Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Knockdown rebuild builder recommendations 5Oct 26, 2016 4:56 am Our build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=82369&p=1525857&hilit=fairhaven#p1525857 Re: Knockdown rebuild builder recommendations 12Nov 17, 2016 5:06 pm We are also building on stumps not slab Re: Knockdown rebuild builder recommendations 14Nov 24, 2016 11:06 am So a brief update on the situation Approached L37 re a custom plan, have started talks there. Waiting on fairhaven to call back and speaking to long island atm. Have had another option presented to me. A good mate of mine, his father and his brother are in the industry. One is a draftsmen and one is an architect. Both have long experience on commercial gigs but limited on residential. They have offered to be the registered builders on our project and give us access to their trades, albeit they only have a limited number they rely on e.g. a plumber, cooling / heating, plasterer, roofer, carpenter and that's about it! Sparky is hit and miss and they are looking to dump him. Painter on the last job was shambles but they have a new one they are working with. Tiler his hit and miss. What they do have though is excellent contacts in the joinery & benchtops worlds through their commercial ties. They do stress however that this is not their main line of work and will not be on site at all times, they will however make site visits 2-3 times a week. But likely to be first up / last thing i.e. won't be there to ensure trades are sticking to plans, not wasting resources and time etc. Another family member who is very experienced at big renovations - having completed 3 in excess of $250k over the past 5 years has recently sold his businesses and offered to project manage for us from now to June to make up for the lack of site prescence - he can't guarantee he will be free post june as he is looking to buy another business. They both deliver excellent commercial projects no doubt, however I have seen a residential job they did and I wasn't impressed. That may be the customer's influence though as they rely on the customer to decide on 100% of the finish, they offer in advice but pitch themselves as fully custom builders so what customer wants is what they do. If I was to go with them, my concern is the level of involvement required from me to ensure the finish is up to my standard and to make up for the lack of presence from their part. What I am unsure of is how much more involved I will need to me and how much more work will be required of me if I went with them vs. going wit a volume or semi-volume builder. Any thoughts? They also offered to price in a very moderate margin - something closer to 5% vs. 20% that volume builders are working on. So we stand to get better bang for buck with them as their tradie prices will not be aligned to that of the volume builders, but we will get a better level of finish for maybe a little less $ e.g. house on stumps with deep footings, double brick retaining walls under house acting as extra footings through middle of house (that was the laymans explanation to me) etc. vs. waffle slab with volume builders - for same price. Re: Knockdown rebuild builder recommendations 15Dec 13, 2016 12:04 pm With limited involvement your 15 percent saving will quickly turn into many costly mistakes, I would look at a project manager with 10 percent margin locked in at expected cost of total build, warning dont go with commercial friend builders. Project manager will have trades he can recommend, and you can keep getting quotes yourself to ensure project managers on the ball, but compare apples with apples and go with known better trades. if the original house is in good condition most of what you listed could be added in stages without the need for KDR and costs and disruption of having to live elsewhere… 1 13818 Hi We have finally decided to complete a KDR on our corner plot in NE Melbourne suburbs. Given its a corner plot approx. 400 sqm just a standard design may not fit the… 0 8866 multiple occ properties are always billed by trades at a premium, rarely per sqm for the lot. You either have trades you know whoe will do by sqm or youre going to get… 1 2380 |