Tender

Prior to today, I’ve been trying to get in touch with my BC to see if they received the changes that I requested for tender including a few major changes. I’ve been trying to reach by SC also, but no one seemed to want to talk to me. I was so anxious that I called my BC at least once a day for a week before my tender! She didn’t answer the phone so I just kept going through the floor plan and highlighting things that we had questions about and things that we wanted to change. From what I’ve read, there is pretty much no chance that we’ll finish tender by today since we are changing facades, so in hindsight, I really shouldn’t have worried so much.

We received a copy of our tender at about 3pm yesterday. Stayed up until 1am going through it and noting down any changes or questions that we had on the tender. We received 2 documents, one containing the breakdown of prices and another containing the plans. The documents contained the following information:

• Breakdown of all prices for all changes that were previously requested during the sales consultant phase.
• Existing site plan (from the site survey)
• Tender drawings of the cut/fill if required. We had a cut reduced level of 8.80m. This means that the slab will be placed at the 8.80m elevation level of the block. Our block was sloping from around 10m at the front to 8m at the rear. This means they will cut soil from the front and place at the back in order to get a level block at the 8.80m elevation point.

• Overlooking diagram to show if any windows are overlooking the neighbours. If they are, it means that they need to be replaced with Satinlite glazing (non see-through). We had city views from the back of our house so we were not very happy when they said that we had to frost our windows. Luckily for us, we were low enough that we only had to put up fence toppers in order to keep the window clear.
  

• Overshadow plan at various times of the day. This just shows where the shadows will be at various times of the day in September.
• More accurate floor plans.
• Elevation A, B, C and D (for each side of the house)
• Heating/cooling plan and zones – this and the following items are not covered in tender.
• Some diagrams about how the house is constructed including drainage, slab, eaves, trusses, porch/alfresco, balcony, garage, kitchen window, awnings.
• Then diagrams on the cabinetry, position of appliances, in kitchen, galley, laundry, ensuites, columns, powder room.
• Flooring diagrams where you get floorboards, tiles and carpet upstairs and downstairs.

This morning, we met our tender presenter (TP). She was really good and really patient with us. Provided us with a lot of information and going through every aspect of the tender.

She started right from the top of the tender quote and worked her way down through each item explaining everything in detail including terminology, house types, our selected facade, fixed price guarantee, foundations and connections pack etc. Then when we reached Excavation which was the next item on the list, we asked to elevate the house and she said that we’d probably be only able to elevate it by 20cm due to the easements on the property. We said fine, and she went ahead and made her changes to the document while we waited.

We then continued on with the document, going through the slab upgrades explaining what piering is and how it will keep the house stable even when an earthquake hits (like the one that hit a few weeks ago on September 22). Then we covered services to the property, how we need underground 3 phase power (from our energy company), underground riser pipe in front of the garage so the garage doesn’t flood etc.

We then talked about dispensation, that is to bring the property forward beyond the allowable average between the neighbours. Our setback average between our neighbours is 7420mm and the plan was drawn to a 6380mm setback. This means that we needed to apply for dispensation in order for the plan to be accurate. The cost to apply for dispensation is about $1100 and there is no guarantee that we will get it despite our TP saying that dispensation is probably the easiest thing to apply for and be approved. However, if the council rejects, then we need to pay another $1250 to PD to redraw the plans. Since reducing the setback is not a priority for us, we decided not to pay $1100 and risk $1250 in order to reduce the setback by a bit over a meter.

Then we went through the promotional items. Skipped over everything that we would be doing at WOS until we got to the Hebel section. At this time we said we’d go with brick instead of Hebel and that we’re going to change facade. The TP laughed and said that she was hoping that we’d get everything finalised today, but after 3 major changes, it’s definitely not going to be possible. At this stage, we still hadn’t decided on the facade, tossing up between Longbeach, Hampton and Retro. She told us not to worry because it’s a very important decision although she did say that most people would have at least decided on a facade by tender.

Then we asked about changing the house to Waldorf 50 and she laughed out loud because we already had so many major changes. She did compose herself and told us that it is possible, but it would require us to go through the entire sales process again with the latest prices (which at the moment looks like it’s gone up about $27000 since we paid the deposit) and to think that if we had signed a couple of weeks earlier, our quote would have been $10000 less.

We spent about 6 hours including a 45 minute lunch break going through the plan. We were pointing out changes that we would like and she would tell us if it’s possible or if it was something that PD just don’t do.

Here’s a list of the changes that we made to our already heavily modified Waldorf 49 starting with the 3 major ones:

• MAJOR – Set elevation of house 20mm higher (found out that if we did that, then the enclosed study at the rear of the house will need to be frosted)
• MAJOR – Change to Hampton Facade (after lunch we decided on this despite there not being a single weatherboard style house in surrounding streets).
• MAJOR – Change from Hebel to brick.
• Moved master ensuite soaker tub to center of room
• Moved window in master ensuite to the center
• Increased size of shower area in master ensuite
• Reduced size of WC in Master Ensuite
• Reduced size of WC entrance wall and corresponding WIR wall in Master Ensuite
• Increased opening to the Master Ensuite to 1m.
• Removed the door and wall to the WIR outside the Master Ensuite
• Removed all BIR in all bedrooms
• Increased size of linen closet to 2 double doors (increased the depth at the same time)
• Added another door to entrance of master bedroom.
• Moved manhole from Master WIR into BED 2 robe (increased the depth of the robe at the same time)
• Changed dwarf wall at the entrance of the master bedroom to balustrades (same as the stairs).
• Added swing doors to the entrance of ENS 3, ENS 4 and Guest Ensuite.
• Added cavity sliding door to ENS 2 and Guest bedroom
• Flipped the sliding door from Family Room to Alfresco
• Flipped the sliding door to the Guest Bedroom
• Added double glazing to all windows and doors
• Removed refrigerator 2 wall so we can extend the benchtop in the galley
• Added a under stair storage door
• Joined the column and the post between the lounge and dining rooms.
• Increased the width of the garage door to the maximum allowed of 5.1m (at a cost of $1100)
• Added sound insulation to the front of the guest bedroom.
• Changed direction of door swinging into the garage from Entry Hall.
• Added a roller door to the rear of the garage instead of standard door.
• Added capped hot water, cold water, gas and waste drainage in the alfresco
• Added provision for fireplace in Lounge ($2000)
• Square set dining room picture window, square set stacker doors to alfresco, square set family room window and void window.
• Added provision for rainwater toilets (will need to provide our own water tank and pump though)

Some things that we wanted but can’t be done.

• Hydronic underfloor heating
• Small grocery door between the garage and dry pantry (we’ll have to do this ourselves)
• Usable attic space
• Fireplace in the family room (due to unmovable plumbing stack at the wall)

The pricing for most of these changes are unknown for the moment. We’ll find out what they are in a bit over a week. Hopefully they get it for us sooner so we have more time to prepare for our next tender appointment on October 22. Then we can decide if we really want some of these things.

Then at the end of the day, just as we were about to part ways, I had a chat with my wife and we decided not to raise the house by 20cm as that increase will increase our site costs by a few thousand dollars and will also require us to add frosted windows to our enclosed terrace thus obscuring our city views. This was after she spent about 2 hours going through the changes with us and explaining to us the entire process and knock-on effects should we decide to increase the house by 20cm (which we did agree to at the start). What’s more, we also decided to stick with Hebel (our original quote had Hebel) because my wife decided that she really wants render and not exposed brick. In that case, Hebel would be the most cost-effective and best possible option. My preference was exposed brick as that would have had no maintenance. Render, on the other hand, whether on brick or Hebel, is prone to cracking and will need maintenance (eg. cleaning, patching, etc). Although I have to admit that it does look better than exposed brick.

So we apologised to our TP for wasting her time at the start of the day, but she brushed it off saying that it’s completely fine. She just made us feel like we could do no wrong even if we probably changed our minds over everything multiple times today. So a big thank you to our TP who was just so friendly and so easy to talk to.

Here’s the document that our TP sent us to look through so we have an idea of what is available when we reach the WOS stage.

And yes, if you’ve noticed, the floor plan for our Waldorf Grange is slightly different to the floor plan on Porter Davis website. We were lucky that we met a different SC who said that what we were after for our master bedroom was possible when our SC said it wasn’t.