Last Tuesday we finally signed our final contracts at Metricon HQ. Everything was in order and our final figure was a great deal below what was in the first draft of the final contract. Which was fantastic!!! We spent a huge amount of time combing through the contract, crosschecking drawings, discussing things and in the end we ended up picking up quite a few mistakes. They charged us for 2 ceasarstone waterfall edges on kitchen island bench, added a $950 shelf above some cabinets in the kitchen I didn’t ask for, charged us an extra $1040 for Cat 3 Austral bricks when the Selkirk Cat 3 were cheaper, miscounted the number of doors to upgrade (there were 18 not 20), charged us for stain on the balustrade when we are leaving it clear lacquer.
We have decided to remove the garage extension instead going with a standard width but adding 2 x 620mm wide doors to the rear. This freed up about $18,000 (can you believe it?) and meant that we could add a few more little luxuries like painting of feature walls, a broom cupboard, upgrade the finish on the laundry cabinets, and my favourite little inclusion… a pull out pantry cupboard like this…
As Cam mentioned in the previous post we let Metricon know we were unhappy that the build period was over 400 days! After objecting to this on the basis that their own literature supplied to us during the sales consultations clearly stated 8-9 months build time on a double storey, we negotiated to have the build period reduced to 370 days including 71 for holidays and weekends and 25 days for weather related stoppages. Although 370 days is still 12 months, we were happy to have a little win on that issue.
The other little win that we had is the installation of our own power pit (about $2500 rather than the $6000 Metricon wanted us to allow, which included $1000 for them for filling in a form??!!). We are also providing our own crushed rock which meant we are not paying the highly inflated $1200 for them to provide this!!! It is a nice feeling to have avoided paying that exorbitant cost J
What a relief it was to finally have the contract signed off. Studio M is nearly signed off and tile appointment is in a bout 10 days time.
Happy Building!
Kirsten
PS Ive decided to make the front door red afterall... Dulux RED BOX in gloss!
Congrats on the contract signing!! And hats off to you for getting them to reduce the build time! We've got 348 days in ours (inc. 71 days for holidays and 25 for weather) but we're a single storey. It will be interesting to track the progress on the two builds given our start will only be a few weeks apart (if we sign this coming Thursday that is!). I wonder if we'll have the same Site Supervisor?...
ReplyDeleteCongrats C & K on your start. you should see a start within 21 days. Keep a close eye on what they are doing, let them know if something does not look right, it's the only way to do it, it's worked for me so far. Our SS is a bit slack, so i've been picking up issues that he misses. We have lockup stage at 19 weeks, kitchen & bathroom cabinets now in and painting starts this week at week 21. Wish you good luck with your build. Cheers, Ernie
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