We built a 50sq home in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne with Porter Davis.

This is our third build, so we know the process and we know what we’re looking at. And we’ll be the first to admit that building homes isn’t easy. We’d like to be able to tell you that building with Porter Davis was a positive experience however, the reality was it was nothing short of a nightmare. “Respect The Dream”? Yeah, no luck there! In fact, we were the least respected people in the whole process. It’s amazing to think you can spend $450,000 and be treated like they’re doing YOU a favour! We should have built again with Henley, at least we knew what to expect with them.

The first Site Supervisor had no idea. He never even carried a plan for the house and had no idea even where the windows should be. 6 weeks out of training and he’s building our dream home?!

- A full tear down and rebrick of the house;
- Frame overhanging the slab at the front of the house;
- Outdoor inbuilt bbq area smashed to pieces after brick tear down;
- Ardex levelling compound poured all over garage floor which is now worn and riddled with cracks;
- Garage ceiling defective under the Australian Standard;
- Burst water pipe in pantry wall. 8 attempts for Stegbar to replace the glass splashback in both pantry and kitchen (talk about do your head in!);
- Bowed walls;
- Termite Protection pipes smashed to pieces;
- Tiles pooling with water in alfresco and poorly laid on balcony;
- Over $7,000 of errors in the contract in their favour;
- Leaking frameless shower – 4 attempts to fix this and 12 months on, the base of the frame is rotting away due to the water not running off it;
- Faulty appliances (faulty leg on Blanco dishwasher, outdoor rangehood flute not installed for 3 months and fan defective after only a few uses);
- Uncapped sewerage riser pipe emanating a disgusting smell in wall (found by my husband);
- Gutters leaking down brickwork;
- Study floor falls 10mm;
- Columns in alfresco out of square;
- Incorrect butler’s pantry installed (no shadow line);
- Cement sheet hanging from 2nd storey porch;
- House handed over with cracked and chipped tiles as well as bumps and marks all over the house after handover we realised they had used a magic sponge removing dirty marks from walls rather than spending money and time re-painting.

Lucky we built the Prestige Range!

Our Building Coordinator was great and sadly the only positive part about our Porter Davis experience. In fact, all the girls in the office were good but they’re not the people building your home.

Building with Porter Davis would have to have been one of the worst and most stressful experiences of our lives which resulted in a nervous breakdown. Our advice to anyone contemplating building with Porter Davis would be – walk away. We certainly would not touch them again with a ten-foot pole!

Approximate cost: $450000