Thomas Archer Hue 44 Bayside Build - 2021

We have been following the journey of a few people on this site (shoutout to Lilaandco Bigdaddy blacktea2sugars ) for helping through this process and promised I would share my experience. So here is the start and will keep posting until the end taking you through the ups and downs of this whole process. We started with Thomas Archer in 2019 and decided to go with the Hue that we modified as it was Bayside compliant and ticked a few boxes. Our neighbours built with TAH too and we found them to be the best value for money whilst being flexible with customisations.
Here's the floorplan we ended up with after modifying it a fair amount. Added guest room, widen and lenghtened garage, removed small study, added large one, family bathroom larger with double vanity, moved the alfresco, rejigged the pantry, laundry and powder room.








My tip is to ensure you have your floorplan as perfect as possible. Once they are in the hands of the draftsperson, you only get a few iterations before they start to threaten you with additional charges and fees. That is on top of the intial fee of $5000 we had to pay for drawings.

Hi Sminters. So have you just received these plans? We paid our first deposit mid march and got our plans late July. We have made some small changes (widen garage, widen living/alfresco) to the Nouveau design and the PSQ stage, and after receiving the master siting plans I think we put in a couple of sliding doors but didn't change anything else so we didn't incur any costs.

We are still waiting for pre-tender which was meant to be end of November but we have now been told January. After that we still have our style appointment, tender 1, tender 2, get finance, sign contract, find a rental, move out, abolish services, demolish, put up temp fencing, drop in a fiberglass pool shell, arrange for electrical pit then maybe they will start in June.

I'm not complaining, obviously things have been stretched because of Covid and the industry is flat out with everyone from drafstpeople, engineers, cabinet makers, landscape designers, etc all struggling to meet demand.

Perhaps your build is further progressed or your site is already clear but just letting you know our situation to help with expectations.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm late to the party and our build is already complete. I'm just finally getting around to documenting to share with others. It does take a while to get everything finalised. We paid our deposit in October 2019 and we handed the site over in December 2020. COVID impacted us as well, but we were lucky to catch a break between lockdowns and complete our style appointment. Some things we still couldn't decide on (eg. ovens) as shops weren't open so we just signed and installed post handover. I know a lot of style appointments and anything requiring site visits were put on hold over the last lockdown so assume there's a backlog. Plus a few jobs delayed due to supply issues. I hope the rest of it goes smoothly with you. A lot of organise ahead of you.

Thanks, looking forward to seeing more posts!

Have you received your pre-tender yet? If yes, was it far off your PSQ?

Hi thought I replied to this but can’t see it…
Haven’t got the pre tender yet, though we have a zoom call set up for next week to go over the timeline so we should know more then. So looks like pre-tender will be Feb instead of back in November, almost 11 months from paying our deposit.

Did TA give you a build month when you initially paid your deposit?

Hi kelmartian

Does the agreement you signed give you the right to get prices from other builders?

The issues in the industry now are pushing back a lot of timelines as builders are worried about being stuck with contracts that they cannot afford to build.

That is most likely what is holding your project back.

When we paid the deposit in March 2021 build start was always going to be around May 2022.

Obviously things haven’t been great for the industry re: supply and services so we understand if things get pushed a few months.

As far as I know we could be courting multiple builders if we want, we have only paid 3k so could always walk away. Obviously we couldn’t take the Thomas Archer plans to another builder, we’d have to work with their floor plans and designs.

The preliminary quote was always just a rough estimate, I expect they will charge us enough in the pre-tender to cover their costs, and that’s where we have the opportunity to walk away.

From what I have heard from others they have seen quite an increase between PSQ and tender, either due to adding features themselves or due to site costs or increases in the costs of the goods and services required.

I’m concerned about the costs but I’m not concerned that our builder is acting inappropriately or outside of good faith.

Our pre-tender came in at $45k more than PSQ.


To be honest, I think most of the deviations are based on our styling choices, electrical upgrades etc. So we will be able to strip some things out. Aimee was really good in the styling appointment, so she will be able to tell you if you're going over or where you can save some money. Base Price including some modifications to the home that had to be priced differently were about right. Site costs, we came under what was quoted. Large costs seem to be the ac, joinery and flooring.

When we got to the final contract we managed to strip some things out like water tanks, special kitchen joinery, flyscreens etc. We managed to strip out $20k, so came in at $25k above at final contract.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I think we already had around 28k in our psq for AC, and around 18k for oak flooring with herringbone pattern. They also added in cranes, raised ceilings, an additional study, extra metre to garage and living room, s2 everything (S2 facade), interco, security cameras, etc, and I think we have only added some joinery since then, so fingers crossed it’s still pretty close. We haven’t done our style appointment yet, where I guess we could get sucked in to spend more, but if we are already way over in our pre-tender we will know we just have to say no and try to cut some things out. I think we will want to add floor to ceiling tiling in the bathrooms though.
I expect the HVAC meeting could get expensive too, we will want lots of data and power points, lots of lighting options, and an exhaust for our dryer if possible.
Solar is something I want to add, or at least have it prepped so I can get it post handover. I know we will have 2 panels to assist our gas hot water, but we are getting a pool so want solar for heating that via heat pump as well as reducing electricity bills in general.

Yes, typically the client maintains a copyright on the drawings they work up with you.

So you would need to start from scratch on new plans.

The final price usually ends up being 15% - 25% higher than the original PSQ. They are not acting inappropriately but the standard inclusions are such that most clients will need to upgrade a number of finishes.

Builders then charge higher margins on the upgrades compared to the base inclusions. This is pretty standard practice across the board.

Yes I think we went $5k over in just our electrical appointment with all extra data points, downlight upgrades etc. Good luck! It's all a balance and compromise.

you could consider a condenser dryer to remove the need for an exhaust.

you could also consider not doing gas and relying just on electricity if the only items using it are the hot water (which you can get a heat pump for) and cooking, which you can use induction for. you will also save the room to get more solar PV panels.

Thanks, some good ideas there.

Is there a stage when we get to discuss this with TA? Does HVAC appointment cover this stuff? Or is it too late then? Seems like this should have been discussed prior to them organizing our pre tender.

I find with TA that they generally just do what they are directed to. One of the areas I think they could improve is having more co-ordination between the office and the site supervisor as well as suggest ideas around certain things. I found in my experience that aside from floorplan specific stuff, I basically directed them as to what I wanted and how best things could work.

The site supervisor generally has a better understanding of what works and what doesn't (given they are the ones building day in and out), however they don't get involved until it's too late.

Your best bet is to have a read over other people's build experiences and cherry pick ideas from there. I think there is a 'things you forget thread' which I went through when I was at your stage.

Have you had your pretender yet? Ours is meant to be next month so hopefully we meet that date.

Hi. Our pretender is now meant to be in March, although we don’t have a date yet. We have a full timeline though which is encouraging, with site start slated for last week in August or early September.
The frustrating thing is we need to sign a contract and pay a deposit for our pool this Wednesday to give them enough lead time to deliver it in July, but we don’t know if we can afford it yet because we haven’t seen the pretender which will show the price increases, etc.
So we are still waiting and hoping the house price doesn’t blow us out of the water.

Shouldn't the price only really change if the site costs are greater than what was allowed for in your PSQ and/or if you make any upgrades as part of your interior and electrical consultations?