Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Provincial Homes 326Aug 01, 2015 12:14 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 328Aug 04, 2015 9:16 am Jahasabe hang in there, we had the same site supervisor initially, and to be honest our house turned out really well in the end. The trades used were top notch. The paint in particular has been done very well. My brother in law is a licensed painter by trade and he has been happy with the work. He wishes they did the front door differently, and the bathroom ceilings. But he said overall it's a very good job, and it looks like they used quality paint. I have had a lot of neighbors complain to me about the paint in there homes, and the quality of plaster work. The last few weeks have been pretty full on and quite exhausting to be honest. My only frustration has been not having a key to the house with all those delays going on so I could get people in to measure for curtains, tiles, carpet. That is my one gripe and it makes me realize how much better customers who have regular access have it (some builders give you a key). I pulled up the skirting boards quite easily, no damage was done to the walls and I will be replacing it with 92mm half splay skirting. Was going to go with 140mm but then it wouldn't go with the door frames we thought. The skirting came up surprisingly easily, and new skirting from Hume doors cost us $195 so if you add in say 500 for installation it's still better than paying to get the skirting tacked on by Provincial... I think they wanted $760 to tack it on. Pulling up the skirting did confirm that there was water in the service pipe between the wall and the kitchen island. Provincial was great and sent a plumber out at a time convenient for me (when the tilers were about to start first thing in the morning), they used a wet dry vac to suck the water out, and a good 10-15liters came out of the pipe !!!! The key thing is that I was impressed at how well Provincial set up the plumber and didn't hold up the tilers. Anyways tiling was completed on Saturday and it has come out looking pretty good, still needs a few final mops to get the residue off the tiles, but our tiler did an amazing job. Tiling is messy though... so be warned. He also continued floor to ceiling in the bathrooms, in order to do this the mirror's and fittings were removed (quite easily I might add, nothing was broken). The cornice was removed (not so easy, but came off in an hour for 2 bathrooms). The tiler did an amazing job continuing the floor to ceiling tiles, everything lines up. He took the WC up to window height (we didn't want to touch cornices in that room) which makes it look a lot nicer as well. A cornice guy came out yesterday and installed the cornice for about $400 including materials which was a pretty good price I thought. All up doing it this way we only saved $1,500 but if i were to do it again I would just do it through the builder, less headache organizing trades. But I am happy that I didn't pay an admin fee of $700 just to organize the cornice installer to come at a later date. I was a bit jealous of the other family who built with Provincial in our street, they did a cash job to get floor to ceiling done on there house with the di lorenzo tiler. Not fair if you ask me. Our driveway should be poured tomorrow, along with a footing for a future brick front fence. He levelled the land around the lot a little bit, but I need to calculate how much soil I need and order it in, and level it with that. Sigh ... so much other stuff going on, but it's getting there. Trying to get inside cleaned up as much as possible before the carpet goes in. Not too far away about 2 weeks I reckon, and then we can finally move in. There are a few things on my maintenance list, nothing major, things I have noticed are bathroom light not working for whatever reason, trim around the door has come off and ruined the stain on the front door for example. Some door handles are still wonky and I'm not sure how to fix them so will leave it to Provincial to sort out during maintenance. Re: Provincial Homes 329Aug 04, 2015 4:08 pm Good to hear from you Kavehman. Welcome back, looks like you are cruising along with the after build processes. Good luck. The gyp rocking is complete as told by my SS yesterday. Had a call from electrician for the hooking up the electricity. Looks like in next couple of weeks it will be on. I can see the things are progressing and if this can be maintained, I can see the end in next 8 - 10 weeks. (finger crossed). Currently taking lot of quotes from landscaping / concreting people as that is going to be ONE BIG job and I would like to get it rolling asap after the handover. Will keep posted on the progress...... Re: Provincial Homes 330Aug 04, 2015 11:15 pm Well done ProgD. Progress is good! Kavehman - can i ask how long it took you between handover (getting keys) & when you got your actual occupation certificate. Also, what you actually had to get done to get the cert. Just trying to be prepared... Thanks 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 331Aug 05, 2015 8:43 am It is interesting to read the updates - both good and those with a bit of frustration set in. You want the high quality end result, but not to push too hard and result in lower quality tradesmen or corners being cut. One thing that does concern me is how thinly spread our SS is - he has over 17 jobs that has been now expanded vast distances over Sydney... even out close to where Kavehman is in the south (we are in the Hills District). It will be a miracle if our house is finished even close to the 40 weeks - hopefully rain delays are minimal as most of these days had no trades planning to be on our job anyway. Since our last update things have been ticking along slowly with the Roof frame erected and 2nd progress payment, a site inspection with SS, windows delivered and installed, the Internal water pipes and drainage completed, and the bricks delivered. We now in a two week holding pattern for the brickies to start. I have updated the blog with all pictures including our first of the inside taken on our site inspection. Re: Provincial Homes 332Aug 05, 2015 6:19 pm Hi Jahasabe, hate to tell you this, but we still haven't moved in. We are trying our hardest to get flooring done before we do. Like i said getting quotes from tilers wasn't easy without a key, and quotes ranged from 45 per sqm to well over 100 per sqm just to lay 600x600 tiles. We do need to do landscape and driveway to get our occupancy certificate. I am not sure what the definition of landscape is, but we were told it's grass. You will need to budget $275 for the inspection to take place, Provincial pays for the actual certificate but because our build has gone over a year soon since the certifier signed all the docs, they charge us for the inspection. You also need to budget $350 to fill up the termite reticulation system. Concrete was cancelled today, hopefully we can get the driveway in Saturday and then carpet the week after that. Re: Provincial Homes 333Aug 05, 2015 7:20 pm Oh dear!! That's not what i was looking for!! I paid the deposit on our flooring today - expecting an early Sept install. And we already have quotes on grass & driveways organised - just need to get actual dates set. We have to be out of where we are now by 30 sept. We have already extended it by 3 months & can't extend any further, And i dont believe we should need to seeing as it will be 12 weeks over our contract end date! Good news today was we were told possibly 2 weeks til our walk through, so with fingers, toes & everything else crossed we might just make it ... Good luck with your concrete Kavehman. Our 8 week countdown begins NOW!!!! Re: Provincial Homes 334Aug 05, 2015 10:40 pm Hello all, Good to see people updating the forum frequently. Reading the contents, I am bit confused on occupancy certificate thing, is it required before you start 'living' in the house and on what conditions. As I am in hills district, not sure what it means to the council. Also, I have a retaining wall in the plan, does that mean to have the wall done before I can move in. As for driveway, I think council gives 3 months time period to build it, correct me if I am wrong here. Yes, we all are keeping our fingers crossed with so much to happen, not sure when will it end. I was looking at end of Sept, but from all the forum experiences, I may be extremely optimistic. May be October or dreaded Nov ..... I am just praying and getting chillax.... Re: Provincial Homes 335Aug 11, 2015 12:23 pm ProgD you can apply for an interim occupancy certificate which should allow you to move in. This of course costs a little bit of money. Our driveway was done over the weekend, and looked pretty good when it was poured. Council wouldn't allow us to use anything other than plain concrete for the council strip, so we decided to dothe whole driveway in plain concrete. We tried to make it a little more appealing with some dummy joints. Place mroe than necessary, and used a simple brushed finish. I think it looks quite nice. Will update the blog with photos of tiles and driveway soon. Our carpet color is out of stock till the end of the month, which has delayed us moving in. Once carpet is in we plan on moving in, and then finishing off the house once in. Need to try and get some fences up either this week or next week, am just waiting on one more quote back. Re: Provincial Homes 336Aug 12, 2015 10:29 pm kavehman your pictures are looking great - loads of action! Must be challenging being so close, yet not having moved in! We were out in your neck of the woods the other day looking at the only other Woollahra with our façade built so far which is right near you. I am keen to know what others views on independent inspections being done are?... Do you recommend them, and if so what are good points to get them done? Did you get a lot of value out of yours? I did my first calculation yesterday on how far into our contract period we are... Our documented start date was the 24th April, so we are currently in week 16! Just 4 weeks shy of the middle! Given bricking just started today how do we compare to where others were at 16 weeks? Re: Provincial Homes 337Aug 13, 2015 8:37 am With independent inspections I had one done at frame stage, and not sure how worthwhile it was. I don't think the guy I used was all that good to be honest. From there I did my own research and read the building rules. Provincial in the end corrected the errors I did find, but I still haven't been in the roof to see if there are any problems with insulation or sarking. It's the little thing's that start to irritate you after a while. I just wish trades just cared a little more. I'm not sure who much Provincial will fix up at the maintenance period but we shall see. Re: Provincial Homes 338Aug 13, 2015 10:47 am I agree fully with Kavhman, it is not that worth to spend money at the framing stage inspection. I got it done but practically knew the issues that this inspector raised. Having said that, I think it is good to get one last inspection done before the hand over as it will contain all the issues that might plague you after you move in. I am still trying to find a good person for the final review. So far no luck in that.... I hope to get the lock up happening by end of next week and with that will have the next big task come into focus, wet areas tiling. As we went for floor to ceiling tiles in all the bathrooms (from start) and did not go for very exotic tile types, di-lorenzo should start my job with out too much issues. Finger cross, the tiling is the biggest time consuming task and just praying to get it happen with out too much drama and issues. One more thing, Kavehman, did you applied to council for your driveway ?? NikNandy, it is good to see your progress, looking at it you are not that far from lockup stage... More to follow soon.. Re: Provincial Homes 339Aug 13, 2015 11:23 am ProgD i think each council is diifferent but we did need a $130 inspection to take place before the driveway was poured. Most concrete rs should be across this. My driveway guy went to meet the the council guy on site before the pour, but council had already inspected and approved the formwork. I was actually really impressed with the concrete er. He left the site very clean. One of the better trades I have used. Tiler left his garbage behind but that was something I didn't think to negotiate with him before he started the job. Re: Provincial Homes 340Aug 15, 2015 7:28 pm Hello everyone, Just an quick update, went to the site this morning and was amazed to find the carpenter working on a Saturday morning. Had a quick walk past the house and it is in the locked stage. We have the front and garage doors installed and secured. Could also see the electricity connections and power in the house. Also, have the stairs installed. Finally. Things are moving, I can see and given all these activities, my measure and quote day appointments should be ok at this stage. We have quite a few people turning up for measuring. It should be a good exercise in doing estimating before we get the keys. Will update more at the end of next week... 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 - 5th May 2015 Roof complete - 24th July 2015 Lock up complete - 15th August 2015 Final completion - TBA Key Handover - TBA 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 1618 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74717 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 105617 |