Beechwood Homes SA – Our building experience

One of the great things about the web is that it generally allows you to research a company before purchasing with them….. of course, not all companies have comments about them on the web – one of which, at least when we were building, was Beechwood homes (http://www.beechwood.com.au/) …. So while I tried to research them, trying to find others that had built with them was difficult and therefore limited the research a bit.

This is my attempt at proving some feedback to others in the same situation.

What we built

3 story home coming in at approx. 525 sqm, 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, single brick external walls, internal stud walls, colour bond roof.

When we built

Started the process Jan 2010, moved in December 2011. This is posted late November 2012, after we having been living here for almost a year and they have completed some fix ups (as many as they seem to want to complete)

How we selected Beechwood

I wanted a enough room for a few kids, open plan living and a games room… because of planning laws the only way of achieving this was putting in basement. Beechwood was the only builder we spoke to that didn’t shy away and answer as follows when asked about a basement (For overseas readers, basements are not common in Australian houses)

Typical conversation with potential builders around a basement:

Them: that’ll be expensive

Me: how expensive?

Them: <blank look> “Expensive!”

Additionally an architect that we had been speaking to and had a bit of trust in recommended Beechwood (amongst 2 others) as a builder he would use and they are a small company – and being a small business owner myself – I tend to prefer small companies (as the owner has a chance at actually giving a shit if your job goes well or not)

Things done well

The design process and getting it through council
Dealing with a (building code wise) technically proficient, difficult neighbour (They stone-walled him, which wasn’t particularly nice… but because of his nasty behaviour, it was probably an unfortunate, but ok way to handle it)
Tiling
Most carpentry
Kitchen/Bathrooms
General structure seems to be ok (although I am not qualified to suggest that in anyway… unlike other builders we’ve heard of, all the doors were in the right places etc.)
Modifications – we made a bunch of (Minor) modifications during the build – and these were completed without much hassle
The majority of tradies we met were nice dudes – doesn’t mean they were good at their jobs – but they were friendly

Things done poorly

Timing (especially in relation to the roof, which blew everything out by 3 weeks). There was a lot of emphasis on handing over the house before xmas for Beechwood reasons (insurance) rather than when it was done
Finishing – it was (and remains) terrible. We had the painters and gyprock flashers back 6 or 7 times… I just gave up and said it was ok. The most annoying thing here was having to justify and detail it over and over…. When anyone could have walked through and seen them. (e.g. Skirting board that is the wrong colour, plaster left on skirtings and floor, gaps between skirting and door trim, uneven finishes, paint splatter, plaster on skirting boards etc). I remember the “building manager” saying in amazement “we’ve never had 5 pages of painting issues before!” – that was before we found all of them. Just an absolutely terrible job – and no recognition of that by Beechwood.
Cleaning…. Not only was the site never clean or tidy during build, the handover state of the house was disgusting… probably a factor of being so close to xmas – but it doesn’t make it any less disgusting
Plumbing – rainwater tanks took 6 months to get working – eventually by a place that specialises in combination rain water/mains switch over systems. It became very clear that neither beechwood nor their plumber had any idea what they were doing here.
The flow rates from these tanks was 18L/minute, even though the pump is rated at 40 litres a minute – eventually found out this was caused because out filter was blocked – with dirt, because the tanks weren’t sealed properly. The plumber came out to fix this and resealed the internal gaps again…. But not the external ones… “double seals aren’t needed mate” – well, according to my tank that is full of dirt – yes they are. Did them myself – a very unpleasant job (and one that could have been done initially with very little effort)
The rain2main pump (which is meant to detect when the tank is empty and auto swap-over to mains) doesnt swap back to mains when the tranks are empty and has to be manually switched off. Sometimes that works, other times, we just have no water and have to call a plumber out. to get it working again (always seems to be temprary fixes.... as this plumbing stuff is fairly new - and no-one seems to have any experience in it)
The pipe provision for the bar, which was asked for in the “corner” is approx. 1 metre out from the wall and at a height that will higher than the bar cabinets – so the gyprock had to be hacked around that area to change it.
Too much bullshit (You don’t want to use anyone else, these are the best roofers/painters/<insert trade> in town….. when they clearly are not, either that or the standard around town is exceedingly low)
House is set too low – it has cost us approx. $15k so far (and hundreds of hours work) for additional dig out, water management and retaining walls so far…. And it now looks like we will need to dig out more…. (keep in mind we are on a flat block, in a flat suburb, surrounded by flat suburbs... not a retaining wall to be seen!)
Existing fences have been smattered with cement…. Quite a bit of it…. Seems to be impossible to get off without damaging fence (or I just might not know how to do it)
Contract manager is quite coercive, and good at it – which I’m sure is why he’s in that position
Selections – while the process itself was ok. We selected all the stuff in April 2011… then get a call in Oct 2011 from the kitchens place “you selected the wrong type of laminex, choose one another by tomorrow or you’ll hold up the building process” – so they didn’t bother to check it for 6 months… and then “we’re holding things up” – this happened a few times…. The emphasis is that no matter what “your holding things up” is something that came up a bit.
Some of the variations were just nuts… the best was the site drainage. Because the house was set so low and the rain-water tanks were installed too low (as Beechwood said, “the plumber just did it, so it’s not our fault” – their plumber mind you) – the site drainage was more expensive. So basically while Beechwood was in control of all these items, the up-shot was I still had to pay more
There was instances where I thought I “haven’t I engaged an experienced builder that knows this stuff?” – such as when the basement walls had to be moved out to allow electrical cables to be run behind support posts, or when the laundry ceiling had to be dropped for the drainage pipes from upstairs, or the front verandah that couldn’t be butted into the bluestone front. None of these were major issues…. But I couldn’t (and still can’t) understand how someone that does this for a living didn’t pick them up earlier.
A lot less arguing and little more fixing of things that were clearly not right would have been nice
Absolutely no QA done on the build at all. I was expected to document everything that was wrong, over and over again – when they could have just done a quick walk around and picked up on most issues (The best one here was the masking tape still on the walls!) I get that this is part of the strategy – but it’s still terrible when you pay for that service. (even after the items were listed – it seems the approach was to fix 20-40% of the issues listed – then hope I didn’t call back to ask about the rest – which eventually worked after the 5^th or 6^th time of listing the same things)
In regards to the above point, when the painters/gyprock flusher came back, I ended up with plaster on the (new) floors, skirting boards etc… more paint splatter…. So that’s when I got the not too subtle point that they weren’t happy at being told they did a shit job – even though it was a shit job
Number of fix up jobs from our initial lists have never been fixed. Good example is a windows handle that’s got a chunk out of it…. “they don’t make them anymore… so we can’t replace it”… so not only have you supplied a broken product, but it was also an end of life product!
Expected us to deal directly with the tradies on a number of occasions – apparently the oversight/management that I was paying the builder for wasn’t what I was paying them for
A number of fixes were never (and will never) be addressed – so I’ve either paid for these to be fixed directly or left them. While I am aware this is what Beechwood is counting on – its unfortunately the only way to get them fixed.
September I point out that a piece of weatherboard under a roof eve is come loose…. Standard response “we’ll call you soon to get this fixed” – and then nothing… this is how my couple of warranty requests have been handled
There are more little things – but the above were the ones that demonstrated the prevailing attitude, cost us a lot or are difficult to fix.

Things I did badly

Coerced by Beechwood too easily. When they suggest “just talk to the painter onsite and give them some cash” and the like – don’t do it. Get it all written in the contract and the schedule.
We should have refused to of taken possession of the house until it was actually done (falls into the above category)
Used my own electrician. My sparky is a great dude and a good friend – but every time there was anything that had power running through it, Beechwood’s first response was “that’s the sparky’s problem”…. E.g. the pumps for the rain water tank that the plumber supplied, the power cable wasn’t long enough… so apparently that’s the sparkys (i.e. my) issue/expense. So even though the builder will say “use your own, we don’t mind” – it creates hassle and finger-pointing…. Don’t do it.
Said no to double glazed windows because of the cost… for an extra $3k, we could have removed some of the noise from our neighbours that like shitty loud music at 3am. <other neighbour>
Expectations – I has unrealistic expectations that paying a upper-end builder would lead to better result. While I have no other building experiences to compare to, this was not what I expected for the amount I paid. I also had unrealistic expectations that people completing the work, would do what they said they were going to do, turn up when they said they would, complete the job for the price quoted, use some type of skills/experience….. but I was sorely mistaken. The building industry seems to be a wondrous world where none of these things matter and the basic premise of doing the right thing by your customer is optional. It was a huge eye-opener.

Decisions made that turned out well

Wide hallways (1.5m) – make moving an absolute breeze
Wide staircase (1.5m) – also made moving a breeze
Basement – ended up being the cheapest part of the house, natural temp is great and it’s something that will get a shit-load of use
Upstairs in roof space – good use of space, added $20k or so (it’s hard to know exactly) because of the increased roof pitch, but got bucketloads more living space
Roof storage space – we added basic floorboards to a part of the roof space for storage….. has proven to be very handy
Allowed an extra 20% for variations (on top of the initial quote), should have allowed another 5% on top of that for all the things they fuck up but don’t fix
Cabling – the 70-odd network points through the house was definitely a good way to go… if anything, we could have done with a few more!

Things that didn’t turn out well that were no-one’s fault

Acoustic insulation….. while its always possible that the building didn’t put in what they said they did…. Assuming they did install acoustic insulation (which it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t) - this stuff is useless

What beechwood could have done differently that would have made me less shitty (maybe even neutral or even <gasp> happy!)

Professionally cleaned the place at handover
Finishing…. They could have stopped stonewalling and bullshitting and just fixed the issue. Now were left with a shitty finish that I have to fix up over the next x weekends (with my skills, it will be many many weekends)
Handled the site level issue better. The site level is clearly way too low (500 to 600mm…. very obvious) – and Beechwood saying “that was the surveyor” doesn’t help…. The surveyor engaged via beechwood? How the is that my responsibility? How many houses have I built? Isn’t that why I engaged a professional builder? (I have later had a suggestion that this was likely done so the total building height still came in at an acceptable level). They stuffed up - in a big way.... just admit it, call come contacts to do the additional earthworks and retaining wall.
“That’s not my problem, it’s the site managers problem” – when I heard this from the contract manager, from the same company as each other, I just shook my head in amazement and knew I was in trouble. You never want to hear a comment like that from people within the same company.
Performed their own QA and bothered to address the post-build issues. I’m sure they will claim that did QA – but if so, it’s a lie…. When you have masking tape still on walls, lumps of paint on the wall, dust and dirt everywhere – you didn’t perform any QA.

Additional costs caused by stuff’s up and/or poor work

Cement splatters over eastern and western fences Replacement cost of fence sheets – unknown at time of writing
Cleaning of paint and plaster over tiles/windows/floorboards etc 20 hours of our time
House set 500 to 600mm lower than neighbours – and original land height
- Cost: Filling in, rendering, painting plinth…. Approx. $500-600 in materials and 4 days labour
- Cost: Retaining wall…. Approx. $10000
- Cost: Site drainage via Beechwood Approx.. $3600
- Cost: additional dig out… Approx.. $3000
- Digging drainage pits 4 weekends + $200 materials
No more gap and paint fix ups Not yet done…. A guestimate of 3-4 weeks work for me…. Maybe 1.5 to 2 weeks for a professional (i.e. not the Beechwood painters)
Plumbing in basement not located in corner where specified move cost approx. $1000
Seal rain water tank – which was not sealed approx. cost $1000
Dump contents of rain water tank once polluted ? opportunity cost of 40000 litres of water + pump costs + constantly having to justify actions to 4 streets worth of neighbours for 2 days
Underside of roof eve has come off $100

Would I do it again?

This is what I get most commonly asked by mates – and the short answer is – Fuck no. Most stressful, expensive, unorganised stupid thing I have ever done, taken years from my life and given me an incredibly negative opinion of anyone in the building industry.

This is generally followed up by “but it will be worth it in a year….” Bullshit. Unless you are an extremely good people manager, a very litigious bastard or have a mate that’s a builder that you have a lot of trust in – don’t build.

Summary

It’s hard to compare Beechwood to other builders – as we haven’t built before (and won’t be building again) – but the quickest and more accurate way of putting it is that we paid top dollar for a distinctly average job, there was no QA at all, the general attitude is astoundingly poor and the whole process was unorganised at a level I’ve never seen before.

There were things that went smoothly, but the things that went wrong over-shadowed them pretty quickly – and most importantly, the things that went wrong were either not fixed, glossed over or ignored completely. Beechwood seem to be under the impression that I was paying them to organise tradies… as when jobs went well, it was fine… but when the job was average, no actual management of resolving the issue occurred, the preference was to make excuses. Any warranty offer by Beechwood is also completely worthless.

It was by no stretch an absolute disaster, but definitely represented poor value for money and poor quality of work in a number of areas. Dealing with Beechwood caused massive amounts of stress and I would strongly suggest looking at other builders in preference to Beechwood if you are looking at building.

Other tradies we used

Floor-it floating floors – very good. Few of the edge cuts weren’t the best….. but overall, quick, efficient, helpful…. Asked for some advice on fix ups 6 months after install and was ignored…. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Still good overall.

Fair price blinds – good price and good install

SS Garden – Reasonable paving job, Horrendously unorganised – then invoiced for $2k more than the quote. Ended up sending legal threats for the part of the invoice he couldn’t explain. To this day, they still haven’t explained the additional charge. Avoid them… very dodgey.

Energy house SA – went into administration during building – that was not fun, we have working-ish air con…. But the system is nothing like what we asked for…. Been an expensive disaster.

Denis White – 1^st installer guy was useless, 2^nd set of guys were really good (Denis white just sells the stuff and subs out the install). Equipment was good…. After sales service is poor though… they don’t call back, email back and if you go in store, they will say “ill call you back with that” – but do not.

Axon Fencing – Took an exceedingly long time to get the job done (I think it was 7 or 8 weeks in the end) – but the quality of work seems to be quite good. The subby that did the work was a good dude – and worked through some shitty days of rain and cold to get it done… unfortunately they didn’t allow enough space for automating the gates (which was a requirement) and expected extra payment in order to fix their stuff up. Disappointing.

Real estate agents - no surprise here, dealing with all 3 of them was a nightmare. The first one was to buy the block we eventually built on – he was administratively unorganised and hard to contact. The 2^nd guy, who we used to sell out old place didn’t turn up to open inspections he had advertised, changed his story about what the offers were in the same phone call, had an excuse for everything etc…. and the 3^rd guy, who eventually did sell our old place was, well, just plain nuts. I didn’t expect to like any of the agents, but hoped that they would at least be professional… none of them were.

Anthony Gooding Design – Landscaping dude. He was expensive – but good. Generally helpful, very clean, meticulous about his work and a nice guy

NB Kitchens – Kitchen/Bar guy (did the bar for me) – very good… attention to detail was good, price was reasonable (not cheap, but for what he provided it was good) also a nice dude. Type of guy that actually tries to make the customer happy…. Just a reasonable guy! Definitely suggest if you want a kitchen or bar.

Adelaide irrigation and turf – Irrigation and lawn – quite good all round, good job, nice guys, price was reasonable

a few pics below that are representative of the quality of beechwoods work.