geebus, I've been watching the Site Inspection yt channel, it's a guy who does inspections of new houses. It is making me rethink the outer suburbs that were built in the 60s and 70s. Those houses might not be modern and in Boronia or Melton but at least they were built properly with the correct materials.
I don't know enough about it but it seems there is rampant corruption, there is use of unqualified labour being paid under the table, non spec construction materials smuggled into the country .
Anything new made with concrete scares me now, I've seen how they use rubbish as filler or foundations. One place even had fake permeable concrete paths.
And it's not cheap, people are paying $500,000 and more just to be ripped off.
I live in Melton and when we had the termite man come out he was really impressed with the way our house was built. Plenty of room under the house, lots of ventilation, no damp spots etc. He said that he rarely has problems up here because of the way the houses are built. By comparison some of the worst and most frequent call outs he had was around Bundoora and Greensborough areas.
At a family lunch one of my rich hoighty toighty cousins was boasting about her soon-to-be-built $750,000 house in some new sparkly pop-up suburb of Brisbane and one of my uncles, a man of many trades, told her she was a fool for it all and her parents to for encouraging it. Hilariously he went on to predict every problem she's had to date with the house.
My partner is obsessed with those videos. We have a 70s house in the outer suburbs and tradies always comment how solidly well built it is. I once lived in a new build and the front door, even when locked, would often just… pop open 🙃
Been watching these, I think someone here must have linked him? But it's scary to see the absolute incompetence, lack of ethics and general greediness of builders.
Building has standards for a reason and they rely on the fact that most people aren't gonna notice untightened bolts behind the plasterboard, incorrect gutter locations, or uncovered gaps between surfaces on the roof. You end up paying through the nose for guaranteed mould exposure and rotting carpets.
So I've been watching a few more videos. It's starting to really upset. So many people ripped off. This is where they live or hoped to live, paid for with really hard earned money. 😭
Thanks for mentioning this, I love this sort of thing. I liked the US guy who checks foundations and retaining walls and posts on Imgur but always wanted some local content. Mr Peeler had a job in demolition later in life, and used to decry the awesome classic solidly built houses that were razed to the ground in order to hastily and shoddily assemble crappy townhouses and dog box units.