A momentous week of last minute clarifications and finally the dreaded signature on a contract where we've committed to building a Dale Alcock Homes (DAH) design of for a 5 bed, 2 bath, 2 car garage home SOR in Rossmoyne.

Both the missus and I found common ground in the features that sold us in the initial house design, named the "Archipelago" (display house in Alkimoss, WA), where the entry from garage was past the laundry, key drop-zone (all the keys and stuff brought in could go), large kitchen (4x4) facing the backyard and open family area and all the main windows/sliders faced North (part of that good solar design).

The modifications we made were relatively minor, mostly an expansion in the garage to extend to an angled parapet wall along the boundary (for the store), and adjustment to the rear of the house to accommodate the fifth bedroom, losing out on linen space, but swapping that with the loss of the fancy wine store (of which I'm not claiming to be a cultured wine drinker, so the conversion to linen storage was fine with me).

Other than those changes, we were very pleased at the time of obtainnig the preliminary quote with the cost of the build, what with the general building industry down in the crappers in mid 2011. Dale Alcock's upgrade package options were a real winner with us, but of course, they're never worth the full amount claimed. Yet ignore the fact you'll never come out ahead here, but that the builder will take the headache off your hands puts it all into perspective.

Upgrade items included 30mm ceaserstone benchtops to the kitchen, and another package to extend the ceaserstone benchtops to all remaining benchtops in two bathrooms, the laundry and key drop zone. Insulation package was modified to limit the permicav wall insulation to only the west elevation and replace with Anticon 55 for the roof as it's a tin roof, and that will definitely help with the upgraded R4.0 insulation in the ceiling. Shelving package was taken as we now have 5 bedrooms to be fitted out and it was worth the upgrade for this alone. There were other packages, but the home insulation, shelving and stone benchtops throughout were our picks for value adds to the home.

We added in the E-Vents x 2 for the roof instead of whirlybirds, expensive but there's no moving parts, so no maintenance hopefully. Effectiveness probably would be better with some eave vents but I'll review it after we move in.

Always make sure you get additional 20+ DGPOs (double GPOs) as we ended up with 30 on top of the standard allowance. One can never have enough power points, what with all the technology we have to have today. As part of that, maybe a consideration to go solar would be in order, but that's for another time.

Took out the solar Hot Water System for a large credit to go with standard gas HWS, as we're sticking with gas cooking instead of the trend with electric cooktops, therefore gas supply wouldn't be a problem.

Got raped on the upgrade to the front door IMHO, apparently there is a -huge- price difference between glazed doors from DAH. Upgrading a single glazed door with 4 large glazed panels to 8 smaller glazed panels was an additional excess which I had to laugh at myself for getting sucked into. Lesson : be specific when you ask for a particular glazed door, and not get stung on PreStart after .

Finalized the earthworks, after a long stint waiting on Council approval (due to xmas/new years break) to clarify on exact extent of works. Site's mostly level, but lower than the road, so had to raise the slab a fair bit, which meant deeper footings - ie extra cost.

Pics to follow. Am hoping to get the slab down before end of February 2012 as what DAH has indicated.

Cleared Block by JAG Demolition in December 2012. Ready to go now!

Note the asbestos fencing typical in Rossmoyne, used in that era around the property boundary. Demo did a good job, didn't damage any of the fence panels when they took out the trees/roots.

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looks like very big block.

CC101,

It's over 800sqm. Alot of blocks in Rossmoyne are zoned R17.5, so their blocks naturally are large, and not readily subdivisible.

Considering that it's part of City of Canning, if you look throughout that "City" boundary, you'll find that other suburbs like Cannington surrounds would support much higher densities (eg. R30/40), due to proximity to other infrastructure or amenities (eg. albany hwy commercial, welshpool industrial areas).

Nearby Shelley is zoned more R20 or higher, so it lends itself to more subdivisions. Rossmoyne is more the 'demolish and rebuild' mob.

Looking good aquanoob - I did a demo and re-built with DAH as well - moved in the house last year currently waiting for the Money fairy to visit me so I can finish the outdoors...

Do you have the modified plans yet? Must be so exciting for you to be so close to get started... I know I was

Talking about the upgrades and getting "raped" - we missed all together on the promotion running at the time as we combined two plans to fit our wide land so they called it "special" and gave us nothing... They didn't have such good offers at the time but still it was the glass splashback, integrated microwave, integrate dishwasher and pull out bins...

I'm still holding a grudge with my sales rep on that and a few other points...

Our land is almost 900sqm but it has a very wide frontage and shorter depth and a drop of 1.4m from left to right... Love the space but had to put retaining walls which chewed our budget pretty quickly...

Anywho - good luck and enjoy the ride - I'll keep an eye on your thread - it's going to be fun watching

Bagheera,

I feel for you. Yeah, we were lucky to get those offers, which we paid 'extra' for, but I looked at it from the 'whole package' cost, rather than just the 'extras', to value what we were getting.

We have built with DAH before in 2000, and we've had no issues with them before, and I think this was what made us go back, I know in our investigation with different designs, even though this one was near $30k over the nearest other builder, the fact was that:
1) they did a good build for us before;
2) their handover and followup fixes were fine (from what I recall) - note I didn't have access to homeone before to put up historical notes and going-ons;

At that time in 2000, our house price build was only sub $160k, this time round, we're more than DOUBLE that... talk about cost inflation hey! But to be fair, back then, there were no 'ceaserstone', fancy ceilings, built in robes etc, plus, that house was much smaller than this one - so in the scheme of things, we felt that this was a 'fair deal'.

We did get the glass splashback, and also got the full height tiling in all the WC, powder room, bathrooms, and the Euro pull out bin... similar to yours.

I think 'raped' is too harsh a word in retrospect , a more PC phrase would be 'we felt the Dale Alcock had overcharged excessively on an upgrade item' - and after investigating with corinthian doors, doors plus etc, I stand by that 'violated feeling'

We've got a low level block with respect to the road, which we've then had to raise our slab up almost 300mm and required additional deeper footings, the cost of earthworks went up a few thousand. I feel that it was the right move not to commit to building until I got all these 'Provisional Sums' of Siteworks clarified, so I would not be 'surprised' with any cost blowouts.

So now, the only item that's provisional is the relocation of the Water Meter - either a $400 slug for shifting it up to 500mm from current location (to accommodate the driveway) or $1,200 thereabouts to move it further than that. It's a fixed cost from Water Corporation, so there's no 'hidden charges'.

Our outdoors alfresco and driveway will be using the Grandpave 330 x 330 aggregate pavers as part of the inclusion in the build (instead of the 200x200 stuff). Would have preferred poured aggregate, but nearly sh*t myself when the cost came through. So missus and I will stay with that for a few years until we scrounge up the money to 'upgrade' (if ever).

I'm saving to get some gear for home grown fish and veg instead cut back on those food bills.
I traded that 'aquaponics hobby' for a pool with the missus *I think she got the better deal*

hehehe - got that aquanoob hence me putting the word in inverted commas...

Great,

Updated the electricals with PreStart, took all of 5mins.

Thankfully, the final drawing preparations hadn't reached the electricals point yet, so was able to make those last minute (as you do) changes without any cost impact. As it was, the changes were all about relocating existing points - and not, as PreStart had feared, a whole new layout.

In this repsect, DAH was very accommodating.

Looking forward to a plan

Nice area too

You buy the land and then demolish ( or live in it ) ?


Either way good luck

Thanks Echo,

Am waiting on the builder to reply on query if I can publish our plans.
Bought the block, demolished for building a new home. Never lived in it.
Good news was that there was a pool previously and when the place got detonated, the pool was removed, but asked them to leave the hole as is, so that it's easier to put the new pool in (pretty much in the same spot).

Hi. We're looking at doing a demolish and build with DA (prob a version of the nautilus). Can you tell me what your demo costs where? I think we've been given ball park figures of about $14-16k. Also did you have any big trees to remove? I think we will organize our demo ourselves though...

Cheers. Oh and I hope everything continues to run smoothly for your build.

hi Deadlawn,

Nice design the Nautilus (bear in mind some ppl talking about insufficient downpipes etc for the back in other thread).
We organised our own demo (which did include a humungous palm tree stump 1.5m tall in the back corner of the property and also another 0.5m stump about 1m diameter near the rear fence). These were -gratefully- removed without any damage to the fences!! I was ecstatic.

JAG demolition did the job for us in the end, and it was slightly LESS than the $14-16k you're talking about (less than the lower figure). Demo job is also based upon what you've currently got in the existing house, the more they can salvage, the less it cost ya. I got a smaller demo going on, and that's an asbestos job, and the cost is -higher- as compared to what I paid for this demo (which had some timber floorboards .

If you have septic/leach drains, you've got to get that sorted out too, and get a pumping certificate to show the works' done. Further, check that the site's been properly cleared.

Good luck on your journey! Let me know when you start your thread, always good to share the stories dealing with the DAH builder.

Hope your memory is good, do you remember how much? We are about to sign on with DAH, very early stages and these vents look great. Just want to add it to 'the list'

$638 for 3 when we signed up beginning of 2011

we have the e-vents through DAH...they were cheaper then whirly birds...can't remember the price though! It is in the big file somewhere! But it was only slightly more expensive to have 2 e-vents then it was to have 1 whirly bird...and they work better (we needed 4 whirly birds to do the job of 2 e-vents) and they look so much better! I just put a pic up on my thread where you can see them...just!

Can't wait to see your plans! Have you asked Jemima (who is the media girl from DAH on here) if you can post them up?
House sounds fantastic!
Hope the build starts soon! And it is as smooth as the first build with them!

Our price for 3 of these (not 2) was $900+ in the 2nd half of 2011. I find that hard to believe inflation could cause DAH to a 50% increase in price within a few months.

Maybe the size of the e-vents make a difference? Or do they come in a standard size only? If I bother to check, I might just feel worse .

Maybe they'll make up for it later on? Fingers crossed.

Not sure if they come in a standard size. Ours would be a bit over a metre in length I'd guess but that's without measuring.

Hello everyone.

Just to say you can contact me any time with anything and everything to do with building your home. From questions about materials, timings and design ideas to communication or any concerns you have, all you need do is drop me a PM or a direct email and I'll be on to it right away.

In the meantime I shall continue to follow the progress of your builds - I hope everything is going well for you all?

Best regards,

Jemima.

Just got the call from our allocated SS, Blake -- so now we're into Construction officially. Yay!

Got some bad news about the solar that it the house won't be wired up in time for the installation of the solar where the rebate drops again in June 30 this year. Oh well, that was a wish too far I guess, due to the delays in getting to construction.

On the brighter note, the pool installation shouldn't be a problem, even though the SS does not 'normally allow any works done prior to handover'. I advised that the pool installers would not be damaging any part of the house/slab as it's installed pretty far away (if he saw the plans) - so it became less of an issue. Further, I made it clear to the Sales Consultant that I had a pool (DAH already drew it on the plans submitted to Council) to be installed and had confirmed that DAH would not have a problem allowing my contractor to go put it in. [we wouldn't have built with DAH otherwise]

SS sounds businesslike, to the point, so I hope everything goes that way, and no delays are expected.

any idea how much is the rebate now and how much will be from 30 june onwards.