Browse Forums General Discussion Re: New house building mistakes 2Nov 17, 2020 7:48 am Have a good read of this thread. It is a good place to start as is the owner builder section. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5823 The summary is on page 32. Stewie Re: New house building mistakes 3Nov 17, 2020 3:47 pm I highly recommend that you read the government's Your Home website (or book, if you'd prefer to have a hard copy). Australia's guide to environmentally sustainable homes.
Start with the 'passive design' section. Where you'll learn to orientate your house correctly - with living areas facing north. Get this right & your home will be lighter, warmer in winter, cooler in summer. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design If also recommend to forego the gas connection. Instead bidding an all-electric home. This will save you money, & is much better for the environment. Heating your home with reverse cycle AC, cool it with fans or the AC, heat your water with a heat pump, cook with induction. Power your home with a good sized solar PV system. Re: New house building mistakes 4Nov 20, 2020 8:07 am Paw Hello Greetings of the day. I am following home one forum. I am planning to build owner builder house in Melbourne North. Do you have any guidelines, to make good house or mistakes to avoid, while building new houses ? Thanks Pawan Pawan My recommendation is to have fun! building a home can be stressful but its such a major achievement to create something yourself, so just enjoy the process as much as you can best of luck Simeon Simeon McGovern Affordable Custom Homes, We design and build to your budget Ashington Homes www.ashingtonhomes.com.au Re: New house building mistakes 5Nov 22, 2020 10:24 am If you have the money, hire someone who is a good staged building inspector. When doing selections, thoroughly research about the stuff you wanted. Also when selections has been done, thoroughly review the list before finalising or signing the docs. We made a 3k+ worth of mistake by missing to check the appliance model written by the selections adviser. It was so tricky, the only difference of the gas and electric stoveโs model number is the letter at the end. We wanted an electric stove but we only noticed the wrong model number by the near end of the construction โ which means the setup for our cooktop was done for a gas and not for an electric. And because we wanted to upgrade to an induction cooktop, it will cost us more money to have the setup converted from a gas to induction. It would have been cheaper if the setup was done for an electrical cooktop in the first place. Re: New house building mistakes 6Nov 22, 2020 12:17 pm Having a forensic CCTV inspection of all drain (DWV) and stormwater pipes pre handover could be the best money you ever spent. Can you afford not to do it when H1 is littered with disaster stories caused by bad plumbing and/or non fitment of products specified in the contract and with the general standard of self certified plumbing being so low? Also take heaps of photos even though you may not know what you are taking photos of. This includes photos of the grounds after rain. Have a pre contract consultation with an industry expert experienced in the art. Mistakes and double charges are invariably in the builder's favour and can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Also check for hidden "Performance Solutions". Check your builder's history. If Unfair Contract Clauses are a common complaint, dump the builder and go with someone else. A builder using penalties in the contract to prevent you from having an independent building consultant conducting stage inspections is simply an admission that they are not confident of their work standard. And remember: If it isn't written, it was never said! Try to keep all communications non verbal where possible and maintain a paper trail. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: New house building mistakes 7Nov 23, 2020 2:53 pm As someone has already mentioned - go for an all electric home with heat pumps for space heating and cooling and also heat pump hot water system. Install solar panels if you can afford it - if not plan for their installation at a later date - that means leaving your north facing roof space as free as possible for the panels to be installed. Induction cook tops seem to get good reviews - though I haven't had one. If you don't have a gas connection you don't pay the $360 - $400 annual connection fee. (For some reason in Victoria you might have to have a water tank if you don't have a gas connection - though someone recently told me that this stupid rule was somehow avoidable. Anyway a water tank is not a bad thing to have.) Try to avoid ducting for heating and cooling - it is better to use split systems (multiheads). (Ducts leak heat and leaves holes in the ceiling insulation.) Say no to evaporative cooling. Say no to whirlybirds. Say yes to more insulation. Yes to double glazing. Plan to have good quality internal window coverings - concertina blinds are good. Consider zoning your house so you don't need to heat or cool all of it at the same time. That means doors between living areas. Especially a door on stairwells - otherwise the heat just goes straight up the stairwell. Cut the size of west windows - and east and south ones as well. North can be larger but the need to be externally shaded in summer - East and West also need to be shaded for summer. The Your Home site mentioned earlier gives further detail on this. Yes well there solution is to blame everyone else while I a 65yr old woman with major medical problems have to just continue to boil water and wash myself in a bucket… 2 12453 If you make sure all taps inside and out are turned off, what does the water meter show if you leave it for a while. 2 16227 13 4651 |