Building in SA!

well i think we can also join , we bought a piece of land in MountBarker. And we're building the siena215 with Sterling. we had the settlement of land this month, 14-01-09 ( don't know how long we need to wait b4 they start the footings) looking 4ward to finish the house because its too damn expensive renting and paying the mortgage.

Hi All,


I'm Danny, i signed the contract with sterling on 7nov08. we are building in Mt. Barker, Blue Stone village ( our 1st home)
I received the engineering report and variation cost with 17,88.00 with the original quote of 12k with reports of:

1-piers & double mesh added over rear of foundations due to placed fill.
2- soil class : H-D ( Highly reactive) P- (tree)

do you think the amount is fair enough for the additional cost of variation?

any suggestion will be appreciated.


Danny

Hi All
New to this forum but it is a great place for info. I'm thinking of buying land at Seaford Meadows. Does anyone happen to have an idea of what footings cost there? It seems pretty flat.

Also, has anyone built with Dechellis Homes?

Cheers
Deb[/b]

So I'm starting to make a little progress in the process of finding a builder, but I have some questions for you knowledgeable folks.

We're planning to demolish a house on a 18.29m x 60m block and subdivide to build 2 semidetached houses, so we're looking for pretty narrow designs. Its a sloping block with a rise from street level of about 5-6m (very approx) through the length of the block.
I've been recommended to get a contour plan of the block done to assist with working out what sort of designs are feasible. (Ie. single level, split level, two-storey etc)
I've had a look through the forum here and elsewhere and it seems that contour plans can either be around $500 or about $1500 - I assume these are different types of surveys and I'm guessing that the difference is how comprehensive the survey is.
Hence my questions:

1. Is it worth getting a more comprehensive survey done now - will it save having to do it again in the future, or does it have to be done again after the building is demolished anyway?

2. Can anyone recommend someone who can do these contour plans?

Thanks for your help.
And if anyone has any suggestions for builders that would be suitable for the above sort of houses, let me know!

SM,
I'm doing the same thing as you but my block is flat.
My builder included contour plan in their price, and I arranged for survey/pegging myself. Boundary pegging can really only be done after demolition (Pegging for my duplex cost $2300, and I'm led to believe this is around the mark. However, your sloping block may cost more?).
Budget for approx $20k for land division (if you don't have to move the existing water meter). A little more if you get a company to manage the division for you.
Chris

Thanks ChrisL. I was speaking to a guy at Homestead today who said that if we arrange the contour plan ourselves beforehand they would take it off their price if we end up building with them.

Once we get a contour plan we can approach a few companies to get designs and quotes.

Anyone have tips of who to get to do surveying? The Homestead dude suggested Koukourou, for no apparent reason, but I imagine there are plenty of others. I'm guessing that anyone that isn't completely ******* would do an adequate job?

Hi Everyone

Just thought I'd give a progress report of where we are at. We received our master plans and footings just prior to christmas. We have had to have our plans redrawn as neither us or the builder realised that our roof must be at least 24 degree pitch for our estate (standard is only 22.5) This sort of worked out well because we wanted to change our roller doors to a panel lift door anyway so now we don't have to pay the variation fee

Our plans are currently in council - arrived there just before christmas. They are just waiting on the new drawings to come through and also our colour selections for external. Our colour selections appointment is this saturday and I am very excited. I'm still working on the electrical layout - keep going over to make sure I haven't missed anything.

So we are hoping that plans will be out of council by mid February. Our council seems to be working pretty quickly. We received a letter confirming they had received our plans and then the very next day we received a letter with the things that needed to be changed/added (roof pitch, colour selections) We have also been told by our builder that our council is one of the quickest (light regional council) so lets hope this is correct.

I'm going to try and start a blog soon so will then be able to put some pics up.

edited

Thanks for the tip. What sort of price am I looking at for the custom design? (ballpark)



Thanks, I'll look them up - they must be quite close to us (Torrens Park).

We are also building in Freeling. Who are you building with sammy? We have just signed with Statesman to build on Lot 8.

How much did you footings come back at? We have allowed 30K for ours so will be interesting to see how far out they are.

Hi everyone,

Things are picking up here, thanks everyone for your lovely thoughts. I thought I had really hit rock bottom with this whole thing, poor DH has had to listen to me vent about it every single day. Poor guy, he's just as annoyed as I am, AND he gets to listen to my whinging

I 've been keeping an eye on the building more this week as the kids have started their new school down there. The brickies have really impressed me...they don't usually do our estate, he works at Aldinga mainly, but gee he's doing a great job. I can spot the difference between our brickwork and the brickwork next door, and that's saying something coz I am usually pretty clueless lol! It's so neat and tidy, I am very pleased with his work
I haven't taken any pictures yet, I feel a bit funny taking snaps while they're working (the only time I've been up there), but they've now finished just about one whole wall. Beautiful looking wall too!
I'll keep his card, we may decide to brick in the carport at a later date.

Mel, hope your inspection went well. I have been watching our next door neighbours (Hickies), as their slab went down the same time as yours. They are getting their internal doors fitted now (from what I can see through the windows ). Whenever I look in there I think of your house being at the same stage. I wonder who'll be in first?

Deb, welcome, we're building up the road in Seaford Rise. The area is lovely, I highly recommend it. Seaford Meadows is so flat and nice to build on too, I'd recommend it for sure. Our footings were $30k, but we are building on a hill. I was told that if it were flat, we'd be looking at half that. Good luck with it all

Sammy, would love to see a blog of your progress. Good luck with the colour selections and council approval

Craigandamy, another Statesman builder! Our footings were $30k, but we're building a three level split. I would imagine your budget would be realistic.

GTG, this end of the house is killing me in this heat...need to get back to the A/C!!

Hi Tamsin

Great to hear that things are happening at last
Fantastic news that you have got good brickies...ours were great too!

Are the kids settling in ok to their new school?

We had our inspection today...we got there and the SS was already there talking to the painters that have been working there all day the poor things must have been melting in that heat (luckily we had our ceiling fans installed yesterday) they had them going flat out !

We didn,t expect anybody to be working on the house today
They,ve just about finished painting the inside...just the stairs and a few bits and pieces left to do and a few things outside left to do..anyway they will be finished on Friday!
They even painted under the stairs,which the SS said that they don,t normally do,so that was a bonus!

The SS went around with us putting red dots on anything that needed fixing...nothing major,just puttying up cornice joins and a few paint touch ups.

All the door handles etc. go on tomorrow and shower screens on Monday.

Our SS is giving us a key on Saturday so that we can get our tiler to lay our tiles How good is that!

The tiling will take about 5 days and the carpet is booked for the 9th Feb.
So fingers crossed we can start moving on the 10th !

Good luck everyone with your building etc. and try to keep cool
44 deg. tomorrow...unbelievable

Cheers Mel

edited

[/quote]We are also building in Freeling. Who are you building with sammy? We have just signed with Statesman to build on Lot 8.

How much did you footings come back at? We have allowed 30K for ours so will be interesting to see how far out they are.[/quote]


Well your never going to beleive it but we're lot 31. This means we are back neighbours. You only back onto us a little bit though.

We are also building with statesman. They estimated our footings at $29K but after doing soil tests they have came in just over $20k. There was then an extra $1500 for soil removal and about $600 (i think) for wind speed. We had to provide a certificate of compaction becuase they have put some extra fill on top of our land. Since you back onto us you may also need to get this as well. But it was only a few blocks that had this done apparently so you may not. If you need the certificate the real estate guy Jeff can give it to you. By having this certificate it reduced our footings by $7k

I wondered how long blocks 8 and 9 would take to sell as they are weird shaped. What design are you building we are building the Leabrook.

Well it would be good to keep in touch throughout this building process since we are neighbours... may even bump into you out at the blocks one day

Hi , just updated my blog (but not with pics yet), as I've been up to the block this morning. So happy with the brickies, they've now made it round the corner!! We've got almost 1.5 walls done, I was expecting they'd be doing nothing in this heat, but they've been out there since 5.30 every day apparently!
We now have scaffolding on the roof! I can't believe it, after so long of nothing, it seems likes it all scooting along. We don't have our tiles delivered yet, but surely with the scaffolding up they must be expecting something soon. The brickie said that the tiles can start while the bricks are still going (I thought the bricks would have to be finished first). So, we're a bit excited that we're going to have bricks and roof very shortly, and it will resemble a real house, finally!

yolbarnes, welcome! Our brickie is also building at the point with Statesman. He said he signed in April last year and is still waiting on final footings costs etc, he hasn't been given an OK to start date yet. He's building on the slopey side, overlooking the river. Beautiful view there. I often drive through the point (we live in Hackham ATM), just to have a nosey
As you may have noticed we're in Seaford Rise, so not far. Sorry to hear you also had the long wait until construction, seems to be the way things worked with them as there was a massive boom in building. DH thinks they bit off more than they could chew , I think so too, I'm just glad it's all started now at least! I think Mel was waiting ages too (melanie02). We both signed up in July 07

Sammy_sj and craigandamy, what a small world!! You guys will be neighbours

Keep cool everyone

Fantastic news Tamsin

You have to feel sorry for them working in this heat though

It,s amazing how quickly things happen once they get going.....July 07 seems such a long time ago now!

It,s just as well that we didn,t know how long we were going to have to wait for building to start wasn,t it

I keep meaning to do a drive by past your block on the way to Seaford to do the grocery shopping,but for some reason I never leave myself enough time
When I drive over the Pedlar Ck bridge I try to have a look then....I can see a house with a frame with a red bin outside....I,m not sure if it,s yours but I,ve got it in my head that it is

Cheers everyone
Mel

Hi All

I'm wondering what heating and cooling all the Adelaide people are putting in. We've been quoted for Brivis F53 (Evap-8 outlets) $4762 and Brivis Classic 2PW (20kw) (heating-10 outlets) $4520. Is this expensive? I know I would definitely upgrade the heater, but I'm not sure about the cooling. Our house is 20.3squares (4 beds + 2 Living areas). What has everyone else done and how much did it cost you? (if you don't mind)

Hi Mel, Yep, I reckon that'd be the one! It's the only one on the top of the hill which still is at frame stage. It faces the bridge (our back is to the sea), and yes, there's a red bin outside lol!
And now we have a bit of scaffolding around the carport, just to help you identify it a little better

Dudleydog, we aren't getting a ducted system so I have no idea about price sorry. Our house is 21.20 squares, and we're opting for 2X r/c split systems. We have only done a quick look, but will go with 7.? kw each system. Since our house is divided pretty much into two distinct parts, we'll run one upstairs and one downstairs in the living areas.
We're allowing about $6k for both systems, including installation, hoping we'll have a bit of change....while we would love ducted, we just can't afford it

Have a nice day

Hi All

I don't think I have posted in this topic yet, but I am trying to buy/build a cottage (unit) in Aldinga Eco-Village.

Everything has been selected now and the slab has been poured and concrete polished. The only hold up for me is settlement. It has been a long time coming and it was meant to occur this Wednesday, but they are having issues getting the money from the FHOG to use as a deposit. I am hoping it is all going to work out. My broker hopes to hear today from the banks.

It should be all ok as I have been told you get your FHOG when you get the first progress payment for construction and I received that before xmas.

I have only just discovered this topic, but look foward to watching the progress of other SA people's houses.

I haven't had the time to read through the 15 pages, but I have had a look at the blogs and the houses look fantastic!

Hope you are all keeping cool

Kristy

Well we've got the contacts on our land. It has a soil report with it and it says classification s ys= 11mm so I'm hoping thats good. Its also got near level so not much retaining, yippee.

We still have to sell our current house and the saleslady didn't put subject to sale but has put subject to finance (she said if we didn't sell we probably wouldn't get finance anyway) and has extended the settlement to 20th July, with finance by 20th June, which I'm pleased with, should give us plenty of time to sell. We're living with my folks at the moment (yikes) in a villa house! But its all good at the moment, and we need to save us much us possible while we're here cos its going to be tight once we're in. Especially if we get all the extra caesarstone, pantry's and alfrescos that I want