Well thats another major milestone completed. This afternoon we spent just over 3 hours at Porter Davis going through, altering and signing the construction contract. Now I need to goto the bank and get yet another large cheque!
The process was actually quite pain free, just a lot of reading and digesting of information. The good news is that with all our upgrades, alterations and additions we’re still under budget (just). There were some good things and bad things we discovered.
Good things:
- Render for the portico columns at the front are $250 less then budgeted
- We’re under budget generally
- Passed our 5 star energy rating with flying colours
- Thats it really!
Bad things:
- Slab for the alfresco came in at $1681 when we were told it’d be around $600
- The dumper shower head for the ensuite was quoted as $407 via email, came in at $593 (they originally quoted the wrong one). This is actually $93 over what I was prepared to pay, but oh well, its a great shower head
- Still not happy about paying $350 for translucent glazing in the front door when its only $210 extra on the Corinthian Doors website
- The window for bedroom 4 was randomly moved to the wrong wall. We left it as standard but someone decided it was to be moved. Its going back.
- There was a charge of $1026 for 2 random brick columns to the portico. “Um excuse me, but arn’t the pillars included with the Ormond Facade?”. Yes they are! That cost has been removed.
So we should still be on target for a pre-christmas moving date. We need to chase up a date for land titling - once that has happened we can have our start date allocated and off we go. So long as we can start building no later then the middle of August we’re on track.
Oh! one other thing we had to get altered. The draftsman decided to sit out house on the land so that the minimum space possible was between the garage wall and fence, with a larger gap between the other side of the house that that fence. Now all our outdoor living space is on the garage side of the house and the other side is just wasted space. We got them push the house across the block a bit giving us an extra half meter of outdoor living. Sometimes you have wonder what people are thinking!
Hey Guys,
Ah this takes me back … and isn’t it all fun. Starts like you are beginning to experience the need for being on top of everything yourselves. Just remember if you’ve been told something, push it back on them 150%, especially if you have something in writing or email. One thing we have found throughout it usually is the customer who is always right (not conceptually but because of the amount of errors etc we pick up).
I wonder if the moved window you mentioned was on a room that attaches to the alfresco … ? We had a window that was moved once the alfresco was added … but that was a wise move as it would have been right on top of the BBQ space where our built in gas plug is.
Cheers,
Mike
Hey that’s pretty good for the contracts! Awesome that you are under budget too.
As for the draftsman, I don’t get what they are thinking sometimes, I’m getting a door from the garage into the house and they put it so that when you opened it into the house it blocked your path to the rest of the house and you need to walk around it - why would I want that? Ahh well I should get my new drawings in a week or two