Anybody built a house recently?

[Ado]

Im about to build and would like to know who people have built with and who i should avoid.
I have got just over a quarter of an acre to build on and need to get things moving.

[JBDrifter]

I've heard that ALL the mainstream builders are shocking. Even the ones with a reputation for building good quality homes.

I'm a sparky and recently been doing some work with a chippy that used to work Porter Davis Homes. Porter Davis was one of the ones that I would have rated very highly up there with the best of the best, but he tells me that their quality of work is very very poor. They push for the jobs to be completed as quickly as possible, and in the process force the trades to take short cuts to get things done quicker.

I've also seen it first hand for myself recently. We were asked to replace all the light fittings in a newly built Porter Davis house. While the wiring was good, you could see flaws in the build quality and even the design of the house. Walls not square, drooping ceilings, front door off-centre etc.

This might not be the case everywhere and with all mainstream builders... but just what I've seen and heard from within the construction trade.

My advice would be to find a good private builder... unless you're happy with mediocre quality.

[Bravotwozero]

Wife and I moved into our new place in July last year. Because of the reasons above, we didn't go with a mainstream company but decided on a private builder. Had a few minor issues but overall we were very happy with our decision to go with a private builder and the end product. Where are you located?

[Ado]

Im building in Lancefield (Vic).Most of the houses these days are designed for long blocks but because of a 3mt easement and a 5m backset only leaves me with about 21mt of house space and i need more.The block is over 30 mt wide but there are not too many wide homes out there.

[minux]

With major builders you generally get better warranties. While 1 person In east of melbourne might use metricon and they suck the person north of melbourne could use them and they are really good.

I know people who have built with Metricon, Porter Davis, Burbank, Henley, AV jennings. All say great things about their own homes.

Go look at some builders, decide which offers the best value for money.

I personally found Henley one of the best for customer service and they had some great floor plans(which we stole)

[Bravotwozero]

Ha ha! They're pretty narky when it comes to copyright infringement as well. My wife showed our builder a picture of an old federation home and we were told he couldn't build it exactly like that because it was identical to a home one of the builders was offering. (Think it was Harkaway Homes.)

We had a different problem. There was 4 metres of fall across the building site and our frontage was only 25 metres. We ended up building a place with 3 different levels so worked out well. But from the front it looks like one single level. Here's a pic showing how steep our block is. There is 25 metres of fall across the block.

[Ado]

With major builders you generally get better warranties. While 1 person In east of melbourne might use metricon and they suck the person north of melbourne could use them and they are really good.

I know people who have built with Metricon, Porter Davis, Burbank, Henley, AV jennings. All say great things about their own homes.

Go look at some builders, decide which offers the best value for money.

I personally found Henley one of the best for customer service and they had some great floor plans(which we stole)

Yeah we have did a lot of looking and we loved the Henley homes but the one we wanted wouldnt fit.
Wife is looking at the Porter Davis homes as we speak(type).

[JBDrifter]

With major builders you generally get better warranties. While 1 person In east of melbourne might use metricon and they suck the person north of melbourne could use them and they are really good.

I know people who have built with Metricon, Porter Davis, Burbank, Henley, AV jennings. All say great things about their own homes.

Go look at some builders, decide which offers the best value for money.

I personally found Henley one of the best for customer service and they had some great floor plans(which we stole)

Yeah like I said it might not be the case everywhere.. obviously it depends on the tradesmen they hire to do the actual work. But they do have a reputation for pushing out homes as quickly as possible, which in a lot of cases will result in short cuts being taken and cheaper materials being used.

Warranty's are great.. but I'd rather not have to make any warranty claims in the first place.

[calais24/7]

Recently had an extension put on our place, ABC is who we used but im unsure if there a nation wide company, anyway there customer service was good and they where reliable

[Ado]

Yeah like I said it might not be the case everywhere.. obviously it depends on the tradesmen they hire to do the actual work. But they do have a reputation for pushing out homes as quickly as possible, which in a lot of cases will result in short cuts being taken and cheaper materials being used.

Warranty's are great.. but I'd rather not have to make any warranty claims in the first place.

Ill give you quick build time,my first home was built in 12 weeks and that was from bare ground to getting the keys.
No real complaints either.

[Deutscher]

Me & Partner currently building.
Our builder is "Gen 1" ... offbranch from Easy Living Homes.
Cause we first home buyers we had to go with a company builder.

Signed contracts in September... Slab went down January! Our roof tiles only just went on! In our contracts with them, the tiles have to be laid by Bristol and they've had a 6week delay! Gen 1 doesn't give out the site supervisor's number so we can't speak to him, have to go through the office and they call him etc.. its BS takes few days to get a bloody answer! Apart from the delays, our house is looking fine... few cracked tiles but we'll get em to fix it up.

We picked our house from a plan but we changed the whole layout of it to fit our block the best we could (minimal distance from front & closest to each wall (apart from rear)). Cost us like $20,000 in changes to get the house how we want it, so we paid $156,000 all up, house came with carpets/blinds/aircon etc.

[Reaper]

Im about to build and would like to know who people have built with and who i should avoid.
I have got just over a quarter of an acre to build on and need to get things moving.

I build approx 3 houses a day frame & truss. Which state are you in? Unfortunately the whole industry is very hit and miss. There are only a handful of builders I'd let near my house. There are a few who are really god but the majority give the few a bad name

Be prepared to pay for quality and word of mouth is probably the best yardstick.

Reaper

[Reaper]

Yeah like I said it might not be the case everywhere.. obviously it depends on the tradesmen they hire to do the actual work. But they do have a reputation for pushing out homes as quickly as possible, which in a lot of cases will result in short cuts being taken and cheaper materials being used.

Warranty's are great.. but I'd rather not have to make any warranty claims in the first place.

It's actually the quality of the supervisor which is paramount. Good supervisor can keep the trades in line and knows what is important or not.

Reaper

[Jesterarts]

Sorry to hi-jack the thread a bit.

Anyone had experience with Dennis builders?

There's a couple of their houses I like but when I jumped on a review site they got 2.5 stars out of 5.

As did most mainstreem builders.

[Troy711]

Sorry to hi-jack the thread a bit.

Anyone had experience with Dennis builders?

There's a couple of their houses I like but when I jumped on a review site they got 2.5 stars out of 5.

As did most mainstreem builders.

What review site did you use? I'd be interested in looking up some builders I work for.

[Troy5L]

go with Metricon, Porter Davis, Burbank, Henley, AV jennings if u want a house that will fall apart in a few years, they put all the honest carpenters to shame..as a carpenter i cant believe some of their houses ive seen. all they care about is TIME = MONEY. the wanna get it knockd over in a month or so..and they dont fix problems the come by, they patch them..

The best bet is to go find a few builders and ask for their last 1 or 2 clients ring them and have a chat about their workmanship, and such..

[Tim Smtih]

Im about to build and would like to know who people have built with and who i should avoid.

Who did i build with? La Famiglia. They're great people but for the love of god don't mix business and family. Maybe check out consumer affairs if you're concerned about dodgy builders. There are plenty of links to great info.

[minux]

go with Metricon, Porter Davis, Burbank, Henley, AV jennings if u want a house that will fall apart in a few years, they put all the honest carpenters to shame..as a carpenter i cant believe some of their houses ive seen. all they care about is TIME = MONEY. the wanna get it knockd over in a month or so..and they dont fix problems the come by, they patch them..

The best bet is to go find a few builders and ask for their last 1 or 2 clients ring them and have a chat about their workmanship, and such..

Hmm really? So they do not use carpenters, plumbers etc? They are only pretend?

As for not fixing problems, I do know Metricon and Porter Davis fix them. Have seen it done. One house had an entire wall removed and replaced. Just because it is done fast, does not mean it is dodgy. In fact, far from it, China proves this every day, as do many other non fat slob lazy countries For the record, sure some may be dodgy, but the dodgies are in every business big or small.

Know what your buying, adjust the contracts, or walk away. Simple really

[Ado]

I build approx 3 houses a day frame & truss. Which state are you in? Unfortunately the whole industry is very hit and miss. There are only a handful of builders I'd let near my house. There are a few who are really god but the majority give the few a bad name

Be prepared to pay for quality and word of mouth is probably the best yardstick.

Reaper

Im in Vic mate