance to cover these and it anything happens eg a scratch or stolen, the builder takes no responsibility.. With owner nominated trades they dont like to offer they do it and will try to get out of it but if you push the issue they will sometimes buckle. As far as things not in the contract - unless you have a really nice site supervisor who you have befriended then you wont be able to do it.. For example, our glass splashback was not part of our contract it was something we were adding ourselves and not even discussed with HBC. Our site supervisor allowed us to have a key to go on site for it to be measured and we always had planned installation after handover. If we had wanted this done prior I think it may have been an issue. I think they would have let us at the very end as the risk of damage would be significantly lessened. If you have any questions let me know Update: We had our inspection and they had to fix a dented light switch, level alfresco and put in the phone point which they didn't do despite us paying for it and signing a clarification variation of what is was. Picked up our keys two days later - Thurs arvo, went up on the Thurs night to seal the walls and the driveway was collapsed, alfresco not filled in and phone point not sorted. I complained on Monday morning and guys were out later that day fixing the alfresco. Paving for rectified on the following Friday and their electrician was meant to come last Friday to do the phone point - two hours later he rung telling me he forgot so he is meant to be out tomorrow! GAH! Our splashback went to be installed and there was a mark between the glass and paint so had to be pulled off the wall and glue pried off.. Was installed yesterday and looks good Now hubby can install canopy rangehood! All our downlights have been installed, but HBC didn't do the junction boxes how we were told they work so took electrician 3 days and a lot of money so he could rewire everything prior to actually doing the downlights! Our furniture is STILL delayed - another fortnight.. Started digging footings for letterbox and retaining wall then we can get the landscaper out so no pics for another fortnight or so guys But on another note - WOW we are in our own home! The house is nowhere near finished, missing half the furniture, walls are yellow (hubbys painter mate told us to get a particular sealer that had a 'lovely coloured finish' so we wouldnt have to paint for awhile - turns out to be canary yellow!) but we feel so proud looking around and knowing its ours My building forum: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=49650&p=756654#p756654 Building the 'Ultimate St Marks' with Home Buyers Centre Re: Building with Home Buyers Centre in Pearsall WA :) 167Mar 06, 2012 9:03 pm Congrats on finally moving to your own place!!! Can't wait for the moving in pics!! Our house is currently in tiling stage and hopefully we have a smooth ride to inspection, and no problems with paving or anything at all. Btw, did you get an independent inspector? Regarding the glass splashback, did you remove the 1 layer of tiles from HBC (any tips ) or did you ask to have it removed during prestart? I also had junction boxes, oh my...I hope we don't have to spend so much for it. Did you have LED downlights or just the halogen ones? We bought ours online and it's the halogen ones which is like 50% cheaper from the stores. LED are lovely but way to expensive for us. I'll try to see if I can show you our house, we are so happy with our colour choices. Re: Building with Home Buyers Centre in Pearsall WA :) 168Mar 27, 2012 5:00 pm sdmould Hi Kaz! The general rule of thumb for a first home buyer company is they do not like to allow owner nominated trades / supplies. Under some situations they will but this has to be done in the early stages.. If you supply your own materials, you need your own insurance to cover these and it anything happens eg a scratch or stolen, the builder takes no responsibility.. With owner nominated trades they dont like to offer they do it and will try to get out of it but if you push the issue they will sometimes buckle. As far as things not in the contract - unless you have a really nice site supervisor who you have befriended then you wont be able to do it.. For example, our glass splashback was not part of our contract it was something we were adding ourselves and not even discussed with HBC. Our site supervisor allowed us to have a key to go on site for it to be measured and we always had planned installation after handover. If we had wanted this done prior I think it may have been an issue. I think they would have let us at the very end as the risk of damage would be significantly lessened. If you have any questions let me know Quote: Update: We had our inspection and they had to fix a dented light switch, level alfresco and put in the phone point which they didn't do despite us paying for it and signing a clarification variation of what is was. Picked up our keys two days later - Thurs arvo, went up on the Thurs night to seal the walls and the driveway was collapsed, alfresco not filled in and phone point not sorted. I complained on Monday morning and guys were out later that day fixing the alfresco. Paving for rectified on the following Friday and their electrician was meant to come last Friday to do the phone point - two hours later he rung telling me he forgot so he is meant to be out tomorrow! GAH! Our splashback went to be installed and there was a mark between the glass and paint so had to be pulled off the wall and glue pried off.. Was installed yesterday and looks good Now hubby can install canopy rangehood! All our downlights have been installed, but HBC didn't do the junction boxes how we were told they work so took electrician 3 days and a lot of money so he could rewire everything prior to actually doing the downlights! Our furniture is STILL delayed - another fortnight.. Started digging footings for letterbox and retaining wall then we can get the landscaper out so no pics for another fortnight or so guys But on another note - WOW we are in our own home! The house is nowhere near finished, missing half the furniture, walls are yellow (hubbys painter mate told us to get a particular sealer that had a 'lovely coloured finish' so we wouldnt have to paint for awhile - turns out to be canary yellow!) but we feel so proud looking around and knowing its ours Thanks for that. Hope you've moved in & everything has gone smoothly? Re: Building with Home Buyers Centre in Pearsall WA :) 169Apr 17, 2012 9:58 am Well hopefully you're enjoying your beautiful home since we haven't had any updates from you! Thought I'd check in & see if you have posted anymore pictures or updates on the house. Also I wanted to ask a couple things too. We've only signed the preliminary works contract & have yet to sign the lump sum building & contract quotation. Can we add or delete any of our variations so we can include other things into our contract, rather than doing at pre-start? It's hard to know what to include in our contract & what things to leave until pre-start. Also, since we haven't signed the above contracts, does that mean that if we are not happy with things that we can cancel our build with HBC & go with another builder? You mentioned that the junction boxes didn't work how HBC said they would, can you explain why? When I read your thread I was so excited to have them added in so that we too could do our own down lights, but then to read you had to get an electrician in to rectify it made me think twice about getting it done. We are wanting so many more power points around the house & probably tv aerial points. I was told to get the sparkie to install heaps of conduits (?-I think that's what they're called) so we can get them hooked up by our own sparkie later (cheaper). Do you know what smart wiring is? That's it for now. Hope all is going well in you new home, so exciting. Kaz Hi, have purchased a house with 2 single garage doors. The Centre pillar one side sits proud to the other. Can I change 2 doors into one. Please see picture. 0 6531 We already paid for somfy motors for the blinds. The quote above was purely for “pre-wiring” so the blinds company can install the motors and blinds. That’s why we… 5 16774 go upvc window frames ensure insulation under colorbond. not just sarking, lighter color roof also not sure if you have seen this viewtopic.php?t=5823 last couple of pages… 4 111002 |