Electricals

March 28, 2007 - Knowing that we have an electrical appointment coming up in the coming weeks, we sat down last night with a pen and plan of the house, and sketched out where we want the downlights, and power points.

When you add them up and work out the cost, it provides quite a shock (pun intended!) to the system.

In our humble little home, it turns out we have 48 down lights throughout the house. Porter Davis charge $39 to replace an existing batten (bulb holder) with a down light, and $80 for an additional down light. All up, that makes a total of $2897 for down lights! Ouch!

Power points, a sensor light, a dimmer switch and a couple of two way switches add and additional $1141, making a total of just over $4k.

Just as well our sales rep convinced us to put $5k in the budget for electricals!

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One of the things we would like to include in the house is a smart-wiring system, which will allow us to have dvd, foxtel, tv, music, data, phone etc anywhere in the house. There are a few options, and I know that electrical consultants which Porter Davis use will try and sell us on the Clipsal StarServe system. Can't wait to find out how much this little beauty will cost!

In the end it's likely we will handle the job ourselves, and perhaps use the Hills distribution box. Much more research to do - we will post the information here!

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Very impressed - we received a package from Hopetoun Interiors whcih has colour charts for all the items we need to select at our selection appointment. Great idea, and great service - we've already come to a decision regarding quite a few things!

Appointments (again!)

March 22, 2007 - After receiving some much appreicated feedback via this site, I went back to Porter Davis and asked about the usefulness of the tender appointment, given that the tender appointment is scheduled before the selections appointments.

The tender appointment is supposed to provide us with the cost of the house, and I can't see how costs can be determined if the building company doesn't know what we want in the house. The feedback from other people who had been through this process was that it's difficult to make changes after the tender appointment, and impossible to make changes after the contract appointment -naturally, we are confused!

I received an answer along the following lines: The tender appointment will present all the costs as things stand, and as we go through the selection process, we will receive an itemised cost of the additional items. The Tender documents will be revised accordingly. After the Tender appointment structural changes are not permitted, however other items (cosmetic) are ok.

Tender appointment is on Monday 2nd April, 2007. Stay tuned!

Interesting Bits

March 19, 2007 - Well, I found out a few interesting things today...

1. Site Costs - I phoned the Porter Davis Customer Service Rep, and asked for an estimate of the site costs (if you've been reading the previous posts, you'll know I have some concerns in this area).
   
   The CSR was polite, but told me that the site costs are not available until the Tender Appointment.
   
   
2. Finance - It seems that if we use the Finance Broker who works with Porter Davis, then the payment due at the Tender Appointment is $1500 (flat fee) instead of the 3% of the quote. No further payments are required until the first progress payment.
   
   
3. PD Comes to Leopold - In a previous post I said that PD are building a house near us. Turns out, the house is a Hamilton 34, the same as ours! This one has a differenct facade, but we now get to see a house the same as ours being built nearby. Woo hoo!
   

PD comes to Leopold

March 18, 2007 - We know that Porter Davis are strating to build a few places in the Geelong area, but we didn't think there would be one so close by.

We drove past a new building site today in Leopold and noticed a Porter Davis sign. The pipes have been put in, and the uprights for a small retaining wall - slab hasn't yet been formed or poured, so it's very early in the construction process.

Can't tell what style house it is, but it looks like a single story.

Would love to be able to have a chat with the owners!

More Appointments

March 16, 2007 - Well, we have all of our appointments set. Tender appointment, contract appointment, tile selection appointment, colour and electrical appointment.

Not so easy when one of us ia 5 day a week job and the other works shifts.

It seems the tender appointment is where we find out what everything will cost, in detail. Strange however, as we are not choosing bricks, tiles and other stuff until after the tender appointment. I guess these things will be incorporated before we sign the final contract.

Site Costs

March 12, 2007 - Interesting place, the internet. It allows us to share, and it allows us to research. In the process of researching the whole home building thing, it seems as though most of the experiences other people have had with Porter Davis have been very positive.

There is only one area of concern where there seems to be some negative feedback, and that's Site Costs.

Everything else in the process and quotation from all the large builders is pretty much fixed - you know how much everything will cost before you pay any money - the exception is site costs. From what I've read, it's easy for site costs (especially for P-class sites) to get out of hand, and I'm talking about examples in excess of $30k.

We are getting very nervous about a potential cost blow out - and excessive site costs will kill the project.

Site costs will be discussed at the Tender Appointment. Can't wait....

Soil Test

March 7, 2007 - Spoke to the Customer Service Rep at Porter Davis today to make the Tender Appointment. During the previous weekend, we noticed that bore holes for soil samples have been drilled on our land.

I asked about the soil test report, and was told that the site was classed as "P". I asked for a copy of the report, and the CSR kindly agreed to fax the report to me (after checking with someone higher up the food chain).

The report indeed says P class, but says this is to "account for the abnormal moisture conditions caused by trees on this site and adjacent sites, as per AS 2870-1996."

The report goes on the say:

"A minimum slab freeboard of 150mm is recommended"

"A waffle footing system suitable ot an "M" site reactivity (310mm overall depth 225mm boxes, 85mm slab) may be appropriate for an articulated brick veneer dwelling. Refer AS-2870 1996 Fig 3.4. On fill side, where the depth of rolled compacted fill exceeds 300mm, the waffle footing system shall be supported on piers founded into firm natural B Horizon CLAY as noted in borelogs"

As you can see in one of the previous posts, there are few large trees down one side of the block, which we know we would have to do something about. There's a fall on the block over the site of the house of approx 1 metre (I measured it), and as a result we allowed $15k for the site costs, before the soil report came back.

The good news, is that a M class slab is recommended, rather than the more expensive H class. The bad news could be the fact that it needs to be "supported on piers".

Appointments

March 1, 2007 - It seems that the next step in the process by PD is to organise for someone in their head office to annoy the crap out of people by trying to book appointments, for which the purpose is not explained!

Ok, maybe we are being harsh here - but their customer service reps are persistent, and pushy. There's constant calls and messages for us to book a "Tender Appointment", and "Contract Appointment". Great, except we don't know what these things are, what's required, and what the outcome of these things will be.

On the positive side, PD do a very good process, and it's well documented. Click here to open the Process document (PDF). It's just that the process is not explained in enough detail. Perhaps we need a "Porter Davis Process for Dummies" book?

Hamilton 34

February 2007 - So, we are waiting on the land, and we can concentrate on the house. We had our walk through of the Hamilton 34 with the Sales Consultant at Porter Davis, and came up with a figure which was within our expectations.

We signed the paperwork, and paid the initial deposit of $600. This allows PD to organise a soil test, which will then allow PD to provide the exact site costs. As you can see from the land photo in one of the eariler posts, there are a few trees on the block.

The next step was to decide on the facade we want for the house. There are a number of options, and depending on the option you choose, you pay accordingly. We decided that we needed to see some of the facades for ourselves - so off we went, looking at more display homes.

Fortunately, some of the facades are also available on other PD houses (for axample, the Bridgeport), so we didn't need to look only at Hamiltons.

We decided we likeUrban Metro facade (a $900 option), however we noticed that the Urban Metro on the Bridgeport was slightly different to the UM on the Hamilton. The Bridgeport version has the bedroom windows running horizontally. Ask and ye shall receive - we went back to the Sales Consultant and asked for the variation, which was ok. The picture at right shows the Bridgeport with the Urban Metro facade.

So - we are now in the queue, and have secured the promotions which will save us around $25k.

Land Update

February 2007 - Well, we decided to sign the contracts for the land, even through there was a slight hiccup with the dimension (nothing serious).

Now we need to wait until the subdivision has been completed, and the titles issued. This is likely to take 2-3 months.

The house is due for commencement in July, so if everthing falls into place the timing should work out ok. Of course in the meantime we will need to sell the house we are in...

Walkies!

January 2007 - We made an appointment with our Porter Davis rep for a walk through at the display home in Point Cook.

For those of you not familiar with the walk through concept (as we weren't until a few weeks back!), the rep takes you through the home, room by room, and points out everything which is non-standard in the display home. You can then decide to include or exclude the items in your home, and and a cost is worked out for you. During the walk through we decided to take on some of the main features of the display home, but leave some of the other things behind. The items we are excluding are things such as evaporative vooling - this can be done once we move into the house at a cheaper price than quoted by the builder.


One of the interesting approaches that Porter Davis have is with their use of down lights (low voltage lights) through their display home. As you walk through the home, you may notice that there are stainless steel downlights and white painted downlights. The stainless steel ones represent the position of a normal light batten. The painted ones represent extra lights.

In the standard home, all lights are supplied using globe battens. To upgrade a light from a batten to a downlight is $32, to install additional downlights is $68. Obviously this can get expensive very quickly, so it's something we need to take into consideration.

The pictures above show the main bedroom and kitchen in the display home.

After we completed the walk through, we were presented with a computer generated quote, which gave us the cost of the home. We allowed $15k for site costs, and $5k for electricals - so these items may change the final cost.

One thing which we did like, is that many of the things in the house whcih are normally extra (high ceilings, stone bench top, etc) are included in the current promotion, meaning we are saving quite a few $$$$

Display Home Shuffle

January 2007 - Ever been looking at display homes? It doesn't take too long before they all start looking the same. Even though we had seen quite a few display homes (around Geelong, there are loads of homes), and knew we liked the Metricon, we thought it would be the sensible thing to do to look at a few more.

It was time to cast the net a bit further afield - we headed off the the Porter Davis display centre in Point Cook (just out of Melbourne).

The home that really grabbed us was the Hamilton 34 - and it seems this is one of their most popular. The resemblance to the Metricon Jardine is uncanny. The main difference is in the pantry and ensuite area. Whilst we really like the ensuite in the Metricon, the pantry in the Porter Davis did it - it's so big that all the appliances can be kept there, and the fridge lives in there too!

One thing we liked about the display home is that when you arrive and collect the brochure, you also receive a pricelist which has the cost of all of the non-standard items shown in the display home. This gave us a feeling of knowing exactly what was included with the standard house, and what wasn't included. The other thing was that some of the items which are normally extra, are included in the current promotion.

We would love to share the floor plan with you here, but there's an obviously copyright issue here if I do. Instead, you can see the plan here: Hamilton 34 Floorplan

We went away and decided that this was the house for us. Next step was to call and make an appointment for the walk through.

First look at our land

January 2007 - we decided to walk up and take a look at the block. The agent told us that the block already had a large garage on site, which would be sold with the block. Expecting that the garage may be run down shack that needed to be demolished, we were pleasantly surprised. The 1110 sq m block was almost exactly what we were looking for. Woo hoo!

The land is one of two block, yet to be subdivided. The photo at left is take from where the road will be, looking back up the block. You can see a peg on the left of the photo. Nice shed huh? 11 metres by 8 metres.

Land ahoy!

January 2007 - So.. the story continues! Just when we wondered whether we would ever be able to find some land we thought we could afford, we noticed a Real Estate agent board in front of a house on a major road in our area.

The board had been there for quite some time, and it was advertising an auction for two blocks of land behind the house - the auction was long gone. To be honest, we never looked too closely at the board, thinking that the blocks would be quite small.

Once we looked at them, we found that one of them was 1140 sq m, and the other was 950 sq m!

I called the agent, knowing that other blocks of that size we had seen were out of our price range.

The agent explained that the blocks were for sale about 12 months earlier at auction, and were passed in - since then the prices have been dropped, and we discussed the numbers.

It was certainly worth our while taking a look!

Some background on our search

December 2006 - Welcome to our first blog posting. This entry will provide you with some background reagrding our search for some land - after all, we need somehwere to build our house!

The search for land concentrated on the Geelong area - we already live near Geelong, and we like the lifestyle. We did the usual thing - scoured the online ads, drove around the new estates, looked in the papers.

www.realestate.com.au
www.realestateview.com.au
www.domain.com.au

We had a number of things we were looking for - a block big enough to put a good sized shed on it (to store a car or two), a block big enough for a decent sized house, and somewhere where it wasn't going to take too much longer to get into Geelong.

Early on, we decided that we liked one of the Metricon Homes (the Jardine), so the block had to be able to accomodate the house.

We had a couple of false starts. One block we found in Drysdale was the right size, and already had a shed on it, but it was too steep. Metricon use a slab construction, and the cut would be too severe.

The next block we found (in Leopold) was almost flat, but was a little small, and we were advised that there was a lot of fill on the block, and that the site costs would be much higher as a result. We thought land would be the easy part!

We did find one - quite by accident really. Check the next posting to find out more!