Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jun 05, 2017 10:33 pm Hi There, I am building home for the first time and i am searching for builders and struggling what to do. Can someone please advise me points to remember when talking to builders? Also, if someone can help me with ideas what are the things should i include with builders which is worth doing it rather than finding somebody outside doing the same job. Re: Building home first time 2Jun 07, 2017 4:01 pm Hey Ravi Congratulations on joining in on the new home build journey! I feel like a bit of a veteran after taking about 12-18 months to date with our build journey (i.e. decided to build our own home new rather than buy). That said, we probably still don't know what we are doing. Things that helped me along the way... 1. we decided early on we wanted to take advantage of the concept of passive solar design principles in our home... i.e. orientation of rooms, the house, the solar panel harvesting capacities, etc. This was learned from yourhome.gov.au... a good starting resource. 2. I can't plug this guy enough but his website at anewbuild.com.au is simply amazing. A complete walk-through of all aspects of building from pre-build to during the build to post-build. Again, a great starting point without missing any important elements. 3. finally... somehow I stumbled onto homeone forums (I think because I wanted to get reviews of Dixon Homes (our builder) from memory)... and then found out that there are hundreds of people in the same boat as us with regarding to finding our feet with building our own home. Most of us on here are building forever homes... so take that into account with how you want your home. 4. watched and critiqued all the silly things - home TV program builders do and don't do.. i.e. on The Block.. or on Better Home and Gardens.. and flipping and reno programs. Specific to our situation.. we live in a small town -- so choice of builders is limited to local ones. We went to Dixon Homes first because they have a big conspicuous sales office in town. We initally felt - has national corporate backing.. but is still franchisee so still local knowledge. Whilst in hindsight, I did think... maybe should have explored other builders, but realistically.. we were pretty sold by the friendly down-to-earth, absolutely respectful attitude of our sales guy and the rest of the team. He answered all our 'dumb' non-tradie questions about building without a fuss, did not treat us like 'you don't know anything'. He has built a house himself too.. so we felt he knew what we are going through as well in all our decision making. He didn't make us feel like we were just another consumer on their corporate sales chart targets. Otherwise, in conclusion, and hopefully to partially answer your other questions... what to include with a builder.. is sometimes up to the builder - some wont budge and say 'no we have to build it'... others are more flexible... also consider that what ever you want to have done outside of the builder... they have to negotiate time to get into the property... because in most places, the builder has the perogative to ensure WHS is maintained.. which means having independent contractors coming in... they may not want to manage that liability... especially if it gets complicated? - and therefore, refuse access to outside contractors finally consider that what ever you want to have done outside the builder... you need to negotiate this on top of the negotiations you have with the builder on its own. this could be easy or hard. for us, this seemed daunting and unnecessary stress. we valued "turn-key" ready house over a house nearly complete and then have tilers come in post-handover to finish tiling or flooring... that said... read through a few threads... I have read quite a few myself which pretty much covered all the different scenarios and variations there of what to include during the main build and what to out-source afterwards. I hope this is a good starting point answer for you. to be fair, I would imagine you have lots more specific questions! all the best, and I hope this was somewhat helpful! Follow our first house build here! -> https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=86484 Soak wells and electrical run in happening this week! Summit has told me they will relocate the laundry plumbing after the walls are completed. I'm actually pretty happy… 13 36876 Can anyone give me any onfo on New Homes WA? Good or bad, hopefully good just need to know if my choice was good or not? Thanks ❤️ 0 9542 Cant give recommendations in general with that builder, but during the colour selection, this is honestly personal preference. Depends on the style you want. Do you want… 1 621 |