Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 19, 2008 3:51 pm Hi Everyone,
I just thought I'd start a thread on the progress of our new home which will be a Clarendon Madison. Anyway after many frustrating months of minor setbacks and satisfying all rules, regulations and all the other stuff that goes with building a new home we are finally close to pegout stage. We have been issued our certificate from the certfier that everything is ready to go. Our cso has told us she has ordered the pegout and it should be done by the end of next week and that the excavation should start soon after. Would be great to be in there by mid next year, it seems once the builders get going they move pretty quickly so hopefully the weather stays good. The council only took 6 weeks to approve the plans, which was amazing, thyey have been extremely helpful through the whole process. We ended up removing 2 bedrooms and moving them around so we could have a large family room upstairs with a balcony. The lower level will be semi split level with a step down into the kitchen and rumpus area with a 9ft ceiling. I'm having the home theatre extended 1.2m into the front dining room and converting it into a small professional audio mixing, mastering and recording suite. The walls will be properly soundproofed and the room will have a floating floor and appropriate acoustic design. The electrical appointment should be interesting because if they want to cut holes in my sounproofed walls I'll be throwing a fit . Ok here's the beginning of the construction timeline, we'll call it frommmmmm.........now. Go Clarendon go!!! Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 4Sep 19, 2008 4:34 pm Looks like a good plot. Out of interest did you knock an existing place down yourself, or did you buy it ready to go like that? C&G -------------------------------- A new building chapter begins.. Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 5Sep 23, 2008 6:28 pm joles How big is the block Heathen? And how much fall across it? Hi Joles i'ts about 635, it's a nice block, not sure how much fall probably only about a metre side to side, a few metres front to back. Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 6Sep 23, 2008 6:45 pm bobbuilder Looks like a good plot. Out of interest did you knock an existing place down yourself, or did you buy it ready to go like that? Hi Bob, I lived in the old house for a long time, which was my grandparents place. Was an old fibro place which was in dire need of repair, so my parents and my partner and I thought a new house would be a better use of money. We had it demolished about 6 weeks ago. Anyway the pegout has been ordered and will hopefully be this week or early next week, weather permitting. Cheers Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 13Oct 17, 2008 12:45 pm I agree they are not very good at organising anything, been nearly a year since we signed up with them, they said the thing would be ready by Christmas this year, ha! Has'nt even started.
Onto our 4th cso who still can't give us a start date. Never seen a company who's staff have more sickies. I've got a few good mates who are builders who can check over each stage with me. The reason I'm doing a timeline here is to keep it as a public record, if that makes sense. Anyway my partner is a librarian sooooo her paperwork organisational skills are superb We have every single correspondence ever from them, even emails. She even sent our new cso an email which she sent my partner stating " Christmas 2008 is a real possibility", yeah right, was that meant to be finish or start? They were giving us ultimatums after wasting our time for 6 months, we have done everything needed now and are still waiting, been renting 3 months now and only the pegout has been done. Then they'll want 6 weeks off over Christmas. Anyway time to start bugging them, maybe things will start soon. We'll see what happens next week, hopefully something. Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 16Oct 27, 2008 11:10 pm Still waiting!!! These people just don't seem to want to start our house. After receiving a letter from someone there today in the mail they say they can't commence earthworks in what they would call a "reasonable amount of time".
This is inexcusable, they have wasted a whole year so far, nothing has been done except for pegout which they claim is "a start", well in my opininion thats not a start, it's just four pegs. Everytime we call them we get a different excuse, oh and usuall a different cso. They gave as an ultimatum to knock our house down by a certain date which we complied with, we have now been renting for nearly 4 months and not 1 thing has been done, just more excuses. Last week they said they were purchasing stuff for the house, this week they say 6 more weeks, they were meant to start last Friday which was the 20 days since pegout in which time they stipulate they must start earthworks. It will be Christmas in 8 weeks, then they have 5 weeks off, so it will now obviously be February before they start. Time to see our lawyer, he sorted the last 5 month saga in 1 week, will be another 2 grand down the drain, but hey who cares. As far as we see it they have not started our project in reasonable time and our contract has litterally expired and left us with no home and little hope for the near future. All we have is a big mess which was a home, now it's a hole in the ground with whinging neighbours. We knock our house down on thier whim and they have the hide to do this, we could still be living there and not renting. If they were honest we could have timed it better, these people's tactics are low to say the least. Anyone else having this problem? Would love to hear from you and and have a chat. Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 17Oct 28, 2008 6:27 am Oh no you poor thing, I can't believe what this company does to their customers . We also knocked over a house at their request and we are now with another builder.
We did have the new CEO's name, I am not sure if we still have it. Hope that you sort it out quickly as like us it is costing you rent money. Lots of luck. We now have a blog. http://allaboutthebuild.blogspot.com/ Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 18Oct 28, 2008 6:45 am Sorry to hear of your situation Heathen. Is it not too late to pull out and start with another builder? I know it would probably set you back some $$$ and time etc but could that be worth it in the long run? Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 19Oct 28, 2008 6:51 am buildingadreamhome Sorry to hear of your situation Heathen. Is it not too late to pull out and start with another builder? I know it would probably set you back some $$$ and time etc but could that be worth it in the long run? I agree. How much would it cost you to pull out now? What about kicking up some kind of fuss. From my experience ( not building though) the loudest, gets things done. Re: Building Clarendon Madison. 20Oct 28, 2008 6:55 am Hi Heathen,
I can SO relate to how you feel...I will send you a PM later today, running to get kids of to school.. but will give you a run down of what WE know is going on and happening with building a Cl@rendon home... The two 15mm holes are obviously not compliant. The Dept of Fair Trading would love to see this one! Do the gutters pool water after it stops raining? Although it's… 4 16235 No idea about the driveway question, but your price for a house that size including landscaping seems very good! 1 22264 No, not yet. It’s currently being assessed by our building surveyor 4 19513 |