Patience wearing thin...

It's been a week since our last update... why you might ask? Well it's because nothing has been done since. It seems that we're back to the cycle of 2-3 days of trades everywhere and then no progress for a week or so.

Even though we have a PCI date, it's extremely frustrating to watch the house just sit there especially when we are paying rent and 90% of our mortgage.

We do understand that our SS is busy and he has been fantastic so far so we haven't contacted him or pushed him. Having said that PD need to get there act together and stop overloading there staff.

Speaking of PD staff. We have had serious communication issues with our BC. We have been trying to get a BV raised for close to two months now and sent multiple emails without any responses. Last week I called her and she promised she would raise the BV ASAP and send out the confirmation letter of our PCI and settlement dates. Another week has gone past and nothing...

So that's pretty much how we are feeling right now... and I think this is common from other builds I have followed.

Let's hope there are no more delays!

Thank you Porter Davis!

Our old BC asked me if I wanted to leave a review for Porter Davis a few months back to go into the draw for an iPad Mini. I rejected the offer as I was having some serious issues with the build and wanted to hold off on giving a review till the end of our build.

However, our SS has been so great and all our issues are being resolved. So when he asked me again to leave a review about his performance, I thought it was the right thing to do. 

Lucky for me, I managed to win an iPad Mini!! This is the first prize I have ever won! Thank you Porter Davis for the generous prize. 

Here it is :) 

I plan on leaving another one after our 90 day maintenance period. 

Another BC change...

Yesterday, we got a call from PD's Business Co-ordinator.

We were told that our BC has left the company and we will therefore be allocated another BC sometime in the near future.

This was really frustrating to hear as we are now up to our third BC and second Site Supervisor.

PD's staff turn over is quite concerning. I'm not sure what the reason is but many PD customers seem to have the same issue throughout their build.

The worst part of it all was that she was really great to deal with and always prompt at responding to any queries or questions we had.

I hope the next BC will be the same!

Porter Davis to 'Centralize' offices

Today, all of Porter Davis' customers received an email stating that they are planning to relocate all their offices to one central location (Docklands) by the end of 2015.

I think this is a great move by PD and will ensure consistency across their range of customers and areas they build in. 

Here is a screen shot of that email:

Slab Issues - Meeting with Slab Supervisor

Many of you would have already read my post on Friday regarding the slab 'repairs' that we applied to our home to be. Click here to view it.

I was quite disappointed with the quality of the repairs and as soon as I got home I sent an email to the Slab Supervisor raising my concerns. Even though I did not receive an email back from him. Fortunately, my BC was onto it first thing Monday morning and raised this to management.

Without going into too much detail, this morning I got a call from our Slab Supervisor which was soon followed by PD's head of construction to discuss the issues I have raised. I was already meeting our Site Supervisor on site so the Slab Supervisor agreed to join.

After a lengthy discussion, PD have agreed to 'redo' all the repair work. The repairs will be conducted first thing in the morning and include the following:

• Remove old concrete
• Prep the area for inspection
• Fix the Slab Membrane - Garage corner
• Surveyor to inspect again and provide a report for sign off
• Areas of repair to be boxed and then poured

I am hoping that this time around the repairs are done to that of an acceptable standard. 

A big thank you to all those on the homeone forum that helped me through various posts and PMs. Specifically one member who sent me a message with some great 'ammunition' for the discussion. 

Looking forward to moving on for these issues and continuing our build! 

Frame inspection - Not impressed!

It all started with one email, advising us that our frame had been completed and to pay up. I immediately responded and advised that as with the base stage payment, we will not be making any payments until all issues (specifically defects that don't mean the BCA guidelines) are resolved.

Porter Davis staff were very hesitant at accepting this and said they will discuss it with management. The response was "We can't accept payments to be held because of MINOR issues". Minor you say...? I don't think so!

Luckily I stuck to my guns, as yesterday I got a call from a very concerned Independent Inspector which was followed by a frame/slab stage report that took away all the excitement from the progress on our build.

The report is too long and has too much confidential information to post on the blog but here is a summary of the defects picked up:

• Number of intersecting wall block connections not nailed off - Apparently a common one for Porter Davis

• H2 rated timber installed to the front of the garage. It will be below FGL (Finished Ground Level) so needs to be H4 timber. 
• Timber sheet bracing defective as it does not meet the requirement of being secured at a maximum of 150 mm centres. 

• Slab to the front right hand corner of the house has been damaged and 'broken away'. It will not support the weight of the bricks and needs to be rectified. Engineering needs to be done, site surveyor has to be sent this documentation and he/she must witness the opening and closing of the slab edge.

• RHS of the porch still needs the concrete 'refilled' 

• Bath void still has a hole exposing the foam pods and therefore is a termite barrier issue
• The timber to the porch need to be H3 hazard rated. Only H2 rated timber installed. 
• Windows above 1800 mm in height must be secured at a minimum of 3 points to the frame and supported in the frame via packets. This is specified by the manufacturer of the windows. The installation does not meet this requirement. 
• Extra support required for the alcove in the study wall due to length being over 1800 mm

• Gang nails universal brackets not secured sufficiently. Missing nails.

• Some trusses installed the wrong way around! 

• Over 10 trusses out of plumb. They are installed at a greater than 50 mm out of plumb, especially to the rear of the house.

I am not sure how they managed to get our frame 'signed off'' with defects such as these. I have a sent a very serious email to our BC with the required parties CC'ed requesting the defects to be rectified before any further progress to our build. I have also (once again) made it very clear that I will not authorise any payments until we have supporting evidence in writing that the defects have been attended too. 

We will most likely get our independent inspector back out to re-check all these defects have been resolved as requested before going any further. Even though this will cost us even more, I think it's value added considering the situation we are faced with. 

Thanks for reading the super long post! 

Yet another surprise! Hopefully not too serious...

After reviewing our floor levels today I noticed that Porter Davis has reduced the total house level by 200 mm between our contract and final construction drawings. We missed this when we were checking our construction drawings. We were also not informed of this change at any point!

Here is a comparison of the two drawings. Hoping to have an answer for this first thing tomorrow morning.

Appliance LPG compatibility confirmed!

A few posts back I shared the email I sent to Porter Davis regarding our appliances and their compatibility with LPG.

They have responded to the information I gave them and confirmed that all our appliances are in fact compatible to be used with LPG or Natural Gas. This is great news for us as it means we don't have to change our appliances nor wait for our natural gas supply to get our Certificate of Occupancy. 

Here is a screen shot of the Building Variation (BV) PD sent us for this change. Total cost is $233 and we still need to supply our own gas tanks before handover. 

  

I requested that they advise where the bottles will be located and was told that this is for the client to decide. So with that in mind, I did my research and sent the following back. 

I used the following link for information regarding the exclusion zones for any ignition source, door, window etc... This allowed me to select a suitable location. Hopefully Porter Davis concur with this.

http://www.elgas.com.au/blog/388-lpg-gas-bottle-cylinder-placement-guide 

Thanks for reading :) 

Final Construction Drawings - Signed

On Wednesday we attended an appointment at Porter Davis with our Building Coordinator (BC) to sign off our construction drawings.

It was supposed to be a quick 30 mins meeting but it went for about 2.5 hrs. Even though there weren't many mistakes in the drawings we still had a few changes that we needed to discuss. Our BC was also kind enough to go through the drawings with us page by page, measurement by measurement, note by note to ensure they were all up to standards and error free. She managed to pick-up a few discrepancies on the drawings which were rectified on the day.

The changes that were made are as follows:

• Added a cold water tap to the fridge space
• Changed the spout to the bathroom bath tub
• Added some notes for rendering
• Fixed the figure for the void under the kitchen island
• Removed the note for glazing to the laundry glass doors
• Added measurement for garage door

It was a pretty easy and successful appointment compared to our Tender and contract. We left the Porter Davis office feeling confident about the drawings and the choices we had made.

Unfortunately, that was overshadowed by the issues we had with the Natural Gas supply to the area but we are working to rectify it and feel that we have found a good solution. We're looking forward to starting the build. 

Thanks for reading :) 

Building Permit issued

We got some good news today! 

Our building permit has been issued and our Building Coordinator sent us the permit and approved drawings on the same day. 

Hopefully this will be the start of more good news.  Looking forward to finally starting to see our home get build. 

Information regarding LPG/NG compatibility our appliances

So after receiving the lovely news of not having natural gas at our block till September 2015, I decided to do some more research regarding our appliances and their compatibility with LPG/NG.

Porter Davis told us that none of our appliances would be able to change over from LPG --> NG after hand over. Boy were they wrong. Here is section of the email I sent to PD today:

• Rinnai Infinity 26

Confirmed by the manufacturer that it is LPG --> Natural Gas convertible. Part number for the kit is: 92099311

• Blanco BFD9058FX

Confirmed on the manufactures website that it can be converted to natural gas even if order in LPG originally. Please see manual attached page 29. Also here is a screen shot. 

• Brivis Ducted heating HX30i

Available in LPG and confirmed by manufacturer that there is a conversion kit from NG --> LPG. Part no. B061776

Surprise, surprise. I have contacted Porter Davis and asked them to review this information and install LPG appliances to our home as well as the provision for some LPG bottles. The gas company has agreed to cover the cost of the conversion back to Natural Gas for all our appliances.

Thanks for reading. 

No Gas!! What do you mean no Gas?

Hi all,

Today we got some really bad and frustrating news. We have been told that there will be no natural gas supply until September 2015!

As you can imagine, this was really disappointing for us. Especially having been so excited for our site start this Friday.

The gas company APA Group has advised that we get our builder to install appliances that are compatible with LPG and they will change them over to natural gas when the time comes.

Unfortunately, Porter Davis is refusing to do this. They will either supply all LPG equipment or all natural gas equipment. Obviously we don't want a house that only runs on LPG tanks. So we are now stuck in a situation where we are due to move in at the latest June/July but cannot obtain a certificate of occupancy. Meaning we will be paying 95% mortgage and rent for 3-4 months whilst we wait.

What an absolute joke! Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Patience is a virtue. Well at least when you're building!

Yet another month has passed and we are yet to start out build. It seems January is probably one of the laziest and slowest months of the year. Here is a quick update on the progress we have had recently:

• Bank has given unconditional approval
• Second soil test was ordered on the 06/01/2015 and we are still waiting for the results!
• Building permit is being held up by the soil test
• Final construction drawings also waiting on the soil test

We are due to go to site on the 30/01/2015 but this is becoming less feasible with every day that goes past.

Fortunately, our current Building Coordinator is absolutely wonderful and responds to my emails/calls within the same day. At worst it will be early the next day! Very impressed and grateful for her top notch service. 

Porter Davis is chasing up the engineering company to provide a report for the soil test. The engineering company says they have already done the test and have a back log of reports to completed.

The strange thing is I have been out to the block and could not see any holes or disturbed soil whatsoever! Who to believe...?

You definitely need to be patient when building a home...

Thanks for reading!

Designated Bushfire Prone Areas - No longer covers our block

Hi All,

Found out today that our block is no longer in a designated Bushfire prone area. Great news as we will be saving about 7k!

Make sure you check this with your builder before you sign the final construction drawings.

You can find out this information for your block here: http://services.land.vic.gov.au/maps/interactive.jsp

Cheers

Land has titled!

Hi All,

Finally! Some great news and another milestone achieved for our build.

We have been informed that our block of land has titled. Settlement is expected to be on the 23/12/2014 which will be a great Christmas present for us.

Even though we have been delayed by 2 months due to waiting on titles we are very excited to progress our build.

Some other news...

• Our house design has been approved by the Design Review Committee (DRC) 
• We have a new Build Co-ordinator. Email responses are now always with 24hrs even after hours! She has been so helpful and has given us more information in 2 weeks about our build then we had received since we first paid the deposit.

Thank you for reading. 

Some updates

The last few days have been pretty busy regarding our build. Here are some updates we received.

Bank:

• Second valuation to be ordered from a different company
• Rejected the stage payment schedule PD have requested

Builder (BC):

• Updated electrical layout as follows:
• Added Switch Plate at Front Door for internal lights
• Added 2x 2 way switching cost to lights in hallway
• Reconfigured switching as per client request
• Moved switch in laundry to beside door/linen cupboard
• Amended our colour selections to reflect architraves/skirting/internal door colour as 'White'
• Accepted bank's request to go back to the standard HIA progress payment schedule

We have our fingers crossed that the next valuation comes in higher than before otherwise we will have to pay some LMI. 

Contract appointment

Almost 4 months after our initial deposit we finally reviewed and signed our construction contract with Porter Davis. The delay was mainly due to my work travel commitments.

As a whole, the day went quite smoothly (surprisingly!). The contract consultant was very nice and extremely helpful. We spotted a few mistakes in our selections and drawings but these were updated accordingly for our final set of contract drawings.

The only real disappointment of the day was that our splash back cannot be one single sheet. We were half expecting this since hearing that the maximum size was 3m. So we made a decision to have one single 3m piece in the center with two pieces either side. We much prefer this over having a big line right down the middle of the stove/oven. 

Here is a quick summary of the day

The good stuff:

• Knowledgeable and helpful consultant
• Drawings were fairly accurate to what we requested
• 90% of costs supplied at Colour were accurate
• Any mistakes found were fixed immediately (Pricing, dimensions)
• Consultant was very accommodating with any last minute (non-structural) changes 

The not so good stuff:

• Garage extension was much more than originally quoted by the BC. $3,000 suddenly became $5,000+! Our BC was very apologetic and we managed to come to an agreement.
• Rush Rush.... Seems like this is becoming a pattern. Lucky we didn't have many issues in the drawings and are only building as single story house.
• Kitchen culture drawings which included all our cabinets was not updated as per our appointment.
• Some items in our 'Tender Document' were not very clear and required clarification. 

Back to where it all began

Only one more day till our contract appointment. Time has gone so quick since we started looking at display homes back in November 2013.

Today I went to the display home which made us fall in love with the Dunedin plan. I went in with a measuring tape and our drawings to make sure all that we wanted was reflected correctly on our plans. I also managed to visit our Sales consultant in Berry Lane to say thanks for all the detail and effort she put into our initial drawings and quotation. This really helped us keep track of what we wanted throughout the whole process.

Here are some photos of the Dunedin 29 display at Mernda Village.

Updated drawings with extended garage + 'Store Room'

After weeks of waiting we finally received some updated drawings showing the extended garage, addition of the store room and of the window.

The reason for the 'Store Room' is to allow us to extend the garage to the edge of our block and still being able to meet the design guidelines of our estate. As I previously mentioned, it states that the width of the garage cannot exceed 6.6m.

Pretty happy with the outcome, especially with the additional window just hoping all goes smoothly from now on and the developer accepts this change.

Finally, we found a few errors in the drawings and the BC is working on getting those fixed.

World Of Style Showroom

The past few weekends we have visited the new "World of Style' showroom. First impression is WOW! This place does not comparable to the old Hopetoun Interiors showroom. It is about 4-5x the size and PD have utilized that space to set-up lots of different displays. The range has also increased quite a bit now.

Bad news for us is that we will probably end up spending more, so many nice things! I guess that's the whole point of the new showroom... but hey we can no longer complain about the limited selection.

Anyways, even though we have delayed our colour appointment till September now, we have pretty much selected most our colours, flooring and tap ware.

Less talk more photos...