Our brand new Devonshire Homes house…
We moved into our brand new Devonshire Homes house in April 2024 at Sunhouses, and we are delighted with our new home.
Here are hopefully some useful and helpful observations regarding the process from sales through to Devonshire Homes after care:
Sales Process...
We found the back and forth communication during the process of selling our own home and liaising with Devonshire Homes was very good. Sarah Hall and her sales team were attentive and flexible to our needs and wants. We found the process helped us to understand what was extra and what was included etc. Where there were any doubts, then these got resolved amicably with minimum fuss.
Build Quality...
We understand that Devonshire Homes have a reputation of building a quality house in North Devon, and that reputation significantly helped to trust that our house would be built well. However, what was extremely useful to us, was being able to take regular visits as our house as it was being built. Liaising with the sales and site team during the build process certainly assured us that we were doing the right thing as we could visibly see progress from the ground works to the completed house.
I would encourage anyone buying a new home from Devonshire Homes to do the same for houses under construction as this helped us to be reassured. For example through various visits we witnessed the timber framed walls being installed, cladded and insulated as well as the insulation under the floor being installed, and in the roof. We also saw the underfloor heating installation being fitted to the heat pump. We loved the fact that our house came complete with a heat pump as that is in line with green policies.
One thing we would have liked in addition to heat pump powered underfloor heating would have been the installation of solar panels with battery storage as well. Sadly that was not part of the design brief for any of the sunhouses development. However, the insulation quality and the heat pump tech will significantly go a long way to minimising our electricity bill. Our EPC rating is a high B (installation of solar panels would have made it top A).
On the plus side, Devonshire Homes did make good provision for electric vehicle hook up - something we will use in the future.
Moving In...
On moving into our brand new house, we found a bottle of bubbly in the fridge waiting for us and hamper of lovely local products - this was a nice touch.
It was clean inside and importantly the windows were regularly cleaned as the site was still being built and as such was dusty during the summer. This progressed during the very busy site activity as well as the road being swept and cleaned. 5-months on we have had occasional window cleaning done for us which was greatly appreciated by us.
I am hoping that Devonshire Homes will spray clean our rendering once they have finished building the houses all around us and this will be gratefully welcomed.
Aftercare Customer Services...
We have had good back and forth communication with Customer Services regarding our snagging list. And over the summer we have had the majority of our snags complete which were certainly appreciated.
My advice would be to get an ongoing spread sheet going with Customer Services (and this was in fact initiated by Customer Services). Driving ongoing snags this way is very useful as progress can be monitored. My other advice is to be proactive by regular contact with Customer Services to manage your snags and get them expedited quickly in a timely fashion. We found Emails back and forth were less effective than simply calling Devonshire Homes Customer Services. And to be fair they always answer the phone and are polite and understanding.
Our moving in pack was helpful, but incomplete in our opinion. However the heating aspect was excellent as the system was complex due to it being a zoned heat pump system with thermostat controllers in each zone. But the instructions were very useful for us to get our heating system set up as we wanted it and to optimise our ongoing costs. I do consider that the house info pack from Devonshire Homes Customer Services could have been significantly improved as there was a lot more that could be given in terms of house maintenance etc. However, following our conversations with Customer Services this issue was acknowledged (which was helpful) and more importantly is now being addressed and we will be given and updated manual soon. This will be very welcome.
Final thoughts...
As mentioned in the opening sentences we are delighted with our new Devonshire Homes house. We have a slick, modern, extremely 'green' and highly efficient house. The whole sunhouse development is outstanding, with exciting architecture, balconies and with a south facing aspect. All our friends say, "wow!" when they visit us.
9 oktober 2024
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