Hi All, Any reviews on Kevler Homes, previously Yellow River

Hey Aimee, a friend of ours does the painting for Kevler Homes – I will ask him what their quality is like and drop in another comment later on. In the meantime, check out Greenland Homes – they are also great quality and price – have built several houses with them myself and plan on building my own home with them shortly. Brick and Rockcote are both great claddings – you will end up paying for more foundation with brick as it sits on the foundation rather than with Rockcote it hangs off the framing. When our company builds spec houses or lower cost we usually find Rockcote is better pricewise. I personally think it looks nicer than brick as well.

Hi Aimee, We’re in the middle of a build with Kevler currently and have been very impressed. It’s not our first build, but it is our first with Kevler so we do have other experiences to draw on. Everything is tracking along sweet. I’ve also seen other great feedback on community pages around Rolleston. Their standard spec seems to be rockcote. When our plans were originally quoted, the cladding was rockcote but we are super lazy and wanted zero maintenance cladding so opted for brick. The area of the house does go up because you are adding an additional 120mm right around the foundation, but the price came down quite a bit when using their standard brick range. Rockcote needs to be installed, then plastered, then painted etc. so it’s more expensive overall compared to bricks which are a 1 step process.

Avoid Kevler homes! They wasted about 3 months of our time! Have also hear couple of stories in which other people were mucked around. Our lawyer also heard not great comments. Dodged a bullet. Very happy with who we are with now

Not building with Kevler homes! They wasted about 3 months of our time! Have also heard couple of stories in which other people were mucked around. Our lawyer also heard not great comments. Very happy with who we are with now

Thanks Sally, Did you manage to get hold of your painter friend? I will check out Greenland Homes also 🙂

Thanks for that, have you had much movement in quoted price. Or did you choose all spec/ colours / tiles and get it all included in your quote.

Hi Aimee When you say wasted your time, do you mean in lack of comms or another way? Who did you use in the end?

Hi Aimee Do you mind if I ask who you dealt with? We have had a bad experience recently with a sales guy and his PA after 7 months of waiting.

Hi, No it’s a fixed price when you sign the contract. There have been a lot of movements in the price after we signed the contract but that has been driven by us in the form of adding and upgrading. You will have the contract/price but post contract is where you can go and have consults with the various suppliers. There is a big range that comes within the confines of the contract but you may go outside that, which costs extra.

Hi Aimee – sorry for the delay – has been a bit manic home and work lately! My painter friend says that Kevler seem to be good with quality and also he thinks they are great with clients. He said that their project manager is very easy to work with and is a good communicator – he said that he would recommend asking (if you can) for a builder called Tim Osmers – apparently he’s very good/tidy site etc. Hope your build goes well 🙂

Hi Anon, Regarding your recent reply to Aimee, I can see from one of your previous comments that you are reasonably experienced in the building process. So I’m sure that although you did not do what Aimee mentioned, and get everything decided and included in your quote before signing the Contract, you still had a good idea how much your additions/upgrades were going to cost before signing. But still your reply illustrates a good point, that might be of interest to first-time builders, or less experienced people. It’s the old riddle of ‘When is a fixed priced building contract really a fixed price contract?’. The answer of course is ‘Almost never.’. As soon as a Contract has things like Provisional Items, Prime Cost (PC) Sums, any items where you can choose to ‘upgrade’, or clauses that allow for the builder to claim for inflation costs in labour or materials then you can be pretty sure the final cost will be more than the original quote. By how much will probably depend on how poor the ‘standard’ provisions in the Contract are (often as poor as the builder can get away with), and the honesty of the builder when it comes to pricing variations. The only way to avoid being ripped off is to tie down as much as possible before signing the Contract. Time spent before signing will pay off later. Does that sound cynical? It sure does, but it’s the reality of the game.

Hi Chris, Yes that is exactly right. You kind of have 2 options.. Option 1 would be more time consuming at the beginning but you would have pretty accurate pricing. Decide what your budget will be, ask the building companies for their spec and who their suppliers are and then go and visit all those suppliers to see your options included in that spec. Each supplier will/should know what is included in that companies standard spec. E.g If you like bricks, you could go to the supplier and they will have a selection of bricks under the building company spec. They will probably be the red, yellow, beige bricks and will come with natural coloured mortar. If you want something outside their standard range, it will be an upgrade and cost more… and the list goes on. You could then choose all your upgrades prior to getting a fixed price contract and you will know exactly where you stand. Option 2 is less time consuming at the start but you get a fixed price contract and then set aside another $20k or so, knowing that you have wiggle room to upgrade a heap of stuff. This is under the assumption that the house spec is pretty close to what you want. Something like an upgrade to a tiled shower from acrylic could be $5k per shower, so if you are wanting to upgrade a lot, be wary. This may not be the best option if financing is tight as the banks get a bit weird when you can’t nail down the exact pricing.. then they may try to exploit you once you’re already in their web. If you can lay it all out at the start while they are courting you, it saves for heartache at the other end when you’re all locked in.