Sorry everyone to keep you hanging out of the next blog update. We have had several emails of others experiencing the same level of "care" that we have had with Rawson Homes...generally not a great feeling.
Our tender process was a bit of a mess...when I say a bit...we went from excited to disappointed to having three or so weeks of back and forth over nonsense before we got to the design we wanted prior to the tender appointment.
In the pair that is JZ, one of us in what feels like another life was a draftsperson. As a result we were able to visually display (to scale) exactly the changes we needed to occur to make this house design our home design. A slight alteration, flipping the alfresco and the living room, removing the powder room (we will be using the second ensuite as our downstairs bathroom) and the addition of the workshop to the side of the double car garage, a WIP and rotation of the island bench.
Our tender process went for over 3 hrs. We stayed back to fix the plan because what drafting had delivered when we had submitted that plan as shown above was the workshop against the hallway and the two car spaces shifted to the right. We thought we had it nailed and perfect after spending another hour or so. We signed that plan but little did we know the issues that would arise post Tender. They had failed to update the text in the tender. Largely our advice is you should ignore the drawing, it's pointless and holds no weight. Make sure the written description of your house is correct. When we had gotten drafting to update the plan and associated cost for change of driveway, we didn't realise the written description of what we submitted prior to tender, somehow had been translated/interpreted to workshop "adjacent to main corridor wall" instead of "to the right of double car garage". This meant that even after we had signed the updated plan the next week when drafting sent through another plan it was back to the way it was. This is commonsense stuff, but it was unbelievably difficult to get the team at Rawson on board with what we wanted the layout of our house to be! It took from the 5th of April to the 1st of MAY! to get this right! Over 30 emails and calls to try and solve an issue that should not have even been for discussion largely our dream home was 95% shown on the initial sketch we submitted before Tender, then we "fixed" in staying back the same night of the tender. Totally unprofessional amateur level stuff.
The traps and pitfalls:
- Services connections, despite what all the propaganda information states you will end up paying for your sewer and stormwater to be connected. We had 18k in allowance set aside for this, which according to them ended up not being enough...but more on that later.
-Piering to slab and allowance was allocated for this 10k
- Demolition 32k. The contractor that Rawson use is a joke. He quoted the demo of our house from google earth coming in at 15-10k over priced compared to the other quotes we got. I honestly wouldn't bother going with Rawson for demo.
- We were told our house required two masonry finishes so they included 5k in rendering, this was simply not true.
- A nonsense note about extra materials handling to the tune of 7.5k. Due to the site, small deliveries required (?) This is my biggest regret not questioning this cost. Our site fits within the definition of a "Standard Site" as they define it, less than 1m fall, block under 700m^2, M soil classification, even cut and fill and garage within 5.5m of boundary. What justified this cost is still lost on me to this day.
That took the allowance for site costs to 78.5k (not bad for all inclusive right?)
Lastly do not sign on the day of your tender presentation unless they give you something for it. We got a $5000 voucher to be used at interior and electrical fitout (and trust me you will require at least 3-5k) to equip the house to a liveable standard.
Our tender process was a bit of a mess...when I say a bit...we went from excited to disappointed to having three or so weeks of back and forth over nonsense before we got to the design we wanted prior to the tender appointment.
In the pair that is JZ, one of us in what feels like another life was a draftsperson. As a result we were able to visually display (to scale) exactly the changes we needed to occur to make this house design our home design. A slight alteration, flipping the alfresco and the living room, removing the powder room (we will be using the second ensuite as our downstairs bathroom) and the addition of the workshop to the side of the double car garage, a WIP and rotation of the island bench.
The traps and pitfalls:
- Services connections, despite what all the propaganda information states you will end up paying for your sewer and stormwater to be connected. We had 18k in allowance set aside for this, which according to them ended up not being enough...but more on that later.
-Piering to slab and allowance was allocated for this 10k
- Demolition 32k. The contractor that Rawson use is a joke. He quoted the demo of our house from google earth coming in at 15-10k over priced compared to the other quotes we got. I honestly wouldn't bother going with Rawson for demo.
- We were told our house required two masonry finishes so they included 5k in rendering, this was simply not true.
- A nonsense note about extra materials handling to the tune of 7.5k. Due to the site, small deliveries required (?) This is my biggest regret not questioning this cost. Our site fits within the definition of a "Standard Site" as they define it, less than 1m fall, block under 700m^2, M soil classification, even cut and fill and garage within 5.5m of boundary. What justified this cost is still lost on me to this day.
That took the allowance for site costs to 78.5k (not bad for all inclusive right?)
Lastly do not sign on the day of your tender presentation unless they give you something for it. We got a $5000 voucher to be used at interior and electrical fitout (and trust me you will require at least 3-5k) to equip the house to a liveable standard.
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