Anyone used Whitehouse Builders in Christchurch?

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Batman

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#2317029 13-Sep-2019 10:05

i strongly recommend about 6 months after living in your brand new house you get a building inspection done, and do that every 3 years esp just before the builder guarantee is over.

LostBoyNZ

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#2317072 13-Sep-2019 11:10

Very, very good advice on getting the building inspections done (and the importance of a 10 year guarantee). I bet that's a case of a little money spent could save a ton of money / headaches.

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Paul1977

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#2317141 13-Sep-2019 13:36

If you are going down that route, might make more sense to do the first one at 11 months as there is generally a 12 month maintenance period after handover which will cover more than the 10 year Masterbuild guarantee.

E.g. popped nails probably only covered for 12 months.

Batman

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#2317305 13-Sep-2019 17:59

make sure the inspector has a thermal imaging or whatever best method to check for leaks

while i was renting in chch my neighbour made a major insurance claim because his kitchen pipe burst and flooded the entire living area. his house was about 5 years old at that time.

i wouldn't say that chch had a building boom in 2004 ... hmm ...

Gussy1990

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#2324367 25-Sep-2019 09:28

humvee:

LostBoyNZ: <p>We're looking to get our first build a little out of Christchurch. So far we're really most impressed with the showhome and general attitude of Whitehouse Builders.

I'm sorry I did not see your post sooner. We did not end up building with Whitehouse builders..... Thank God for that.

We were going to build with them. Contracted them to to take our plans through the consents, and paid them quite a bit of money for this. but they stuffed this up so badly and luckily we saw this before we had signed on the dotted line for the entire build.

Our case ended up in disputes tribunal with Robert Whitehouse trying to claim over 220% of what had been quoted and agreed.

We had called the district council consenting officer as a witness in our favour at the hearing to testify in relation to how many stuffups whitehouse had made throughout the consenting process by staff that in his words "were inexperienced and out of their depth" without adequate supervision.

In the end we had to pay ~$250 over the extra what we had already offered to pay them. But this was many thousands less then they were trying to claim. We still ended up a fair bit out of pocket due to the extra consenting costs their mistakes had caused not to mention the delays and time spent of dealing with it. But to be honest we were just glad to be rid of them

Your so right about reviews you can trust being hard to find. We have heard so many bad things about Whitehouse since our dealings with them. And it's like why couldn't anyone tell us this before hand.

Robert Whitehouse can be a very smooth talker and it doesn't supprise me he has initially come across so well to you.... This is exactly what happened to us. But from there it became a case of over promise and under deliver late.

I am late to the party here too, and can't say much for commercial reasons but lets just say his charges were ridiculous, humourous, and eventually settled at cents on the dollar compared to what was sought.

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#2331138 5-Oct-2019 19:16

I commented but deleted. I'll pm the op.

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humvee

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#2331202 6-Oct-2019 07:15

Batman: I commented but deleted. I'll pm the op.

I wondered why there was no new comments when i checked after the new post notification came through

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Paul1977

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#2332450 8-Oct-2019 11:09

@LostBoyNZ

Just wondered how you were getting on with planning your house, and whether you've settled on a builder (Whitehouse or otherwise)?

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#2332453 8-Oct-2019 11:12

All I'll say is don't just write them off from the start. Maybe go and see their finished works.

LostBoyNZ

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#2333447 9-Oct-2019 16:37

@Paul1977 Good question. We've paused just for now, for family reasons, but keeping an open mind about everything :)

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humvee

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#2379195 20-Dec-2019 14:21

Looks like Whitehouse Builders have changed address and removed their google profile and set up a new one resulting in the 1 star review from myself and 3 star review from someone else being removed

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Lisa5

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#3343281 16-Feb-2025 09:56

Whitehouse Builders Christchurch rebranded under a new name Energy Efficient Homes Ltd Christchurch in 2019 soon after the Employment Relations Court Case. Presumably to distance themselves from all the problems of the past. It appears that all that has changed is the company name and Energy Efficient Homes Ltd has the same company director and QS that they had before. As Humvee says, they removed the previous Google profiles of Whitehouse Builders and in doing so removed all reviews under their earlier company names. It is interesting to note that some of these people have felt so strongly about their poor experience that they have tried to repost their reviews multiple times over.

Lisa5

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#3343347 16-Feb-2025 12:13

EDIT - Apologies, I've just seen I posted an incorrect date. Whitehouse Builders Ltd changed its name to Energy Efficient Homes Ltd in February 2024 (not 2019 as stated above) (https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/service/services/documents/2AFD50DE98CD6A6E61D8F66915982CEC)

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