shab008, I hope im not too late to try to talk you out of building with these clowns.
I am currently building (oxymoron in this situation) through dixon/tamawood and it has been one disaster after another. I don't even know where to begin. I guess I should start by saying that I was actually relived to see them on 'A current affair' 3 times in the last 2 months, as I realised I was not the only customer to be going through this building hell.It all started in June last year, when I was told by my consultant (the same idiot Peter from Chermside that was given a good review above) that my home would be completed in 7 -8 weeks after council approval. He gave me a printed timeline showing the various documentation/construction stages and wrote with his own writing that the entire process would be 7 months, 8 maximum allowing for weather etc.
13 months later and I am still waiting, however, before signing with dixon homes, I changed to another consultant because I just could not stand Peters attitude.I ended up with a very good consultant named Ben from the Rocklea Office. To this day I have no complaints about him, and would deal with him again if he worked for a different company. After months of waiting for Dixon to complete the appropriate paperwork (despite council approvals taking only 3 weeks to come through), I finally signed a contract in October. Tamawood did not process this until late november! From this time, they cut the block within 20 days of them signing the contract, then shut down for 3 weeks at Christmas, as was expected.
January came… Nothing happened. February came.. the foundations were poured and drainage complete. March came… the slab finally poured (my Neighbours block was cut) .. April came, frame finally installed. May… windows, doors roof tiles. June: electrical, pre-plumb, gyprock my Neighbours house complete and ready for occupancy). It is July now… the bricks have only just gone on and the painting has commenced, though there is still so much to do.
To top this… There are walls out of alignment, there is a sliding door on an angle by nearly 3 cms, roof tiles are wavy and incorrectly installed, trusses are not properly installed, the brickwork looks like it has been done by a drunk brickie or an apprentice or a drunk apprentice!
If you think these are isolated incidents you are completely mistaken. The tradie that I have hired to do my tiling has told me numerous stories about his experiences with Dixon homes. There have been a number of stories in the media about Dixon homes to date… for your reading:
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/may/23/homeowners-frustrated-dixon-homes-delays/
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-AU&brand=ninemsn&vid=279de14c-53a4-4661-9224-b07f619ae394
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-AU&brand=ninemsn&vid=81456c48-fc61-4b26-92b4-1abce964aba3
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/apr/26/another-coast-builder-cops-criticism/And that is just a few of the articles. I only wish there was this kind of feedback 1 year ago when I googled dixon homes to see if anyone had experienced problems.. I found nothing.
I am now in the process of setting up a website which tells my story, with pictures, and gives the public a chance to write their 'review' of dixon homes. My solicitor is currently going through the material to ensure nothing is slanderous or defamartory, and writing a discliamer to ensure that Dixons cannot shut down the site, or worse sue me. This site should be online by the end of the month and will come up on the first page of a google search.BuilderBob, You come across as being a fairly intelligent bloke, and you are probably a guy who takes pride in his work and customer service, but please do not come here trying to defend Dixon homes against those of us who have put our financial future in their hands. Naturally there is an attraction to Dixon homes… Price vs inclusions. Saving 10k on a house is a great thing, but when you fork out an extra 12k in expenses waiting for your home to be finished 12 months later… it suddenly doesn't seem to be such a good deal. I understand that the Dixon crew you know may not be the ones in the limelight here, and that a few franchises are better than the clowns we have here in Brisbane, so I will clarify that all reports indicate the problems to be with ALL Brisbane Branches, The Sunshine Coast branch, and the Rocky Branch.
Shab008, If you still insist on going through Dixon Homes then I strongly suggest that you amend parts of the contract to ensure less building time, and a higher rate of liquidated damages. I should also point out that liquidated damages are only paid AFTER handover… so don't expect any financial relief through dixon homes when they go over your construction period.
I hope you are wise enough to avoid them altogether and I hope you do not become another casualty.Before I log off, I should also say that by mistake, Dixons emailed me a 2 page list of homes under construction with major building defects, and locations of each property.. This was pretty scary knowing that so many homes could be built so poorly.
I will post this list on my website when it is online.
Hope this helps you in your quest to build a house. Good luck with your project.hakbm wrote:shab008
We are currently (painfully) building with Dixon homes. My simple answer would be 'run the other way'. However I do understand they have franchise offices so not sure which one you are with. If you have to deal with their head office off Ipswich Motorway then don't bother.
Office staff are great, but really they never tell you anything and are the first to demand something of you.
Management is just not interested in any customer enquiries or complaints.hakbm, if you turn on your private messages under the 'my account' tab, I will send through to you the Direct landline numbers for dixon management. I will also give you Angela Gibson (Dixon customer service manager) private mobile number. I can even give you Lev Mizikovsky's (Dixon CEO) private mobile number. Nobody at dixon homes will ever give you these details so If you want the numbers i'd be more than happy to pass them on. We have paid them to do a job but they are not doing it, so if we have to annoy them to get things moving then so be it. Just let me know when you turn on your messages.
I truly sympathize with home owners being put through such hardship. It is even worse to hear of the difficulties people go through when the builder goes into liquidation.
In this instance people caught with delays should address complaints to the right people within the organisation. However if you go overboard then you might get ignored.
As a builder we aim to finish a dwelling within 6 months from starting. If we where to take any longer the increasing costs would erode our profits. Therefore, I do not understand why any builder will want to take so long to build a home.
I guess being as big as they are can have its own problems.Our strategy in keeping costs down and build time within 6 months:
- build between 60 to 100 homes per annum for good discounts from suppliers
- concentrate building activity within 20km radius of each other as it makes supervision easy.
- keep office overheads to a minimum
- to keep quality up get the supervisor to inspect each site daily if there is contractor activity and I personally inspect each site weekly.
- good quality and reliable sub contractors
I guess a mass production builder will have great difficulty in keeping things under control.
I am now in the process of setting up a website which tells my story, with pictures, and gives the public a chance to write their 'review' of dixon homes. My solicitor is currently going through the material to ensure nothing is slanderous or defamartory, and writing a discliamer to ensure that Dixons cannot shut down the site, or worse sue me. This site should be online by the end of the month and will come up on the first page of a google search.
Dixonhomesarescum: I work in PR and marketing and would love to give you as much help as I can with getting the message our there. I would take great pleasure in letting people know exactly what kind of people run this company.
dixonhomesarescum:
"Before I log off, I should also say that by mistake, Dixons emailed me a 2 page list of homes under construction with major building defects, and locations of each property.. This was pretty scary knowing that so many homes could be built so poorly.
I will post this list on my website when it is online."You need to get advice before you do that. Accidentally recieving material and then publishing it not to the intended audience could leave you open to legal action. Understand you are angry, just dont do yourself more damage.
Well I don't know if you are all still reading on the Dixon Home issues here, which I've only just decided to search. But we signed up with Dixon Homes Cairns last December (we are situated a lot further south) and had the block cut in June, I hassled a couple of weeks ago about getting more tradespeople and had a plumber turn up last Tue and do our plumbing and now I'm told the concreter has left Dixon (not bloody surprise) and now waiting for a new concreter just for a slab. I agree that the price they pay these tradespeople is where a lot of the problem obviously is, but prolonging these jobs is also costing them too, surely. So who knows when we'll even have a finished product. There are some others we know, as we live in a small town everyone talks, and they are taking over 12 months to complete.
I've just finished my 2nd home with Dixons and overall, am happy with the result. It took about 6 weeks longer than predicted but still, not that bad. The supervisor was very helpful and so have been the Chermside staff. If ever I had a problem, I'd arrange an appointment to see my sales consultant who always sorted things out for me.
I got a few people to check out the house before the handover. Even though we were very pedantic, the supervisor was very cheery about it all and fixed up all the little things within a few days.
I can't understand why some people seem to get their houses built within a reasonable time while others are getting terrible service.
hleung wrote:I can't understand why some people seem to get their houses built within a reasonable time while others are getting terrible service.
Probably the lack of skilled tradesmen ,and cowboys are filling in the gaps.For the price you get paid (as a tradie) working for some of these mobs I'm suprised the house is still standing after 7 years.No wonder the trades don't turn up.
It seems Dixon haven't changed their spots for decades. Just thought I'd mention a Dixon home that was being built in our suburb back in 1986. The owners were so incensed with Dixon's slow progress that they erected a sign near their fence that read something along the lines: CLAYTONS HOME. Dixon were supposed to finish our house months ago; they are full of promises, but that's not all they are full of. etc etc.
Dixon builders pulled the sign down, but the owners called the police, who forced the builders to put it back up again. Strangely, the home seemed to be finished fairly rapidly after that.
We've called that home the Claytons home ever since.PS if any of you young'uns are curious about the origin of the term Claytons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytons is an interesting read.I believe that people who build with Dixon build with them for the "price only"
I am fortunate enough to be an ex customer of Dixon (Had my large amount of problems,but that's another story) but most important I am a current sub contractor for the company.
I have hidden my identity for I am honestly afraid of losing my job if I become known talking online about them.
I have worked for Dixon for approx 2-3 years,
Personally worked on approx 300 houses,
The price we are paid is the same price I received 12 years ago (Yes twelve years)
You might ask,why do I work for them,well to be honest,I do ask myself the same questions sometimes.
My reasons are this,
1: Constant unlimited work up to $500,000 year turnover with no advertising or time wasting quotes.
2: No contact from owners to slow the process down (Previously customer contact daily and lots of people questioning what I am doing when they themselves have no idea and slowing us down and doubling the process time,therefore costing us money)The latest television presentation on Dixon,did shake the company up.Shortly after the TV aired,many of the other builders were slowed down and didn't have enough work for their subcontractors. Dixon hired so many out of work subcontractors that their buildings were worked on by every Tom Dick and Harry. Quality did in fact drop, Subbies came from miles away and the local trades who had previously took pride in their work were done out of work.I believe what the customers did was push Dixon to hurry the houses and in the end you will get an inferior product. (I personally know,because I see it every day).You wait until you need something fixed and the same contractor has to travel back 300kms to put a screw in or fix something simple?
The TV shows failed to pick up a few "facts" that I believe are important.
1:The supervisors are only people who are hired to tick the boxs only. A rare few has any building experience let alone a building licence. A women supervisor from the office had over 80 houses herself with only office experience,yet she was hired as a supervisor.You are led to believe that they are the builder. Maybe a handyman,or unemployable carpenter at the best.
2:The majority of these houses that are started and finished have never ever had a builder with a current licence even view an eye over the house "ever" This is scary as the only people that build your house are people who are getting paid less money than they got 12 years ago .
I am talking about two story houses also that require an open builders licence.
If we see a fault and advise the supervisor, we are told "What do you want me to do about it? 90% of faults are ignored when we report them.
After a few months we don't bother to say anything and the fault goes right to the end of the process and the customer get the house like that, therefore future complaints.3: Wet area Sealing, that's a joke.Dixon only seals its shower basin, word from the Dixon top says that in the event of a water failure,it is cheaper to fix one house in a hundred than it is to do the job properly to Australian standards in all of them .Look at your new house before the tiler gets there.Only the shower is sealed.On the TV show,it has only shower basin sealed yet nobody seemed to noticed. If you ask they will tell you the Tiler seals it with silicone before he tiles,that's rubbish.
Many people do ask me,
1:Are they a good house?
2:Why are they so cheap?
Before I answer this I will add I have nothing to gain and I believe I have the internal knowledge to answer these questions honestly.They are a good house for the price,with steel frame houses coming in around $700 a metre, other builders around $1100 a metre for the similar product.Thats a saving of about $80,000 for a 200 m2 home.Other than a few people that are being dishonest,most will agree on this pricing.
They are cheap because the A&L windows they use are cheap,kitchens are flat packed from china and put together here,solar hot water is cheaply made up,paid for by your rebate,labour for all the subbies are cheap (Not inferior) (I would like to point out that most of the subbies that work on the $1100 metre homes are the same who work for Dixon.You get the same concreters,carpenters,plumbers,painters,plasterers,electricians roofers,we just get paid less cause it is unlimited work in our local area) The finished product is excellent for the money and it is what you do after you get your house that counts.If you want to pay an extra $80,000 to have someone to talk to you when your are feeling down ,get another builder,because they dont want to talk to you after you sign the contract.
I would like to add to current customers of Dixon,that when you finally get your house and you have a grudge with Dixon and make up stories to get the tradesman back,we have done your job the best we can with the price we are paid.When we go back we are not being paid one single cent extra.I have had customers that complained about something,and when we went back to see what was wrong.We are told,all they wanted was someone to come and talk to them about how they were treated prior.They all seem to believe that Dixon pays for those house calls,well it is false.If you have a problem,please make it "genuine"and we are happy to oblige."We are nice people with families as well"
Hi, I have built many Homes with Dixon over the years and I can tell you the following –
Good – They Build a good home for a very low price (Way below the competitors)
Bad – From when you walk in the door and sign for soil tests, until the house slab goes down is a painfully slow process.
Good – Once the house slab construction starts it goes at a reasonable pace until completion.Summary –
If you have high holding costs of your land, consider the price you save on the house will be chewed up in holding costs. (I have found that the process can take up to three times longer than with other builders if you strike development issues.)
But – If your holding costs for the land are not great. You will eventually end up with a cheap quality house.
I am in no hurry for them to complete my houses asap so the Dixon building process works great for me. ( I have made a lot of money this way) Yes it does get built slower, but usually up to $80 000 less (Highset) than the competitors.Other point to note is – If your block is flat with the services in the correct poistion, the Dixon build process will go quite quickly.
If your block has any issues the process will slow and seem to take forever. (Do yuo homework and resolve these issues)Everyones situation is different so – Take the above points into consideration. Dixon homes work very well for me BUT i can understand why they cause a lot of pain for people in a hurry. I have also found the people at Dixon very good. But , they are bound by the slow redtape dixon building process. But it is that exact thorougher process that delivers those very cheap houses for their customers.
Cheers.
I have just finished building with Dixon at Yamanto in Brisbane’s west.
We had a very easy time keeping track of the home & what was happening,
by using the web based login & It was easy make comment on any concerns we had.
They built in 14 weeks. We rented the home within 2 weeks
with a cash positive return. Would not hesitate to use them again.I guess it will come down to due diligence in the end and from what I can see from above it depends on which office you work from (kinda luck of the draw) not really a good recommendation.
I don't really understand why places are taking so long i'm sure there are contracts in place which deal with these issues. Quality control well this is an issue if the trades don't have some pride in the process and finished product. Also a good supervisor is a huge bonus providing he has the back up to do his job.
Good luck with your decision.
Brian
Please be very vigilant with the tradesmaen. I would suggest getting an inspector prior to every stage money handover. Dixon failed to do all the necessary fireproofing that was in our contract, and we were not able to have it retro fitted and were only offered a rebate, failed to correctly place thae house on the block, failed to lay the necessary foundation dirt until we queried the amount, failed to install the correct thickness insulation and our list goes on. We had built with them previously without incidence, but now that they do not have registered builders overseeing their projects, we believe that they are too much at the mercy of the tradesman. We cannot recommend without the extra safeguard of a registered builder overseeing – and watch that they are not put on a kick back!
hakbm wrote:shab008
We are currently (painfully) building with Dixon homes. My simple answer would be 'run the other way'. However I do understand they have franchise offices so not sure which one you are with. If you have to deal with their head office off Ipswich Motorway then don't bother.
Office staff are great, but really they never tell you anything and are the first to demand something of you.
Management is just not interested in any customer enquiries or complaints.
They still sell on a 14 week build, which normal people will understand might blow out to 25 weeks with weather etc. Well we are at the 8 month stage and still don't have a house despite them not even having to finish for us. We are doing our own painting, rendering, fencing, landscaping, floors.
So just to give you our story. We started with foundations being cut completely incorrectly. Yup they completely cut out a room. As we were onsite at the time at the sales office for our estate we noticed this straight away. Nope didn't have to 'tresspass' onto our property, could see the mistake from the street. Called the office and told them. True enough while we are on the phone with the office the cement truck shows up and the guy starts pouring into the wrong foundations. Clearly neither the cement guy or the foundation guy had the correct information but surely they were using the plan we signed to right… So the first delay start, 3 weeks to rectify this problem which of course then pushes back the slab being poured.
So the slab finally gets poured with the rectification finally done to the foundations. Now we are in the XMAS break and we understood we would already be 3 weeks behind because of this, we planned for it. We were assured we would have a slab before Christmas and nothing more. Lo and behold the trusses and frames show up the week before everything shuts down for XMAS. So they sit there for 3 weeks we figure. No harm done. However they were stacked incorrectly, big trusses on top of small ones, not at all in order, causing the bottom chord of a couple of trusses on the top that were hanging over the side to snap. Great another rectification delay we are going to have to come back to. Supervisor was aware of it and said it would be fixed. We couldn't relaly ask for more could we.
Come back after xmas and still more delay, no rain, just delay getting started. Then because they again notice the trusses are delayed and they have no trades to put it up, again more delay. Then some our supervisor tells the trades to put up the trusses as is. Yup snapped. So up they go. Then the delay for rectification starts again, another 4 weeks down. So by now the trusses and frames have been sitting out in the weather for over 3 months.
Oh lets not forget the broken pipe that was covered up on the outside of the house by one of the machines i guess. Yup supervisor saw this with us. Said don't worry it will be fixed. We are hopefully nearing completion and nobody has fixed it yet.
So thats just the start of the mistakes. Took us 4.5 months to get just frames up.
So yup we were getting near ropeable but figured ok still inside the 30 week mark which we thought was realistic. So just 2 months to finish it off. Again they were not rendering, painting, fencing, landscaping, flooring etc for us. Just brickwork, windows, electrical, plumbing and then handover right.
Yup well we have been sitting at practical completion stage now for 2 months waiting on vanities. Ok so the ones we picked now 5 months later had a delay on them, fine, so any options to pick another one that might be in stock?? Nope. Any option to go pick out one ourselves and get it reimbursed by them to speed things up a bit. Nope. Just have to wait we are told.Anyone picking on us for being precious first home builders can go jump. We were not concerned about letterboxes, paint, taps etc. We were stuffed at foundations, slabs, frames stage. The things that make a house.
By the way we have come to know many many other dixon clients who have had the same structural type problems and delays that could have been better managed which have now blown out their living budget.
This comes down to several things, the people that are being hired to carry out the work are the cheapest people that can be found and these cheap tradesman don't no what there doing as well as the supervisor that is in charge either doesn't no what hes doing or/but I would be thinking he know's what hes doing but he has no control over the main boss wanting cheap trades man so then the supervisor deals with what he has.
This will not be the case in every location as some dixon franchisees will have a lot more knowledge and no what there doing, so the quality will be as you would expect.
I have worked for GJ's in one area and worked for GJ's in another area only 20 minutes apart but run by different owners and the difference between the 2 were miles apart, one had constant balls ups while the other had very few, basicly came down to who ran the jobs and if they had quality people doing the work.
I think if you want a good quality job done then ask people that have had homes built and if they would reccomend that company then at least you will get a decent job, but just remember a building company may have 10 different builders they use to construct there homes so it helps if you can find out the builders name.
I finished building with Dixon Homes this year and would never use them again.
The sub contractors they used were discraceful.
The Tiler left tiles up and down all over the bathrooms and is now going to QCAT, the painters used a hourse brush to paint doors ect, the Steel frame instaler left buckled steel frames, the gyprockers put drink cans in behind the gyprock, the extra cost of the kitchen was $3500 and Electrical $3000.
The Solar hotwater only just started working after 3 months because they installed it wrong and we were cheated out of a 1.5kw Solar unit by the sales people at Chermside telling us that we would save $10,000 so we pre-approved the application, infact the next month the solar power was free without a price increase.
We had built the largest house they had $320,000 after you add all the extras they don't provide you need at least $400,000.
They are not cheap and there is pleanty of dodgy work to keep you in phone calls to the BSA for at least a year.
We have built 5 Houses and this will be the last with Dixion … Use another builder
Anyone out there know a sqare metre cost for residential building in Western Australia? That's inclusive of everything, floorcoverings, window treatments, kitchen appliances, outside paving, driveway, clothesline, landscaping.
Cheers,My sister built with them about 3 months ago.
She is very happy. Very fast build time.
Dixon do not appear to like deviations from plans/specifications and their attitude is generally take it or leave it.
But in return, you get it done very quickly for a very reasonable price. their standard specification list is also better than average, particulary against the SA project home builders i've used.
She didn't like the electrical company they used service wise, but site manager was very good and sorted it out.
As her brother, I am planning on using them in the next few months.
Hi – Has anyone had some recent experience with Dixon Homes in Toowoomba. Dixon Homes Western Downs apparently have a license to build on the Downs and also in Brisbane.
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