Update to Complaint Letter 2

After our email sent last Friday, we received this email today from the Building Coordinator Team Leader (BCTL):-

Good Afternoon nasi_goreng,

"Building Coordinator (BC)" has gone home quite ill today.

As discussed on Wednesday with both myself and BC Porter Davis Homes do not relocate exhaust fans. Exhaust fans are a building regulation and are included to suit your home.

As you can see from your attachments you will be receiving the following exhaust fans:
GROUND FLOOR: WC and Laundry.
SECOND FLOOR: Ensuite and Bathroom.

Your Construction Supervisor and Trades people will construct your home according to your final working drawings, electrical plans, tile selection and colour selection.

Once again it is far too late to be making amendments to your home and Porter Davis will not relocate exhaust fans as they are situated according to building regulations.

You have been transferred over to the construction department however if we do not receive a copy of your signed final working drawings construction commencement will be placed on hold until these documents are received.

Thank you
BCTL

WHAT THE --??

You no comprende English, lady?

I was boiling, fuming, furious!!! This woman obviously had no idea whatsoever what the issue at hand was. I was clearly not the only one going "What the-", with the General Manager immediately telephoning The Husband to ask us to disregard the email from her. After a telephone conversation with the GM together with some other staff members, it was finally (easily!) ascertained and confirmed that indeed, the electrical plans will be followed, in regards to all electrical requirements (exhaust fans included).

We have subsequently requested insisted that we change Building Coordinator and Team Leader (if this was an option).

Before The Husband called me to let me know that the G.M. had called him to clarify issues, I had begun to write a reply to BCTL to vent. Didn't send it of course - it's so unprofessional, sarcastic and condescending; but don't say I wasn't tempted to!

Dearest BCTL,

Many thanks for your email – I trust that you had an excellent long weekend.

Thank you for informing us what our contract plans note – perhaps BC may be informed of these, as in the telephone conversation with my husband, she had insisted that our plans did not include an exhaust fan in the laundry.

Thank you also for informing me that Porter Davis will be constructing our home according to our final working drawings, electrical plans, tile selection and colour selection.

Perhaps we did not make ourselves clear in regards to our request – Our request was never to “relocate” anything or make amendments –



Referring to the email sent by The Husband dated 25/01/2012 (refer to screenshot above), we were ONLY asking the question “which plans would the builder be following for electrical requirements - the electrical plans by Argus or the construction plans.”

I apologise on behalf of my husband for asking such a long question; perhaps this may help:

It didn’t take nearly as much effort asking the GM and members of the homeone forum the exact same question – it has been clarified to us that all things electrical (exhaust fans included) will be in accordance to the electrical plans in our contract. This may be a useful piece of information for your team with future clients. I can only pray and hope that other clients would not experience such grief over this!

I am exasperated that such a simple clarification request had escalated to this - We had spent days agonising and being worried over this issue, and in the end, the General Manager had to get involved! THIS is completely UNNECESSARY, and a waste of precious time for everyone involved.

I can only hope that the Porter Davis will, from hereon, demonstrate to us that they are indeed Australia’s Most Professional Builder with excellent customer service.

Sincerely,
nasi_goreng

House plans, upgrades and colours

I don't think we got too many upgrades - we had the Complete Promotion, which gave us things like larger stove and oven, Caesarstone benchtops, upgrade tapware and double sinks in ensuite, tile niche in ensuite, etc.

Exterior Plans

Exterior Colours (love my Hot Tamarillo aka orange door!)

Upgrades we DID get for our exterior (from what I can remember) include:

• Cardiff facade
• Cat 4 Mocha bricks (~$2400)
• Off-white mortar (~$700)

 

Plans downstairs

Kitchen Colours

Upgrades and changes downstairs:

• Internal access from garage (~$400)
• Added plaster and door to close off lounge area
• Upgrade kitchen tile splashback
• Added kitchen window splashback (~$700)
• Caesarstone benchtop in powder room
• Upgraded toilets(!!)
• Alfresco
• Getting timber flooring (post-handover)

 Plans Upstairs

 Bathrooms and Powder Room Colours

Upgrades and changes upstairs

• Caesarstone benchtops in Bathrooms
• Upgraded sink in bathroom (to match ensuite and powder room)
• Bathroom feature tiles
• Door to WIR in master bedroom
• Sliding door to Ensuite (because no one wants to (and should ever) be seen doing a Number 2)
• Larger windows in Bedrooms 
• Upgrade Cat 2 carpet and Cat 4 underlay

I would have LOVED to make more upgrades, mostly in the kitchen - like wrapped vinyl kitchen cabinetry, extended 40mm Caesarstone Benchtops with waterfall edges... bifold doors to alfresco.... but ah! maybe NEXT TIME when we have more moooolah!!

Update to Complaint Letter 1

Following the email sent, The Husband decided to ring Head Office this morning to get an update to the email we sent. Having spoken to someone (? from the Complaints department?) who assured us that we were requesting isn't unreasonable, we were given the contact details to senior management to send our email to.

Exactly 8 minutes from the time my email was sent, a reply from the Access General Manager was received, saying that he will discuss the matter with our Building Coordinator and her manager, and the issue will be resolved by Monday.

Looking forward to Monday - fingers crossed!

House-Building: Our patch of dirt

Yay- the titled, ready-to-be-built on land! Hurray hurray!



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Complaint letter

I have nice things to say about my house, but will get to that another time.

But for now, allow me to vent my complaint in a letter sent to the PD representative in the homeone forum, and subsequently forwarded to the general Porter Davis e-mail address, 'cc'd to our sales consultant, and our Building Coordinators, whom we were essentially complaining about.

===============================================================

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are extremely disappointed that our Building Coordinator and her manager have not been able to resolve an important but basic issue.

Porter Davis prides itself on delivering excellent customer service, however our customer service experience at this stage, has been an extreme let-down.

Our request is that our construction plans are updated to reflect the electrical plans before we sign off on them.

We have spoken numerous times with our Building Coordinator regarding this. Their response has been to discourage us from rectifying the errors in the construction plans and instead to simply sign and return the Final, incorrect construction plans. We have also been told that if we do not do this, we will be penalised with a delayed start date.

We find this incredulous: We have identified an error in the construction plans. We have asked for it to be corrected before signing off on it. We do not understand why this is such a battle!

Ultimately, we simply ask that all the plans are consistent to avoid further confusion once construction begins.

The detailed account of this issue has been documented as below. The discrepancies between the Construction Plans and Electrical Plans in the contract document are attached.

We trust that Porter Davis, as Australia’s Most Professional Builder, will take this opportunity to promptly resolve this issue (i.e. construction plans to reflect the electrical plans) and provide us with peace of mind.

We appreciate your consideration and will be anticipating a call from senior management to expedite this matter.

Regards,

nasi_goreng

=====================================================

25/01/2012

After having received the Final Construction Plans to be signed, we sought clarification that the electrical plans will determine the placement of the exhaust fans, as there were some discrepancies between the Construction Plans and the Electrical Plans, both referred to in the Contract Document.

The discrepancies noted were:

1.     Exhaust fan in Master Ensuite – Construction Plans indicate the exhaust fan to be placed over the toilet. Electrical Plans indicate the exhaust fan (model CEF40) to be (logically) placed over the shower cubicle.  (Refer to Attachment 1)

We would just like to note that Porter Davis was first to swap the locations of the Toilet and Shower in the Master Ensuite. This in fact, was of extreme inconvenience to us, as we were never told of this, until we noticed this change in the plans on the day of contract signing. PBC (Previous Building Coordinator) later informed us that the new plans were necessary to ensure that future evaporative cooling was possible.

             

It does not take a civil engineer, an architect or a builder to realise that by relocating the shower cubicle, relocating the exhaust fan along with it, is necessary.

The Moreland 27 plans can be found on the brochure published by Porter Davis, from when we first signed on with Porter Davis to build the Moreland 27. This brochure has been attached - We have also attached a mirror image of the plans, to reflect the initial location of the shower and toilet in the Master Ensuite, with a Right-Hand driveway (Refer to Attachment 2).

2.     Exhaust fan in laundry - Construction Plans do not indicate the addition of an exhaust fan in the laundry. Electrical Plans clearly indicate the “Draftstoppa” and “Airflow 250 exhaust fan” in the laundry (Refer to Attachment 3). 

We were informed at both our electrical appointment and by PBC, that the electrical plans would determine the location of all the electrical selections (which we assume to include the exhaust fans, as these were only discussed at our Electrical appointment).

A notation in the Construction Plans (Sheet 7 of 13) states, “Location of all electrical & service points are approximate only, and are subject to position of structural members on plan”.

An email was sent yesterday morning seeking confirmation regarding this matter (i.e. location of 2 exhaust fans), in order to give us peace of mind.

We then received a telephone call from BC (Building Coordinator), who was adamant that the electrical plans did not indicate the positions of the exhaust fans, and there wasn’t an exhaust fan noted in the laundry. The attachments above clearly indicate that BC had not been referring to the updated Clipsec/Electrical Plans (dated 13/07/2011) as per the contract. This document dated 13/07/2011 also states “1x additional exhaust fan to Laundry” on Page 1 of 4.

Her manager MMM, then informed us that in regards to the exhaust fans, the Construction Plans would be followed, regardless of what the electrical plans indicate. She insisted that changes to exhaust fans cannot be made in the Access range, due to building regulations. We refer to Attachment 2, to emphasise that we are not requesting any unconventional changes, but merely to amend the exhaust fan to where it ought to be, following the unexpected changes made by Porter Davis. We were then repeatedly told by MMM that no changes could be made, as we “had already signed the plans” at contract.

At this stage, the Final Construction Plans have not yet been signed and returned, but the Electrical Plans have in fact been signed at our Contract appointment.

  

We also did not appreciate being told by MMM that if we want more clarification regarding these discrepancies between the plans provided by Porter Davis, we would “miss the February Site Start” and the build may have to start in April. We felt that it almost seemed as a threat, that we ought not to question Porter Davis’ discrepancies in their plans.

We are merely seeking clarification prior to the start of the build, as we are certain that along with ourselves, Porter Davis too, is keen and determined to have as smooth a build as possible, once construction commences, in order to have a good-quality build that Porter Davis’ reputation is built upon.

New blog?

I have been blogging about our house-building journey on my other blog, but have decided to create another blog with the specifics of our house-building.

No one who isn't building a house with volume builders would be interested to know that Category 4 Mocha bricks cost an additional ~$4000.