Dechellis Homes

Built with Dechellis in the second half of 2011. Neither my wife or myself have really been happy with the quality of the build having had relatively substantial amounts of defects since handover. Reporting defects is usually brought down to us proving that it was a defect in the build which has so far cost us about $1000 over 2 building inspections which isn't really fair as the builder is also a subject matter expert.
The selection process is good with lots of choice.
Build quality is bad, brickwork not meeting Australian standards, framework and gyprocking well below what I would call "merchantable quality", structural defects in roof, the building inspector reports that incorrect timber used in parts of roof, cracks and tears in gyprock sheeting and generally what I would call bad value for money.

In a nutshell - I would strongly recommend that anyone contemplating building with Dechellis needs to hire themselves a GOOD Building Inspector BEFORE the building process begins - and arrange regular inspections once the build process begins to ensure all work is compliant with current building regulations before they pay for any stage. Also beware of the "Substantially Completed" wording in each Stage invoice!

One example: After the first day of bricklaying I was horrified to see the the lack of mortar between the back of the bricks. I took some picture and emailed to Dechellis and then hired a good Building Inspector who advised that in addition to a Brickwork Inspection - I urgently needed a report on the already paid for Wall & Roof Framing work. Subsequently 4 weeks later (and 3 more inspections after the initial Wall & Roof Framing inspection) - I finally achieved sign off that the Wall & Roof Framing workmanship was compliant with the Onkaparinga Council approved plans.

I hate to think what serious defects would have been covered over had I not hired a Licenced Building Inspector when I did. I still have copies of all Building Inspections, photos of the initial bricklaying workmanship and correspondence to and from the Builder to back up my expressed concerns.
In the end I have a nice house
I had to fight Dechellis right through the build process to get quality workmanship

After three year build process which was a headache from the start. Promised so much but got so little. no communication what so ever. felt like an owner builder poor workmanship and poor professionalism
Terrible salesman terrible site manager
Refusing to come back and fix problems (lots) not just little problems
Regret building with this builder have built for homes previous with other builders with no problems.

We approached Dechellis with our own design and was told by the sales lady that is was similar to the Frome...its not, I told her that I preferred my own design and she said that she would do it as a redesigned Frome, the quote came in as a modified Frome/custom design at 271m2 costing 10,216 over the frome base price which was fine as we were adding a further 17.08m2, however underneath was a further cost of 10,223 for additional 17.08m2 and a redesign fee of 2715.00, correct me if I'm wrong surely the custom designed area was for the plan I gave so I don't understand why we were being charge twice. Also we brought our own design...why was the redesign fee so high, I appreciate that plans need to be done but we had own! Upon questioning the sales lady she told me that's the way it had been sent back from the design team so that was that...even though she said it looked confusing, that's the way it was, she couldn't even be bothered to have the quote in front of her when she called me. I called the sales manager to seek an explanation to see why an area adjustment needs to be done for a custom design..he was arrogant and said that's the way it was, never even looked at the quote or design. We decided to walk away from Dechellis which is a shame as they were the builder we really wanted to build with....unfortunately they are a bit up themselves and are living on there previous reputation.

Wish we'd had the opportunity to experience the other same great service the other reviewers had.

getting answers from the sales people

We chose the Wild Orchid by Dechellis after over 2 years of looking at display homes, and researching builders. The design was perfect for our needs - although the display home as displayed was out of our budget range, the sales consultant was excellent and worked very hard to help us modify, and we are extremely happy with the end result. Our research on Dechellis as a builder, was very positive, which was important for us as first time builders. From the beginning, Dechellis was approachable and understanding and if an issue arose (as they will no matter who you build with I imagine!!) it was dealt with in a timely fashion and to our satisfaction.
Our site supervisor was brilliant, he made himself available to us at every stage of the build and was extremely knowledgeable and co-operative. He truly had our best interests in mind as he understood that customer satisfaction was paramount to Dechellis' reputation, something that we felt the bigger building companies had forgotten.
Our experience with Dechellis was extremely positive and we completely love our new home.
Build time (7 months), design and approachability of site supervisor
None. Pleasantly surprised at the smoothness of the process. Thank you!

handover was july, 2009. we are so happy with every aspect from initial enquiry to handover. tradesman care about quality of work, work with owners extremely well. building supervisor the absolute best Tony. no complaints only accolades for Dechellis A+++
what they say is what you get, quality all the way

This project was the 2nd time I have built a new home, but the first time I've used Dechellis Homes as the builder. The reason for choosing Dechellis was as much as anything else the quick response times we received from the sales person we dealt with.
All dealings with Dechellis were very professional and efficient and the end result was an excellent home built very efficiently and without any problems.
Our site building manager (David) was very easy to deal with. He always answered my phone calls and he always delivered the things he said he would do, when he would do them.
I would recommend building a new home with Dechellis Homes and I will probably build with them again in the future.

From day one building of our house with Dichellis we had high level of confidence. Visited lots of home displays and decision was actually very easy.Great designs and striking quality were very hard to match by other builders. Building process were prompt. Had change of site manager but it did not disrupt project. As a matter of fact everything went even better. Customer service and support during building was very good. On handover there was a couple of minor faults which were adressed very proptly with no hesitation. Would deffinately build with them again. Well done Dechellis Homes

We built with Dechellis Homes in 2019 and wanted to provide a snapshot of our experience, in the hope this would help someone looking for a builder they can trust and be comfortable with.

Unfortunately our experience was not overly positive.

Pre-Build:
Sales person we dealt with was very knowledgeable, he did work hard for us, but unfortunately by the end of the process he was unprofessional & rude, telling us we were one of his worst clients and we ended up dealing with the office team from then on. (I should have backed out at that point)

Be mindful that they never itemised anything, so you don't really know how much things like linen cupboards cost and any changes unless you end up adding them after your first initial sign up. (We decided to get alot of items upfront to get a better understanding of total cost, but unfortunately this meant we didn't have a break down) I understand why they do this, but can be challenging to see how much these extras cost. Once at selections it is more transparent when upgrading. Their standard range is generally ok, but we found ourselves upgrading alot. In fact over 100k in upgrades!

Air Conditioner Promo:
Be aware they state in the promotion that the Air Conditioner will "suit their home from our builder’s standard range" A word of warning that the air conditioner will be slightly under powered for the home and will not be suitable for 100% cover. Our promo air conditioner was only suitable for 75% of the house coverage at any given time. 16kw cooling for a 246 square metre house.

Supervisor:
First supervisor was hopeless - had so many problems & poor workmanship not picked up. Subpar build & delays not managed.

He was terminated and got a new supervisor near the end of my build. Poor bloke was overworked fixing issues.

Quality of finish:
Slab is extremely uneven. Some parts of the house you can put a straight edge down and you can put your finger underneath the straight edge. The is evident across most of the house where there are large dips or lumps in the slab.

Be mindful of this if building through Dechellis Homes. They have themselves covered in their "standard build pack" where it states "The builder anticipates that the concrete floor will be carpeted by the owner. Accordingly blemishes are to be expected.

The flooring was not suitable for the floating timber floor I had installed after, due to the uneven slab. Even on carpet there are humps you can feel. This is a direct result of a poorly laid slab. The installer couldn't believe how bad the slab was! Be warned that if you build through Dechellis that you will need to ensure that you include costs to level the slab after the build to avoid these issues. This is not the responsibility of the carpet/floor board installer.

Would this be the case if I went through Dechellis Homes to do the carpet and floating timber flooring? Would they have fixed the slab before installing the flooring? I will never know!

Other issues include
-Fridge measurements incorrect size to plan its 965mm instead of 1000mm - no way to fix.

- Cavity sliders installed incorrectly. Have had issued on a few doors since hand over. They have tried to fix, but when you close the dual cavity doors they roll back about 5-10cm, no matter how much I try to close them, they keep rolling back.

-Sliding door was not installed correctly - not square. They tried to fix by adjusting the wheels underneath, but still not square and door scrapes along the track. The company that supplied the doors said that they were not installed correctly. (Probably didn't help that these doors were left in the mud for weeks, as they arrived late and the carpeter took a long time to come back and install.)

REPAIRS
Get them to fix before hand over. I have been in 6 months and still waiting for items to be fixed. Slow in responding to requests.

To their credit most issues addressed have been fixed.

The list of issues continue, but unfortunately I have hit the word limit.

the sales consultant down south was brilliant,I made heaps of changes to the standard plan.Some meetings he made them on the spot ,facinating to see your dream on autocad before your eyes appearing as your speaking to him.It was a bit like watching a kid play with rubiks cube.
The standard specification is fantastic, no games.I shopped hard and was
shocked to learn from some other builders I approached that things like flyscreens on sliding doors were extra,different color window frames were extra and different style panel lift doors were extra,gutters and fascias were painted not colorbond, front entry door only semi solid etc etc. Not so at dechellis,its all included and top quality,even the overhead cupboard were included and a flat extended benchtop and dishwasher provision and heaps more.I was blown away.Even after I signed up, I kept making more plan changes before I was happy,satisified & ready to sign off on them and they never came back and asked for more money.Cant wait to start selections.My sales consultant said its huge and I will be sent to lots of suppliers.My friends who have built with them before have confirmed this, telling me its not like other builders who have a very small selection,in an area the size of a garage and it has to be done in a few hours take it or leave it.This I had confirmed to by sales consultants from other builders when popping into there display homes for color ideas.
transparent, honest,great communication and guidance by the sales consultant,great service.No Whooha.When I shopped the builders, some said 25 k promotions sign now.I said can I have the cash discounted instead and other builders said sure,you can have 8k cash.Thanks,thats all it was really worth,and it didnt go far,cos the garage wasnt even included in the base price so If I wanted the garage i had to forfeith the promotion,I got nothing.At dechellis they gave me the best price and it was.
nothing, well done and thankyou.

Haven't signed contracts yet been given run around for past 10 months and still waiting for final contract price ,it's like they are doing us a favor by building for us. Very poor service and Communication from sales man seems we are always chasing him. We told him from day one we are renting and costing money and we need to start building asap but here we are 10 months later, i agree With the previous comments of dechellis being up themselves we are on the verge of going with another builder which means we loose $2000.
Great display homes

Dechellis built our home which is called the Woodside Living Area: 278.88m2 Garage Area: 57.26m2 Total m2: 352.50m2 Home Width: 25.29m Home Depth: 20.69m. It is our retirement home and it has taken our life saving to build it. Our kitchen was design and installed by Sampina joinery at Newton and I have never met such unprofessional company they design our kitchen with a useless cupboard with a small door that you could not put a handle onto it because if you did you could not open the cutlery draw so they turn the door a around and now it dose not close properly because of the dishwasher, at the end of the breakfast bar the was a square cavity the size of a cupboard but you could not get into it was a square box when we contacted Dechellis about the problem they told us we are not building a Jag kitchen and we had to pay Dechellis $150.00 to put a door and a shelf under the breakfast bar and they let us off the $200.00 admin fee because of a miss communication with Sampina Joinery, in June 2011 we I sent off all the appliances specifications information to Sampina Joinery and on 8th December 2011 after handover our appliances went in our stove was ment to sit on a plinth well that did not happen Sampina Joinery change there mind, our dishwasher dose not fit cavity properly and the workmanship is very poor and when I contact Dechellis site supervisor it fell on deaf ears.
Things started happening one thing after a another the Site supervisor was sacked, they had to pull down a hole brick walls and rebuild it, the 2 bay windows out the front of the house where two rows of brick short and the 2 small roof had to come off and it sat like that for 6 weeks the insulation went from pink to white, the tile at the end of the bath did not line up the same at each end and had to be replaced, our new site supervisor kept justifying bad workmanship and dose not want to know I asked him to get back to us and we haven’t hear a word.
We are still waiting on engineering reports because we called in an independent Building Diagnostic Inspection and he went over the house and found thing that we would never have seen or thought to look for
We have never had a receipt for any payment we made, it was debit into there account.
They do build a good show home to suck you in and to win awards but you never get the quality unless you buy a show home.
The big rooms
You have no rights or say and they will not compromise when you building with this company

our house started 3 months ago, and handover due in around 6 weeks. been super fast, and great quality. there were a few hiccups at quoting stage and pre start, but what builder doesnt, but it was nothing too major. we did have a complaint and they were generous $$$ in resolving it. since build start, which was one whole month earlier than planned, everything has been smooth sailing, not a problem
beautiful houses, nice finishing touches, value for money, lots of inclusions
have to be on the ball and on top of everythin, but this is the case with any builder

We browsed the web and found that this business has an active Facebook page. We have discovered that this business has SSL (secure sockets layer), which means that this business handles your data, such as personal information or credit card details, with secure connection. We discovered that the domain for this business is relitevely new, which means that it could be a start-up business that does not yet have a huge amount of customers. We found that this business has an Instagram page, where they communicate with their customers using images and videos. This is usually an indication that the business has some visual aspects that it wants to showcase.