Building a Chelsea with Hall and Hart

Hi. We are in the early stages or considering building a Chelsea with Hall and Hart. I can’t seem to find anyone that is or ha built one so hoping to come across someone here to share advise and information! Thank you!

Hi Lstr123,

I am planning on building Chelsea with Hall and Hart and was wondering how your experience went with them? Thanks in advance.

Hi,
I am also at the early stages so dont have too much information to give either. Everyone I have spoken to however has had vey good feedback on them though.

What stage are you up to?

Hi,

We have just been in contact with a sales person and awaiting an itemised breakdown of all the cost and inclusions we need. Have you been through the tender process?

That is the exact stage we are at aswell so that's good. If we both go ahead, we will be able to share tips and things through the journey together. Who is your sales person?

Hi Lstr and reachtheskies

I'm a fellow H&H customer (currently in pre-construction phase with a modified Chelsea) and just thought I'd share some tips we've learnt along the way.

1. Try and lockdown as much of the floorplan and selections as you possibly can at the tender stage, despite any pressure from H&H to deal with it later.

We had an idea of what we wanted to do in our butler pantry but were convinced by our estimator and sales person to leave a PA (provisional allowance) and deal with it after we accepted the tender. This was a big mistake. We should have locked in the cost upfront instead. We had described what we wanted in the butler pantry e.g. matching kitchen stone, overhead cabinets, double sink. Nothing extravagant. The estimator we worked with allowed an $8,500 PA and now that we've proceeded to Elba to get a cost breakdown, it works out to be nearly double that!

Similar story with our main floor tiles. We had flagged at the tender stage that we wanted to do 600x600 polished rectified tiles and were advised to leave a $7,500 PA for tiling upgrades. Following our consultation with Beaumont, where we chose tiles within the included H&H gold range, the tiling quote is now $12,000.

For both PAs we were assured by their estimators that, in their experience, the PA amounts would be sufficient to cover what we were planning. It turns out they were way off!

2. Check plans carefully. We've noticed a few drafting errors along the way. E.g. Butler pantry window not being the right height to match kitchen splashback window. Doors that were shown on front elevation as being 2x820 but drawn on the plans as 2x720. This resulted in us having to select new doors because the 2x820 would not fit. We were promised an answer on a 1200W hinged door within the day, and are now still waiting 2 weeks later...

3. Try and stay on top of them and hold them to their promised timing. I know they are a smaller builder but we were told at the end of last year that H&H would be aiming for DA lodgement at the end of Feb. It is now May and we are still waiting to finalise the front door before we lodge (see above). Of course (and to the surprise of nobody), they were prompt in issuing an invoice for their DA lodgement fee but have been slow to get back to us on everything else

All the best to you and other H&H customers. Hopefully your construction journeys go smoothly, and you avoid some of the mistakes we've made along the way so far.

Hi everyone, did anyone end up going through to contract? Any surprises along the way?

Keen to hear what your experience has been with pricing, particularly around site costs. We have been quoted 90K for site costs by HH about a week ago. Our site is pretty standard, quiet street, M slab etc.We do have a gentle slope but under 2m from back to front and less than 1m over building area. The block has 1:100 flood classification on it. The site costs have been quoted as follows:
- Site costs 57K (material handling 20K, import/export soil 7.5K, garage stepdown 6K, internal slab 15K, 1000-1500 fall over building footprint 8.5K) plus
- KDR costs 33K (stormwater connection 22.5K, electrical connection 4K and sewer connection 6.5K)

On top of this, there are also other site-related charges of 8K (for standard marine environment 5K and salinity/acid sulphate 3K)
And another 10K on top of this is for BASIX.

So all up looking at just under 110K site costs + BASIX. Does anyone else have a similar experience? Is this reasonable?

It is the initial estimation only, but it appears so large. Way off relative to any other builder. We asked them about it and the sales rep said that's pretty standard and what he would expect. Keen to hear everyone's thoughts and experience. Thank you!

Hi LucB, we haven't signed a contract yet but I've mentioned above some of the mistakes we've made along the way in case they're useful to you.

Every site is different I suppose... for what it's worth, our site costs came in at 65k.

We found our salesperson was fairly accurate when compared with the amounts specified in our Tender. We had no complaints on this front. Where we had an issue was with the PAs allowed by the estimating team when preparing our Tender. See above, I would try and nail down as much as possible and not leave any PAs. Our butler pantry has been priced at 16k (vs 8.5k PA in the Tender) - this is despite the Tender clearly noting that we were expecting 40mm stone, overhead cupboards, sink, mixer etc.

Hi brampton, thanks so much for your response. I found your article above very helpful. Many useful insights. We are going for similsr things re butler’s pantry and tiling so very useful to know to lock in as much as possible early on. Did yo have similar experience with kitchen? That’s what I am worried about the most from finishes point of view.

Hi LucB, glad you found it useful. We did spend around 15k in kitchen upgrades, but I would say this was slightly different because the basic floorplan was at least included (e.g. basic stone, sink, cabinets, dishwasher etc). For our butler's pantry there was literally nothing included as the layout remained subject to change. So even adding a sink or a cabinet cost us $

If you know what you want in terms of finishes, I would still say try and get it priced up at the tender stage rather than relying on a PA. You can always have it removed later on but at least you know there is a fixed cost if you do proceed with it.

I can't stress this one enough (with any builder). We pushed back heaps during the early stages and got through 5 tenders before we finally caved and signed.

In hindsight we should have held out longer as it just created more dramas down the track trying to get those little things they said would be easy to add implemented to the plan.



We found getting to the stage of selecting your colour choices (tiles, kitchen, etc) before signing anything very difficult though as they wouldn't let us book anything until that was done. We got told similar stories about adding in a provisional allowances and likewise were advised vastly under-estimated numbers.

Sales initial suggestion was $5000 (for tiles, electrical and kitchen). We changed it to $25,000 and still went almost $5,000 over that.

Hi there, how are all your builds going? This was very helpful and I will keep these tips in mind as we go through the process.

LucB how did you go with site costs? Was the estimate accurate? We have only received an estimate thus far and ours are looking like they will be very similar to yours.

I have the Chelsea and the estimate was about 100k less as when you get to the selections appointments it all costs more e.g standard tiles in Beaumont costs more for labour to lay it as that isn't included if you have certain tiles or patterns, and just a white stone bench is a few thousand more as white isn't a standard colour. Lots of little things.

Hi folks. I am currently evaluating builders and plans and H&H has definitely caught my attention. I understand they are high-quality builders, but I am unsure if they are way more expensive compared to Clarendon / Rawson and others.

Wanted to check here if anyone could give me quoted prices for their builds against the size of the home. That'll help me quite a bit to decide on H&H.

This thread has been quite informative for me so far

Cheers!

670k for 37 squares. No driveway included but upgrades in selections.

Could I ask when did you build? Was it in a new estate or KDR? Thank you! We are building 40sq and being quoted significantly more.

We are in the very early stages and have been quoted around $780k for a 42. This is with some upgrades accounted for but obviously will go up once we go through our selection process. We are hoping our site costs don't blow out when the our reports come back as have already been quoted around $100k.

Hi mazz246,

I have pretty much the same size and quote as yours. But I have gone long wait of DA approval, requested to change the plan by Council due to the heritage trees in my neigbours in addition the the Covid affecting factors. After 18 months since the tender signed, my house is about starting to build (fingercrossed), getting the site ready by now. My site costs is around 90,000K which depends on the slope and cut of your land. We seem to be sit in the same boat, hope your building journey go smoothly.

That's good to know, thank you. Did you have a price increase for going over the 12 months since tender?
Very exciting that your build is beginning. Good luck and I hope it's smooth sailing from now on in.

still currently building. They do have a price rise every 6 months as i enquired a few months earlier before tender and it did go up a few K.

New estate, flat land. Soil was no issues either so low site costs. How much were you quoted? We had about $200k in upgrades