SA Footy

Me and the trouble and strife are lookin to buy our first home and Hamra have some House & Land packages that look pretty good down in Salisbury North. I just want to get some feedback from anyone that has used them or knows of people that have used them.

are they a good builder?

what kind of time frame do they build in? (they told us 9 months)

do they deliver what they promise?

can anyone shed some light about these guys for me, all help is appreciated.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for, a quick way to test if they are a decent builder or not is to find out if they use actual undercoat on the walls or simply apply two coats of the nastiest cheapest flat paint they can find, if a builder thinks that is an acceptable way to paint a home, what else are they then sucking back on to cut costs? Tile Adhesive? More Sand in the Mortar perhaps??? As a painter I can tell you that if you don't Undercoat your walls you will stuff them up for the life of the home with uneven finish and poor adhesion always an issue irrespective of what you paint over it.

There is a display village up at Oakden were several builders show their homes together, it is a good way of finding out what the quality is of the homes they build against one another. I don't recommend any builder, yet I do know that AV Jennings do at least offer a proper paint system of Undercoat and Premium Topcoat which suggest to me that they should at least be worth looking at and comparing with some of the others.

I don't mean to be rude Sojourner but I've built and I must say that the paint was the least of my concerns ... the builder used crap paint as expected but I repainted a few years later with no issues.

I'd be more concerned with things that aren't easy to fix like poor tiling.

The best advice I can give is regardless of the builder you choose, spend a small amount more and get an independent inspector to review the work before each installment payment and be on your toes because things do go wrong but early detection is the key.

The last time I built a house too many things were going wrong so I got the Architect who used to arbitrate for SA courts where Architects were in dispute to come and look it over. I saved 16% of the original building quote to settle out of court, but it cost me that to fix it all.
Regular inspections during the process is a good idea.

I would say go to someone that does a fixed price quote
that way you know exactly how much its gonan cost and if somethign goes wrong on site, which happens quite frequently then you arent gonna be stuck with the extra cost!
the inspectors are a good way I believe but I have heard of some of them being over the top. eg. a door handle on a cupboard was 1mm lower then the other, was impossible to tell by eye!!
I think the paint thing is a decent call not detrimental to the house though, I know Rossdale homes use Solver for there paint and that a under coat must be done!
like someone else said you get what you pay for!!

One of the problems is that the company's stated policy may be OK, but if they delegate jobs to subbies and screw them down in price the subbies may retaliate by skimping.
A brickie I know warned me never to use pigmented mortar that would help hide the colour change if the cement content were skimped on..
At the time he said Henley Homes were really screwing their subbies down and a bit of that was happening.

Psyber wrote:One of the problems is that the company's stated policy may be OK, but if they delegate jobs to subbies and screw them down in price the subbies may retaliate by skimping.
A brickie I know warned me never to use pigmented mortar that would help hide the colour change if the cement content were skimped on..
At the time he said Henley Homes were really screwing their subbies down and a bit of that was happening.

thats fair and a good call psyber
but if the contractor hasnt done it to a standard that the company demands then they shouldnt be payed
also they should agree on a price or see a pay sheet before they start the work
that way there is no reason to skimp or anything like that!

Iron Fist wrote:

Psyber wrote:One of the problems is that the company's stated policy may be OK, but if they delegate jobs to subbies and screw them down in price the subbies may retaliate by skimping.
A brickie I know warned me never to use pigmented mortar that would help hide the colour change if the cement content were skimped on..
At the time he said Henley Homes were really screwing their subbies down and a bit of that was happening.

thats fair and a good call psyber
but if the contractor hasnt done it to a standard that the company demands then they shouldnt be payed
also they should agree on a price or see a pay sheet before they start the work
that way there is no reason to skimp or anything like that!

I think the idea was that the subbies accepted it because they were told to "take it or leave it", but they resented it and retaliated.
In the case of deficient mortar, disguised by pigment, it won't show up until it starts to fall out in about 10 years, well outside the warranty period.

Psyber wrote:One of the problems is that the company's stated policy may be OK, but if they delegate jobs to subbies and screw them down in price the subbies may retaliate by skimping.
A brickie I know warned me never to use pigmented mortar that would help hide the colour change if the cement content were skimped on..
At the time he said Henley Homes were really screwing their subbies down and a bit of that was happening.

Was the brickie working on your joint? if so they despise black mud & would do anything to avoid it. The pigmentation (oxide) is around $60 per 10k bag, cement around the $8 for 20k. at 1/3 mix that does'nt make sense.
Your on the ball with Henley though, burnt their bridges with just about every tradie I know.

Why Salisbury North..?

that's just the one's that are in our price range... there are some more in paralowie and parafield gdns but a bit more exy!

Are you a first home owner?

If you are are you able to get enough cash together to purchase the land. Krudd doesn't pay out until you see some concrete on the ground and the builder submits their first claim. The builder won't start until you prove that you own the bit of dirt they are going to build on.


on Fixed price contracts. Yes the builder will wear any cost increase passed on to them during the contract. But they can and will pass on any other variation due to latent conditions.

i'm a tiler, and by far the best company i have worked for is Rossdale. i'm not sure how good they are for chippys, painters and all that sorta stuff. but i can tell you that they supply us with all the materials, and they use nothing but the best, in terms of adhesives, grouts etc.....

and i'm pretty sure they have "an absolute fixed price quote" too

Sheik Yerbouti wrote: Was the brickie working on your joint? if so they despise black mud & would do anything to avoid it. The pigmentation (oxide) is around $60 per 10k bag, cement around the $8 for 20k. at 1/3 mix that does'nt make sense.
Your on the ball with Henley though, burnt their bridges with just about every tradie I know.

No he was a builder who came to me as a patient when I was in Melbourne to do with a back injury and WorkCover claim.
Since he was no longer operating his business his two sons were working as brickies, and, he said, were unhappy about the shoddy practices they had come across.
He gave me a list of classic Henley short-cuts to watch out for, whoever I used if I were building again.

the_big_bang wrote:i'm a tiler, and by far the best company i have worked for is Rossdale. i'm not sure how good they are for chippys, painters and all that sorta stuff. but i can tell you that they supply us with all the materials, and they use nothing but the best, in terms of adhesives, grouts etc.....

and i'm pretty sure they have "an absolute fixed price quote" too

haha my bro works for Rossdales Big Bang, so its good to ehar u say something like that
they do supply quality grout because he said they found when tilers for example were supplying there own stuff, they were cutting corners and using shit stuff to make themselves an extra buck from materials
they also supply the cement, lime and sand for brickys.

They also have a abolute fixed price contract I believe
so once you sign, they cannot charge you another cent!
that is unless u want to change something you originally chose and then obviously they write it out as a variation to the contract!!

If I was to build thats who it would be with, little bit more expensive, but u pay extra for that bit of quality!!

Gday nuggety, if you plan on becoming a local theres a few things you need to know. Salisbury North is actually Salisbury Norf. Paralowie is actually Mawson Lakes North. Hillbank is Elizabeth Heights. An West End export is known as Craigmore Chardonnay.

automaticwicky wrote:Gday nuggety, if you plan on becoming a local theres a few things you need to know. Salisbury North is actually Salisbury Norf. Paralowie is actually Mawson Lakes North. Hillbank is Elizabeth Heights. An West End export is known as Craigmore Chardonnay.

i grew up in BL and Salisbury Downs as a kid so i know a little about the area, but it has been a while! anyway, it seems like the H&L option we have counted out anyway so we'll be staying here a little longer, after a unfortunate set of events and a meeting with the financial advisor we now have to get together approx $5K more than we already have saved. this is due to my wife's grandparents having a financial issue and renegged on a small loan and we now need 5% instead of 3% deposit to get the loan... effectively we need around $14-15K, we have around $8 i think...

we may still end up in that area but it won't be for another 4-6mths i guess!

i might change the topic thread, how can we save all the pennies possible to afford a deposit on a new home?!?

nuggety goodness wrote:i might change the topic thread, how can we save all the pennies possible to afford a deposit on a new home?!?

If you are serious, this site is Gold and its how we did the very same thing three years ago!

http://www.simplesavings.com.au/