Browse Forums Renovation + Home Improvement Re: $50,000 and $500,000 renovation question? 8Oct 26, 2011 7:56 pm Do we need a Australia qualified draftsman or architect for any council submission? If not, I could save heap for my architect friend works in Singapore and they charge much less compare to Australia. Re: $50,000 and $500,000 renovation question? 9Oct 27, 2011 7:56 am " Do we need a Australia qualified draftsman or architect for any council submission? " No, but he does need to know the local council regulations, BCA regs and some state laws as well to make sure the DA goes through. Stewie Re: $50,000 and $500,000 renovation question? 10Oct 27, 2011 9:10 am dstme but to weight in on whether re-building the whole place or just extension on the 2nd floor. What you can do is the following: Work out how much room you will be building by removing the top level and re building that (I'll list an example below) Then work out how much area your lower level is and add the 2 together. Example: New top floor = 80m2 80 x 2750(low end of costing for extension) = $220000 If your bottom level is 120m2 then you total area would be 200m2 If you work with a figure of $1150m2 (which is what house will come in at) a new house would cost you around $230000 Remember that your new level is going to cost $220k and you haven't touched the lower level at all. And it looked like you were going to do new kitchen and bathroom + remove walls. That will IMO add at at least $50k to the job if you have to pay for someone else to do it all. dstme Plus I need to find a very reasonable builder, draftsman and structural engineer for the job. Usually you can get the builder to do all of the drafting and engineering. Its really only worth the hassle if you plan on owner building as each builder will have people they like to use and get a standard list of drawing from. dstme If not I may get a run-down place and build from scratch. It's really a though decision. Just to get some perspective: The house I knocked down was 18yrs old and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact I was told by a few people that I was stupid, greedy and just trying to be a show off by knocking it down. They didn't believe the sh1t that you have to go through to get quotes for extensions and the actual cost of them. I'm pretty sure one of our "friends" didn't think that building codes or permits actually exist and its just a council rort. It was just too small for us and we loved the area and street we were in. The cost of extending was more (after all factors were put together) than knocking down and rebuilding. Regardless of how good your current building is, you need to look at the cost of your extension + renovation of existing areas + maintenance of the existing structure going forward. Maintenance was a big factor for us as all of the companies we spoke to would only put like existing (i.e old and need replacing anyway) for the new extension. If we replaced the rest of the house with new fittings they would charge extra to match the new extension fittings. I cannot stress this enough: Spend some time working out how much area the new top level will cover and how much area your existing lower level covers Do some figures (or send them to me and I'll give you a guide to work with) and see where you look like being at financially before you get your heart set on anything. This will be a big decision purely from a money standpoint let alone emotions. You'll have to spend some money and you're better off just marking it as burnt and a necessary cost than trying to scrimp and save on the early costs. Trust me it won't even matter at the end of the project. I'll see if I can put together a quick spread sheet for you to compare and add up potential costs on both sides of the coin. Keep an eye on your PM inbox. Staircases and sausages. Should thou wish to keep thy palate sweet for sausages, avert thine eyes from their crafting. 14 4839 That sucks! Hope it all works out. Good to move away from steel anyway for all your reasons, but it's also thermally poor. 16 18361 As is per usual for many of the past failed RWH regulations, it is probably traceable to a bureaucrat who's ego overrode the need to seek the appropriate expert… 1 1419 |