I knew things were going way to smoothly and it couldn't last forever. At the beginning of the week we were told that we needed a construction certificate for our retaining wall. Council has advised us that they don't require it because of how small the wall is however Coral have said they won't build without it. They gave us the contact details of the private certifier they are using for the house so we could get it all done at the same place. The certifier quoted us $610 for the construction certificate. Needless to say I wasn't very happy that I was being asked to pay that much for a piece of paper council aren't even interested in. Oh and the 610 didn't include having the drawings drawn up. Thankfully dad is a draftsman so he can do the drawings for us. He also knows a few helpful people who are private certifiers. They have quoted us $345. That sounds a lot better to us. We then let the first company know that based on the quote we had received from them we were choosing to go elsewhere. Well they weren't happy. They told us that Coral don't like you using a different company and that we were obviously being conned by someone who isn't qualified to do the work. Funny thing is the person who is doing it used to work for them. We then called Coral to let them know we were going elsewhere and would send them the certification directly. Again we were told we should be using the same company and that council probably wouldn't accept it. We then mentioned that fact that the people we are actually using council certifiers and that stopped them in their tracks. One of those moments I am very glad we knew the right people. I wasn't impressed that we were only told we needed this certificate at the last minute which meant if we didn't know the right people we wouldn't have had time to look elsewhere for a quote and would have been forced to use their certifiers or hold up the build.
On the positive side we had final tile selection yesterday and are very happy with our choices. It ended up costing us $280 but that doesn't sound so bad compared to others we have heard. The extra charges were for feature tiles in the bathroom and ensuite and because Coral look like they give a standard allowance for tiles and if your area is greater than their allowance you pay the difference. Please note if anyone is trying to figure out extra costs our build is off the plan so expect to pay a little extra even if you don't change your plan. That being said I think the extra cost for that part was about $100. So not too bad. Probably just the difference between their estimate and what comes in the box.
We have final finishings appointment this afternoon. Very excited, very nervous. I was 100% sure of our tile selections not so sure on everything else. I'm sure I will be happy once we finish this afternoon and can have a relaxing weekend knowing me and Jas have made it through finishings without killing eachother.
No comments:
Post a Comment