Considering OB'ing our small extension

If you Google open office for mac you will find software that you can use to open and edit excel etc for free.

Tradies generally work on a day rate or will quote for the task at hand. The more involved you are and logically the less they are the better of you will be. For example if you have all the materials your carpenter needs on the day, the less time he will need to get it himself. Pay your trades for the things that you cant do, we can all use a phone and wait for a truck to arrive, or go to the timber yard ourselves. Yes you will need to be told what materials to buy etc but that takes the good ones minutes to work out ...usually written out on the back of a weatherboard or on your stud work.

Stewie D and Sceen.... yes, I will definitely get around to getting a programme to allow me to open/use Excel on my mac.

Still mulling all of this over and have some more questions.

I guess I am trying to get my head around what would be required to get off the ground - before the actual building process began.

I assume something along these lines :

* Get plans drawn up
* Get plans approved/building permit
* Apply for OB licence
(and somewhere in there, undertake some kind of costing as per my previous posts, to determine an estimate of what this could cost us).

But after that (ETA - or perhaps upon reflection, prior to getting the actual permit), I am wondering what the next process is?
Do we need to get any kind of engineers reports - or soil testing??

Thing is, this house had a small extension done to it just prior to us purchasing it (that has proven to be a nightmare within itself - but we won't get into that right now ). My point is - we have copies of all previous building permits/drawings/plans/specs/elevations etc etc that the council had on file. Would any information required for any further engineers reports already be available amongst what I have - and more importantly - could this same info be used as opposed to having to get all new reports?? (If other reports are needed).

I was just having a look through all the documents we have from the previous extension - there is a report from a structural engineer detailing all the specs of the building - and a report from a 'building thermal performance assessors' detailing how the building needs to comply with certain standards etc etc. I assume we will need to get these done again?

I also just noted, that the company that issued the building permit (not the council) did not submit a copy of the soil report to the council - so we don't have that. But..... we could use the same building surveyors and hope that they could use the same report?? If that is possible.

So in a nutshell, I am asking what other reports etc we would need to obtain - or what other things we need to have in place - before we would actually start the building process? And what, of those, would we potentially be able to re-use from the info we already have? And just thought of insurance??

Hope I am making sense.

Thanks folks.

HHCIB

Hi HHCIB
If your structural slab complies with the Aust Standard guidelines then you don't need an engineer to draw structural plans for you. You just use the standard details available. Most people don't have these unless they are an engineer.
You will need a site classification done to prove to council that the appropriate structural details from the AS comply with site conditions.

Hi Greenify

Ours will be on stumps as opposed to a slab - does that make any difference?

And sorry, just to seek clarification (complete greenie/newbie here), when you say "you just use the standard details available" - do you mean 'available' in general - or 'available' as in, what I already have in the docs I mentioned? And just for an understanding in my mind, why would the previous owner had to have structural plans drawn up?

And what is 'AS' - Australian Standards?
So in other words - or now that my mind is able to make some sense of it - you are saying that we need to get a report that confirms that our site is suitable to build according to the AS (Australian Building Standards????) . Is a site report along the same lines as a soil test??

So apart from those items listed above.... that is the only 'report' we would need to get.

So it would then be (not necessarily in order) :

* plans drawn up
* site report
* plans approved/permit issued
* OB license
* insurance

Who do I engage to do a 'site classifaction'?
Roughly how much does this cost?

Thanks for all your help Greenify - and everyone.

HHCIB

As its a small extension it might be worth your while going into council and have a chat with one of their planning staff, I did and it was very helpful. In the early stages of my project I hadn't decided whether I was going to ob or not. So I started with a designing draftsman then took those plans to council informally and basically asked what do i do now.

It then just becomes a (seemingly endless) series of hoops to jump through that are laid out for you. Don't be afraid of the process, and to be honest, engaging a full service builder doesn't make the process that much easier. But it does make it a whole lot cheaper.

Start with the plans, that's the fun part.

Thanks Sceen7.
You know, you have hit the nail on the head here, because to be honest, although I am asking a million questions, I am starting to feel more confident in the fact that it will all somehow fall into place. I am almost prepared to say "let's do it" without doing any proper costings - because I feel that we can just bite the bullet and go for it. But something is telling me I should at least prepare a budget/cost sheet and make sure we know what we are getting in for first.

And thanks for the tip about going into the council, I had thought of this and will try to get to it as part of our 'research' stage.

One thing, not sure what you mean by this :



What do you mean by engaging a "full service builder makes it a whole lot cheaper"?? Are you saying we should get someone who can oversee the whole project - and this will make it cheaper?? Sorry - not understanding.

Thanks again.

HHCIB

Ahhh yes my bad, what I meant is that a full service builder didn't ,for us, make the process easier. However OBing makes it a whole lot cheaper. sorry

After my initial 'enthusiasm', I've been a bit quiet in here of late. Two reasons, one is that we mainly now just need to think about it all and decide which way to go - but also, we have had our ensuite bathroom in 'renovation' phase for about 4 months (a whole other story ) and we are starting to make progress on putting that back together, so that has been our focus of late. Once we do our bathroom, it will set the ball in motion to do our laundry also (it needs cupboards and storage) and in turn, a few other bits and pieces around the house (like demolishing an existing fire place)..... so our focus has shifted somewhat whilst we tackle these on going issues. But we are still very much considering the extension.

Funnily, I had a friend over the other day, and she reckons we should hold off for now. Her theory is (and I have heard a couple of other people say similar things recently), that because our kids are still so little, what we think we want now in terms of space, will change as they grow a bit older - so perhaps we should hold off for 5yrs and review what our needs are then.

All food for thought.... but just wanted to let those of you that helped out and gave their invaluable advice and guidance, that I am still 'here' - pondering. .

HHCIB