PD Upgrades

We're building the Foxley 29 with PD. We've got our tender in a couple of weeks and are still deciding on a few upgrades. Just wondering whether anyone can offer some advice on the cost to upgrade some of these things and whether anyone else is building the same house and can offer any ideas/advice.

1. We upgraded to Bats in the ceiling but were thinking of upgrading to Bats in the external walls also. Anyone elase done this and how much did it cost?

2. Does anyone know whether PD use Ceiling Battons when they attach the ceiling plaster or do they just attach them to the frame. From what I understand, without ceiling battons in a big open space, cracks are likely to appear in the future.

3. The alfesco is on the side of the house. If the people next door build a double story it will block the sun out so I'm thinking of getting a skylight in it. How much do you think this will cost?

Probably have a few more questions, but that's all I can think of for now. Love to get some ideas?

Thanks

We have been previously quoted about $2.7k for R2.5 in external walls.. That was for a 23sq house so maybe a bit more for you.

Sorry cant help with the skylight for you.

We are building a PD Illoura 34.5 sq's and the wall insulation is costing about $2k.

I would get the skylight done after handover, a big one in my current kitchen cost me $500. Not sure about how they fix the ceilings as we haven't got that far yet.

I love the Foxley plan, great choice

Thanks. I think we'll go for the wall insulation and get the skylight done after if need be.

Really happy with the Foxley. We're deleting the seperate lounge room to make one big open space. Think this will add some costs as we'll now want this area to be tiled but I think it comes carpeted with the builders bonus.

Hi, we're building the Francis with PD but it's 29 squares the same as yours so prices should be similar at least. We upgraded the insulation in the ceiling to R3.5 batts instead of the standard 2.5 blow in insulation at a cost of $1225. Also added wall insulation - R1.5 batts cost $647 and we upgraded further to R2.0 at an additional cost of $264 on top of that. Should give you an idea at least

Man, my insulation cost with PD has been good then. Ours cost $2,384 for R4 batts to the ceiling and R2 batts to the walls. Our house is a single storey 39.5 sq. So our cost is pretty good comparatively.

Nice to hear that you did get something cheaper from PD then!

Our Gyprock sheets are just screwed to the underside of the roof trusses. I'm 99% sure our old place was built the same way and ceiling cracks weren't a problem there in 22 years....the only cracking we had was in joins between cornices and walls, cornices and ceilings or where two walls met, and that was due entirely to movement in the horrible clay soil - and the fact that it was built on 600mm stumps. Fingers crossed, the floating slab base should reduce cracking here. It's a bit early to tell yet.

Yeah, we upgraded the ceiling batts and will now do the same for the walls



We're building in Point Cook which has clay soil. A mate who built a few years ago there suggested getting Ceiling Battons due to the movement in the soil. Maybe the H class slab will do the job. I'll have a word with the PD guy

We checked out bricks today and will most likely upgrade to category 3. Any idea how much extra these will cost?

I also emailed our csc with a list of upgrades we want to go ahead with and a maybe list depending on costs. I asked her to email me the costs involved but she emailed me back and said that she won't be able to email me any costs until the estimator gets onto our file. Some of the things we added were pretty standard. For example we decided to add brickwork over the garage and we'd already been given a price for this previously by our sales consultant. Our sales consultant was able to provide a cost for most upgrades, and those that he couldn't he was able to give us an estimate. Just wondering if this is normal with the csc or does it depend who you get?

My category 3 bricks cost approx 2.2k.... but for 39.5sq and for Austral bricks. Not sure if Boral will be different, but should give you a guide.

Our brick upgrade on a Francis 29 was a bit over $2k to go to a Cat 3. The line of "we won't know those prices until tender" is a standard one. We had that one given by a few people we spoke to.

Thanks. Pity we couldn't find any suitable bricks in cat1. These upgrades are starting to add up! Think we'll have to knock a few things such as the ducted vac on the head.

Our csc emailed us with a price of $1527 to upgrade to cat3 bricks. Pretty happy with that. We've got our tender on the 28th so looking forward to seeing some of the prices they come up with