Aveling Homes Home Builders Perth

We met with our designer, gave him our ideas of what we fancied. Within a few days he came back with some plans, along with a few of his ideas to help individualise our home.

The next stage was then our Pre start in which June was fantastic when it came to our interior design. Again we came with our ideas, and with her eye for design managed to make our completed home stunning.

[name removed] to start with, then [name removed] since slab down has made our build nearly stress free. Both guys answering all questions, explaining clearly and working hard for us if any issues cropped up.

Our only complaint during the build process was the communication from the office, We recieved no regular updtaes unless we actually chased up ourselves. Special thanks to [name removed], [names removed] for helping us achieve our dream home. We are very proud to say who built our home when people ask :-)
Complete break down of price with choice if unsure on variations; better value for money than other builders; completed only 2 weeks behind estimated date
Communication between office and client need improving

Excellent from day one to handover. Working through the initial design process, everything was clear and upfront, no surprises, everything explained thoroughly and no false promises. During the building phase, we received regular communication, even if there was no news to report, we would still receive the call telling us how things were progressing. Quality of the build and the fixtures and fittings is spot on and any issues we had were dealt with promptly. I have no hesitation at all in recommending Aveling to anyone.
Communication, expectation setting

We built with Aveling in 2013 (began process in 2012) and had handover in November 2013. The sales lady was amazing (which seems to be a commonality amongst those building with Aveling), and from there it went downhill. Our prestart lady was a joke - I could go on and on but I can't be bothered. Suffice to say if we hadn't had our eye on things we would have been overcharged considerably and she was completely unapologetic about it (amongst other things).

Construction was average to slow time-wise - this after the many months it took to get our slab down in the first instance. We had to point out many things over the course of the build that the site supervisor (a really nice guy but inadequate) was not on top of. At handover there were a large number of minor things wrong - and most have not been fixed to this day (7 months after handover).

We love our house and in the interest of fairness I want to point out two things that were done really well, the tiling (which we had throughout except in the bedrooms) and the outside paving (which we had a lot of). All of the other things that went wrong I will have my hubby fix because I trust him to care for our house and not treat it with the wanton disregard that the majority of the Aveling trades seem to have. A few things to note for the Aveling moderator reading this review:

- Please leave protective coating on client's stone benchtops so that all subsequent trades don't plonk their tools, etc, down on them and scratch them to buggery as was the case in our home

- Please review your engineering dept and let them know that their approximations of how many down pipes are needed for a roof not to flood back into the ceilings in a downpour in people's new homes

- A 'builder's clean' prior to handover should actually allow the client to feel as if their home has been somewhat cleaned. Sawdust inches thick throughout cupboards and stains in the toilet are a dreadful welcome to your new home!!!)

Would I recommend Aveling to anybody looking to build....? Hells no!

First of all, I got to thank FHOC for completing our first home on Time. The over all build was done professional and quality was good. The construction and Customer service team where reachable all the time and kept us updated on every stage of the Build.
The building plan was bit pricey and we got what we paid for.Over all the Build process was quick,As neighbors started construction a month before us a and finished almost a month after us.
Over all i would recommend FHOC for a first home builder.

After a bad experience 13 years ago, I swore I would never build again but here I am! I spent a long time reading online reviews and googling companies before I settled on Aveling Homes. Right from the start it was a pleasant experience. My sales consultant spent a great deal of time with me customizing my house plans to fit onto my awkward shaped block and never complained when I kept changing my mind about what I did and did not like. He even took the time to meet me before my pre-start meeting to give me an idea of what colours, bricks, fittings etc to choose as he knew I had great trepadition about going through the whole process after my last experience.

My pre-start consultant was just as great, was very thorough and knowledgeable and gave me some good advise on what to spend my money on (tight budget!) and what to save for in the future. I had two construction consultants who were both very quick to respond to my emails and always kept me in the loop, sending me fortnightly emails with news of the progress being made. As I am not experience at building homes, I had lots of questions that I thought they may find trivial or silly but they always responded to everything with professionalism and put things into layman's terms when I still didn't understand.

My site manager was the total opposite of how I imagined him to be. He was on time for our meetings, very thorough, had great attention to detail and noted down all my concerns. I am impressed with how quickly he fixed the problems and that I didn't have to fight to get things done as I did with my previous build.
Overall, Aveling Homes has completely changed my opinion of the building industry. They delivered on quality and workmanship and it was all done within the time frames that they set. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a professional, caring company to build their new home.

My build has now gone over 180 days for the build and this is doesn't include weekends or public holidays so this is almost a year from the approval date and I still don't have the keys.
Aveling supervisors are unable to be spoken to as you contact the client liason and the messages are either not passed on or ignored at least by my contact I contacted last week and I am still awaiting a response on a progress update.
The build itself looks good and as specified however as they haven't finished on time it's hard to say more.
The sales process is great but that's where it ends then the waiting and poor communication begins.

I am building 2 houses with Aveling, and they are pretty good value for money considering the end product you get compared with other builders in their range. Yes we have had a few mistakes along the way but you would get that in any house build, its what they do to fix it that counts in the end.

The main issues I see is better planning work needs to be done during design and submission to council as mistakes there can cost you time and money for you and them.

The other main issue is fixing problems in a timely manner. Aveling has been pretty good here expect for a major issue with my driveway which they forgot to lower, so I have to drive really slowly off it or my car gets wrecked on the curb and street. This should have been picked up early on, and even the paver guys picked up on this but didnt say anything till later?? Anyway as I was saying little things can turn into big things if your not carefull.

I will keep you posted on when the curb / drive gets fixed, and how the other house build goes.

Good luck to everyone and their homes.
Good value for money. The back staff people try their best. Use reliable trades.
Needs better planning, better comms, fixing / resolving issues, possibly over-streteched resources

Commenced the process in September 2012, and committed in October 2012. Excellent house designs and good reviews sold us that is who we were going to build with. Started well but due to location, communication was iffy at best. Finally got through these hiccups and went to pre-start which was excellent. Pad finally got poured at the end of November and it has stopped again. Told 2 weeks ago that we would have a date for the brickies, only to be told today that we will have a date in 2 weeks time. If it gets finished by September 2014, it would have taken 2 years from start of process to finish the build. I am paying payments now since the pad was done, and have been renting for the whole period. It is fast becoming an expensive exercise, and a lot of the issues in the reviews below regarding start up ring true to me. I sincerely hope that time becomes an important consideration for Aveling, as their clients are at cost until handover is complete. The delays are the only issue I have as most that I have spoken to and dealt with have been excellent. I also like alot of their designs and finishes they have added to their houses. Let's see when the build is finished, I will make decision then as to if it has been worth it. ( hopefully)
Sorted design quickly, helpful team.
Too long to start, communication could be better.

Edit 23/3/14:
We were so happy we even posted on Aveling's facebook wall to tell them how happy we were, but it went downhill since we moved in and noticed all the issues. We've moved into the new house just over 1 week ago. Our first problem was with our front door that has a massive gap, it's not even secure. It took 16 emails to get this sorted (down the track we will get a professional to fix it properly). We noticed the replaced kitchen tiles have grout in different colour; some tiles (corners so we didn't notice at inspection) were not grouted at all; some grout in ensuite shower and toilet is already coming off. Gutters leaking at multiple places, water running into our garage, eaves have water mark indicating water's running inside, we only had a few drops of rain so far, I'm not sure what will happen when the winter rain hits. Now our ensuite toilet is block, water oozing up to the rim, we then discovered our ensuite shower is not draining properly either. Looking through the drain with a torch we can see the water in the drain, we can also see grout and gunk inside the drain. We're now living with a block toilet, shower, and basins in the ensuite!! When our plantation shutters got installed, we discovered all our window sills are not straight, therefore our shutters can't sit properly inside. The plastering on some of our walls are poorly done, we can see rough texture once the lights are on, that's really minor. I reported our gutters issue on the 18th, got a reply the next day but nothing has happened. It's extremely difficult to get their attention once they got your money, as they say!!

Utterly disappointed!!

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We signed up with Aveling homes on the last day of February this year, we're now waiting for brickies to start. I can't rate my overall experience yet but so far, apart from minor hiccups at admin stage and the lack of communication since construction commences (which is very disappointing given that they've been very good prior to this stage), we're overall happy with our experience and looking forward to seeing our house go up.

Other reviewer has suggested the HomeOne forum, I find it an extremely valuable knowledge base, there are quite a few Aveling threads now. When we're choosing our builder, there aren't many forum discussions and reviews about Aveling, so I've decided to blog about our experience at http://ourfirstbuild.wordpress.com/ for anyone who want to find out more about the process from start to finish.
affordable
lack of communication, poor after-sale service

This is the first home that I have built but not the first that I have owned so I was a little lost at first with so many building companies out there, but when I seen the selections and prices on the Aveling Homes website I new that I had found the right one.
The whole process from sign up to handover was easy and stress free with their friendly and experienced staff.
I was unfortunate enough to have signed up for a block of land in an area where the titles took around 6 months longer to come though than what the developer told me at the start, however I understood that Aveling Homes had no control over this so it just made me look forward to my job going to construction even more.
I could not believe how fast the house went up once I had titles and council approval with it being completed in just 4-5 months.
Anyone looking for a high quality value for money home should not hesitate to build with Aveling as there is not doubt that I will be again.
Value for money, high quality, friendly staff, excellent building supervisor.

I collected my keys today and am so happy with my new home. I used an independent building inspector for practical completion and he was struggling to find anything to put on the list and kept complimenting the workmanship. There are not many companies where you get to meet the owner and to get personalised advice. The supervisor was approachable and my construction liaison kept me grounded in stressful times. Sure it wasn't all plain sailing but get real all you negative bloggers, they are building complex stuctures made to last for years not baking you a cake.
A big well designed house at a really good price. You can make changes and they give you great advice if you ask and are willing to listen.Friendly employees are always trying to give you your dream home.
A bit hard to get on the phone but emails were easy and they phoned back

My partner and I signed up with Aveling homes back in November last year. Once all the paper work started coming out for us to sign things started to go down hill, we were given a blow out of over 17,000 dollars in site works which I, as a client had to go out and research and get supported documentation to get the site works reduced down to the starting quote figure. From there it was drawings being done incorrectly, to stacker door unit being missed out in our drawings to then being told after we had signed off on final plans that we couldn't have the stacker doors we originally picked and the list goes on.
Aveling homes do have some great people who work for the company that help and try to fix any issues that may occur. Dealing with [name removed] client liaison, she was wonderful, [name removed] our construction Liaison in the office was fantastic but the one person who made this build finally enjoyable after all the dramas at the start was our site supervisor [name removed]. I hope when i build again one day that he is there cause he always goes that extra step for the client. His knowledge, attitude and enthusiasm when making sure your house is going smoothly is amazing. If it wasn't for [name removed] my partner and i would have never enjoyed this build but knowing our house is capable hands with him we have been so excited and loving our new house.
I even recently caught up with [name removed] for lock up stage meeting and my partner couldn't make it and he was so helpful and made it so easy for me to make decision with out my partner there. Instead of me stressing about tile placement and other things we were laughing and got through everything with a breeze. He is so quick to fix any issues you may raise with him and is so efficient with his work.
Aveling Homes does honestly need to work on communication and customer service. We as Clients should be looked after well seeing as though we have chosen you as the building company that we want to build our dream home and sometimes we feel like we are just another number. You go through so much effort and time getting us to sign up with your company but as soon as we do sign the quality of the service just goes. But to have the people that i have mentioned in this review work for your company these are the hard dedicated workers that make the experience easier and more enjoyable.
Aveling Homes thank these people cause they are the only reason why i would recommend Aveling Homes to other people interested in building.
Our Site Supervisor and also how quick some things got done
bad communication, alot of errors with paper work

I shopped with around 10 different building companies when searching for a house to build. Avelings homes and service by far stood out amongst the rest. Sales were very patient and helpful with my questions and developing the perfect plans for my block. This is the second time we have built and found Aveling Homes to be very professional and easy to liaise with. I was always kept in the loop of progress throughout the whole building process and any small concerns i had were quickly attended to and i never had to ask twice. It has now been a month after handover and i have needed to call for a couple of things - warranty details for appliances/ minor repair on chipped tile i didnt notice at handover and they were very quick to return my messages and fix the problem. i would definately (and have already) recommend Aveling Homes to anyone looking for affordable good quality homes and helpful, professional staff.
Just to demonstrate their level of customer service we had the Managing Director come in to our key handover interview and ask how our building experience went and how we thought they could improve. I thought this was a nice gesture as they seem to really take customer service seriously. I can honestly say i had no suggestions on improvements! Except maybe another bottle of wine in the gift hamper ;p
building time - the house never stood 'idle' waiting for tradies etc./ customer liason officers (i was worried about having no contact directly with my site supervisor but the ladies in the office always returned my calls and had my questions/ issues sorted very quickly)/ price

Building with Aveling was an such an enjoyable experience from helping me with the design(redesigning all the kitchen and laundry area ) to suit my land to the handover which was built on time with no issues what so ever evan at my 6 month mantainence report there was nothing to report thankyou Aveling see you on the next one !

Our build process only took 6 months. I got a couple problem during the build process,but Aveling solved the problem quickly.If anyone want to build a home with a low budget,I would like to recommend you to use Aveling.The quality is outstanding.Aveling is honest and trustworthy,we got refund from sitework cost at the practical completion.They gave us refund for concrete pump $1852,as it not required for our site.Aveling only charged you what you used,and if there something they don't use during the build process they wiill give it back to you.

First of all thanks to AVELING HOMES for building our first dream home in just 6 months,
we had an awesome experience with AVELING HOMES from start to finish for our recently built first home,
we never expected such a great experience
our sales rep was very intelligent and knowledgeable who helped us in choosing the perfect design for the corner block, his years of valuable experience helped us in building our dream home within our tight budget,
another great experience we had with pre-start consultant, she was very experienced and knowledgeable, her opinion and advice helped us in picking the perfect items for our home. meeting with pre-start consultant was really a great experience for us,
moving to construction, we were lucky to have well experienced, very hard working and very impressive site manager, he was very thorough and very quick to fix the any issues and concerns I had regarding construction,
he never compromised with the quality and workmanship, he always tried hard to bring perfection in his job and I am very happy with the quality they maintained through out the construction of my house,
our CL (construction liaison) was nice to talk to, she was always up to date in communicating construction related issues and was always prompt to follow ups whenever we had change of our minds, she kept us updated well in advance of each and every construction phase,

We have a house built by Aveling homes, we picked up a number of minor things during our 1st inspection, some of which were completed by the second inspection. The superviser at that time told me the Maintainence person was finishing it off the next morning back in Sept 2013. It's now Feb 2014 and it still isn't done. The Feature "blade" wall at the front of the house has the Brown bricks leaching into the white mortor, loose bricks in the top corner of this wall, many pait chips in the door frames still not attended to and minor chips and dents in the wood doors. The front door is missing varnish on the inside in the top 1/3 of the door. Whilst I understand these things happen, I have spoken to the Main Superviser and was assured back in Oct/ Nov it would be fixed, still nothing and now doesn't even return my calls.
Great to Deal with all the way along, good at communicating all through the process as to where they were up to and what was happening next. The main structure was finished in good time and very well done.
Glass splash back to more than 2 months to complete, well they told me that was they delay, the last minor details to finish took way to long.

I don't even know where to start, from day one we have had a nightmare experience excepting a few short weeks when we were in the hands of the pre start consultant. We had a seemingly great sales rep however after a load of contract issues it appears he was not so great and perhaps not working in either ours or the business' interests but lucky for you he is no longer employed there. Our prestart process was fantastic but I'm putting this down to the skills and competence of the consultant we were lucky to be assigned to.

Our slab was laid in January, along the way we have had to change our stone benches as the colour was no longer available and all was going well until it was coming due to be finished. In May we didn't even have the roof on but the staff were insisting it would still be completed in 22-24 weeks (end of June), an unexplained change of building liaison and the time frame extended and extended and still continues to extend.

Its now 33 weeks since slab and not only is there still significant work to be done, faults already picked up (not minor ones either, example the frontage paint is the incorrect colour) we are now being accused of causing the delay... we provided a photo at design in (July 2013), prestart (November 2013) and lock up (July 2014) to a particular element yet now they are 'accommodating our request' hence delaying the build. I'll add there has been no significant days of inclement weather and no advise of tradesman or supply issues. It seems to come down to poor scheduling with days and weeks at a time where nothing is achieved on site.

Absolute frustration and disappointment is the only way I can sum up our experience, you ask questions and don't get answered, I have asked several times for manager to discuss concerns, I just get the same email back, always very pleasantly worded but not actually answering questions. I finally got an answer after having to be rather abrupt with the comment that they will contact me. Not surprisingly they haven't called.

Aveling consistently over promise and under deliver.. Even after giving us emails with time frames in writing (yes I save my emails) they turn around and change what they said. ie. completion is expected 6-8 weeks after lockup, 9 weeks after lockup the wording has changed to 6 weeks after tiling is complete....

We all get that building takes time, but seriously Aveling: be upfront and honest, hold your staff accountable and take responsibility... tell clients its going to take 38 weeks and we will plan around that, not leave us hanging week by week extending the time frame and trying to hide behind each other. We are not first home buyers, this is our fourth build and we know the process, we have spent over $330k just on the building alone, as much as we are looking forward to our home eventually, Aveling have really let us down.
Pre start consultant
Customer service

Two and a half years ago our relationship with Aveling homes started. We are two weeks away from handover which should be an exciting time but our relationship has soured over the last few months as we have had many issues. The biggest issue, apart from an incompetent site manager (who is now being shadowed by a senior) we have is that we wanted wooden door frames and architraves.

Aveling said they couldn't do this and agreed that we could supply our own carpenter and materials. Having asked for months and months when we could install the frames we were told that we could only install to the wet areas whilst the brickwork was going up, we asked to fit all of them to which we were promptly told no, in fact they decided then that we couldn't fit any at all until the render and white set had been done. The render and white set have been done and our door frames and architraves have gone in and there are huge gaps behind where the white plaster is uneven. This is not the case with all the doorways, and some are ok on one side but not the other. It would be common sense to assume then that the plasterer is at fault and not the carpenter. Aveling have refused to make good the plaster leaving us with no option now but to serve them with a notification of complaint with the Building Services Commission, if the issue has not been resolved we will lodge a formal complaint. They have backed us into a corner and have made a stupid decision based on goodness knows what, not common sense, that is for sure

I could tell you about many other issues, me labouring for our bricklayer on and off for two weeks, us having to move materials in our own bobcat for the trades, window frames damaged and then 'repaired' with pliers and then spray painted, uneven floors, concealed basin pipes that are not concealed, the list goes on and on.

Yesterday the paving went down in the alfresco area only to have drops of paint spilled on it by the painters who have painted the ceiling above! Why the painters couldn't come before the paver's were put down is anyone's guess but I am putting my money on the cause being our seriously bad site manager. My advice to you is to learn from our mistake of asking these people to build our home because when it goes wrong, it well and truly goes wrong, and the stress we have been put through by these people is more than anyone should have to go through. This experience has most definitely taken the shine off having a new home built, particularly as we spent a long time designing this home and have paid well over $400,00 for it. Avelings new logo should be 'Near enough is good enough'.

Update, Independent building inspector has been out and given Aveling a copy of the report. He said he has not seen such bad quality workmanship in a long time. The structure of the house was good but other things like render, ceilings and ceiling painting was poor. He picked up lots of things that we didn't notice such as wonky downpipes, sunken paving and windows that have not been fitted level, the ceiling in the kitchen differs by 15ml over about 1m. Whilst we are glad he picked all of this up and we can get Aveling to rectify it it does not make us happy that we trusted these people to build our home, it has been very stressful. Also, we are living on site in a granny flat and I caught one of the tradies urinating in the garden. This is because Aveling have taken the site toilet as we are close to handover. Some of the tradies have also been using the toilets in the house which are not connected to a working septic system yet, but Aveling don't care and said they won't return the site toilet!

We are not sure yet what Avelings response will be to the building report but we can apparantly withhold funds to rectify any outstanding jobs they refuse to do, and we will do this.

I will write more once this ordeal is finaly over. Should be very soon, we hope.

We contacted Aveling homes after we had signed up for our new block in Alkimos Beach (Perth, WA) as we had heard some promising reviews about their products and services. In short, we have not been disappointed and Aveling have been great!!! The whole process from consultation, to handover was amazing, and issues with the build were few and far between. Our initial consultation with the Sales Consultant was relaxed and informative, as he explained the options that were available to us with our set (and tight) budget. His knowledge of the Aveling product range put us at ease immediately, as well as his understanding and familiarity with reading plans and knowing what add-ons for the house would add value and also allow for a more functional flow of the structure. After 3 meetings with the Sales Consultant, and a number of plan amendments (that were greeted with enthusiasm and not annoyance) our plans were finalised and the process was underway. We were assigned a building advisor who played an integral part to informing us when certain construction milestones were to be reached. We were always kept informed of the progress, and were advised when delays might be expected (ie over the Xmas break). Never at any time did we feel that Aveling were dragging their heels or hiding anything from us, as they encouraged site visits, as well as questions regarding the stages of the build and future progressions. Handover was seamless as well, with the Site Supervisor walking through the build with us before handover with any issues being fixed within the agreed 10 days. And then….. the keys were ours!! We feel lucky to have had such a great experience and process with the Aveling as we have heard a number of horror stories from friends and acquaintances using other builders. But to be honest we feel that by building with Aveling this success has not been an accident due to their professionalism from the Sales Consultant, to the continued support from the operations and handover teams. I would recommend Aveling to anyone looking to build, as Aveling look after their clients and work with them to get to not just get a house, but a home
Constant communication, great advise, no pressure to decide or plan, no pressure to exceed budget, on time build, on budget build