DON'T!
Goes by the name of Energy Efficient Homes now. A one-star rating is too much for Robert Whitehouse and this company. Be very, very wary before signing anything! EEH required payment upfront so you're financially committed before you see any results. That's a big red flag and we missed it.
EEH had agreed to update a set of building plans for us so that our new home would be energy efficient. Whitehouse is very good at selling the benefits of working with his company. He gave us a timeframe of a month to do the work required. This aligned with other quotes we'd received but EEH could then build our home too and that's why we ended up going with them.
ESTIMATES: We asked the company to provide build estimates upfront to ensure we had the budget to work with them. Whitehouse seemed very keen to work outside of Christchurch yet neglected to mention that their estimate was based on a standard Christchurch-build and didn't take into account any of the additional expenses required for a Twizel-based build. We didn't find this part out until well after 3 months into the work. BIG RED FLAG!
TIMEFRAME: Took 6 months to do the work that they said would take a month.
THE PLANS: The WINDOWS were missing from the detailed drawing sets! Recessed windows that needed drawing details to show Council how this would work given it was not part the standard NZ Building Code method. EEH simply "forgot" to include them despite having received the details from us 6 weeks prior to submission. It became apparent that EEH hadn't actually reviewed any of the information about the window joinery we'd sent them. We called them on it and demanded a better response and a bit of action.
COMMUNICATION: Expect: lots of delays, responses that don't quite answer your question, everyone else will be blamed (including you and excepting EEH), to hear about customers who don't listen to Whitehouse's advice, emails that go un-responded to, important details relayed by phone and not written down. Expect that YOU will need to be proactive and chase the company to follow-up on progress (or lack thereof). Invoices will always arrive on time though!
WORK ETHIC: despite advising it would take a month to do our initial phase of work, over a 6-month period, there were whole billing periods where nothing was being done by EEH. Expect to be told, "your job will be ready in two to three days" only to then find out a few days later that there is actually a much bigger chunk of work that needs to be done first. Our brief wasn't complex. Their website, Whitehouse's spiel, all assure you that they have the team, expertise and experience to make your build a streamlined process. Even a custom project (albeit a simple design with four corners and one roofline!) That is far from the experience we got when dealing with the company - thank goodness we pulled the ejection cord at the stage they failed to complete the plans and put things right. I can only imagine what building with them would have been like. While we dodged a bullet there, we still took plenty of fire from Whitehouse in the aftermath.
RESOLUTION: We finally called time on the company’s excuses and delays. All we got were lies, disconnected phone calls, unwillingness to resolve the issues, unwillingness to comply with the CGA, unwillingness to release work that had been paid for, personal attacks, more lies. Standing up for yourself is reframed as being abusive. EEH told us to go elsewhere or wait perhaps 6 months for the work to be finished. So we had to walk away. We’d lost 6 months, lost over $8,000 and had to start again with a new designer. More time, a lot more money. During the eventual Disputes Tribunal process, just about all we heard from Whitehouse was lie after lie – but the lies were told so well that in the end our case was dismissed. The evidence we presented didn’t matter. No consolation to us that the Referee was as taken in by the lies as we were to start with.
We hope our cautionary tale saves someone else going through such a miserable ordeal as we have. Please don’t let it be you!