Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 17, 2009 2:04 pm Hi all, Thought I would start my own building thread rather than hijack everyone elses with my own questions!! We are currently awaiting (hopefully) the final iteration of our NBG quotation estimate before signing and moving forwards. Currently also getting demo quotes to get rid of the old house on our block. Britt - you've mentioned Golden Age Homes before. We've called them to give us a quote on our house (still awaiting response), but I wonder if they prepare the site for building too (i.e. remove trees, remove foundations, fill holes/trenches, compact in 150mm layers..). Anyone on this forum used Golden Age homes? Are they good value, any hassles, commendations?? We are very much looking forward to moving into our new house, but currently painfully aware that it is a long journey ahead!!! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 2Aug 20, 2009 11:17 am So we've finally got a copy of our quote that seems to have all the details correct! Our sales rep.(Out in Epping -- you know who you are - pat on the back!!) is diligent and carefully goes through the quote with us, then when he passes some minor changes onto Head Office, the document comes back with multiple mistakes! Its almost like playing bingo whenever you send something back to HO! Anyways... we've now got the latest amendment of the quote and all seems in order. Hopefully we can move onto the next step soon! A demo company is coming to look at our place on the weekend to give us a quote. We're still waiting on Golden age homes to let us know if they are interested in buying our house (Fingers crossed there..). Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 3Aug 20, 2009 1:40 pm Hi; We are doing a knock down & rebuild, using M for the new house. We would love to "sell" our house off but there are some considerations to keep in mind; 1) even if they accept your house for sale, I think you have to allow 90 days for a possible buyer to be found. No buyer, no sale. You might get lucky though! 2) Depending on your contract and timetable, your builder may charge you for every month of delay - with us, it's 0.5% of contract. 3) Usually if you're lucky enoiugh to have your house sold, it only includes removal of house and no other demo work, so you'd still need a demo contractor in. Of course, whatever you sell your house for will count against the demo cost. Don't worry too much about getting the first quote right, you can still change things at your prestart/preliminary/tender stage - we're going through that this week. Of course, the more you get right now, the less you have to do later. We've had 2 quotes on our demo so far, one around $11k, one at $8.8k for a 3br weatherboard and asbestos garage in eastern suburbs. For us, we'd rather have some certainty and less delays in building our house, so we're sucking up the extra cost. My aunt managed to sell her house which was in Camberwell a couple of years ago, but it delayed her build by 4 months and only saved her maybe $5k - it's up to you how much you value time and money I guess! Good luck with it all - as we're finding out with our job, there's a lot of other things in a rebuild you need to plan including asset protection permits, crossover application (if widening), council applications (the builder won't necessarily do all of them for you). Check out our blog for more info on what we're doing. T&T Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 4Aug 20, 2009 2:10 pm Hi slknv, Thanks for the heads up on some of the issues you've mentioned. We knew about the fact that we would have to prepare the site, most of the "house relocators" I've researched will prepare sites upon request and offset that against the price of the house. One thing I did not know, and thanks for highlighting was the penalties if we delay. Our contracts should be ready 2 weeks from when we sign the quotation. We shall read them very carefully before signing! How long did your demo people take to get everything organised? (Permits etc...) Are you happy to recommend your demo contractors? Again thanks for the advice... have visited your blog.... nice house! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 6Aug 20, 2009 7:13 pm Our demolishers took forever to demolish our house so we would have all the time in the world for Golden Age to sell our home. They didn't want our home though but it only took about two days from our phone call for them to come out, have a look and call me and let me know. We had to pay asset protection for demolition and then again for the build. It was included on the builders quote but he hadn't done it and I went to council and paid and he refunded me. It was only $161 but I ended up paying for it twice unnecessarily. I should have left the first one in place until the end of the build. Well done on getting everything organized. I originally planned on having drawers in my kitchen but because I hadn't stipulated this at the start I missed out. So it is important to work out what you want and don't want and get as much in as possible. Saying that my builder was very open to changes once we got away from the NBG stage and I could have changed at that point. By then we were so over plans and so wary of changing anything in case it caused delays. Keep up updated!! So excited for you Fi has moved in!! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 7Aug 21, 2009 1:57 pm Hi, Still awaiting for Golden Age to come and have a look at our house. Although, having had them explain the process to us on the phone, I'm not sure if the whole house removal thing is going to fit in with our timing? Getting a demo quote over the weekend, will keep you guys posted. Does anyone know if it is preferable to keep the site empty for a month or so after demolishing for the soil to settle? I've been told this by a few people, however don't quite understand the reason given that during site preparation any fill needs to be compacted in 150mm layers anyway?? Can some one de-bunk/shed some light on this? Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 9Aug 26, 2009 10:55 am Hi all, We've paid the step 2 fee and now awaiting contracts! Question for any knockdown-rebuilders in established areas with over head power lines: Our council won't let us run power lines across property boundaries anymore so we have to provide an underground power pit from the nearest pole to our property. Q: During building the builder pays for any electricity use right? So when we "energise" the pit, our builder should then organise their own electricity retailers right? Can you "energise" a pit initially without an electricity retailer? If so will the current supply be disrupted? i.e. I thought to save hassle, I'll get the pit built early and energised and ready whilst still having an overhead line supplying our current home. Is this possible? Any advice from people who have installed underground pits would be appreciated!! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 10Sep 18, 2009 1:39 pm So we've now got our contracts which we are reading over before signing... I am happy to report the price in the contract was exactly the same as in the quote estimate. I hope theres no more gremlins in the works now! We've also got info on installation of an underground power pit. Came in pricier than we expected. I thought our job was very straight forward. The pole is on our side of the street and is only about 9m away from a corner of our block which the pit needs to be. No trees to clear! The only tricky part I would've thought was to go under the foot path to get to our block. The price quoted was around 3.3K, I was expecting about 2 to 2.5K. Still researching some demo companies, so far only one company has bothered to come see our site and give us a quote. I would like to have at least 2 quotes before proceeding though!! Anyone care to recommend a demolitions company? Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 11Sep 19, 2009 3:21 pm Hi Nervous, We have just booked our demo with The Demolition Depot. We got three quotes and they seemed the best and included more for the cost. At the moment we are waiting on settlement of our house but they have started the paperwork as it takes two weeks with council (they can do this without the home being in our name) and then the final week of paperwork the house needs to be ours. Our demo should take place mid-late Oct. The quotes took about a week to come in. A fourth company we still haven't heard back from, we asked for a quote three weeks ago though. The way our bank is going your demo will probably be before ours ! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 12Sep 23, 2009 11:14 am Hi Jess, I wouldn't count on it!! haha... Timings are a bit tight for us. Our builder won't start until the new year if the start date gets too close to the middle of November. So if there is even one more delay then we will probably start in late January (or whenever the builders come back from Christmas!), which means demolition may be delayed as well, as we are currently living in our house to be demolished (sob,sob) and don't want to rent any longer than we have to! Which suburb are you building and who are you going with? If you don't mind me asking? Good luck with it all! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 13Sep 23, 2009 1:08 pm Hi Nervous, We are hoping to be building the NBG Buckingham as well. We have our quotation estimate at head office tomorrow. We are building in Croydon, but it is a new estate so we dont have a knockdown / rebuild. I just thought to get in contact as it may be possible- by the time your knock down happens and we get council approval etc, that we will possibly start building at the same time. That way if I / you have any insights on our journey of building the Buckingham, maybe things to watch out for etc, we can let each other know. We are hoping at our quotation estimate tomorrow that our site costs will come back at a reasonable amount, - (so that we can still afford to build the Buckingham!!) but will keep you posted. Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 14Sep 24, 2009 1:34 pm Hi Nikkit, Yeah, definitely... would be good to have someone building a similar house at a similar time! When you go to your quote estimate make sure you have your 'A' game on! Myself and others have experienced that they make alot of mistakes. In our case its because the office staff did not properly capture into the estimate our conversations with the sales consultant (which in our case was very good). The "quotation" tennis can get frustrating but it is worth getting it as correct! Don't get pressured into signing on the day! Take it home, read it about 10 times, and make sure everything in it is in order. Our final contract price was about 20K less than the original (and incorrect) quote estimate they produced. When I first saw it, it nearly knocked me off the chair! Anyways... enough from me for now! Good luck at your quote presentation. Do keep us up to date on your progress!! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 15Sep 24, 2009 5:20 pm Hi Nervous, How are the demo quotes going ? We are building inner south east, 5 mins from Chadstone. Not sure if you saw my topic on the dramas we've had LOL we wanted to build the Carlisle Pagoda but they don't seem to want our business so we are now looking at another builder. At the moment we are leaning towards Prostruct, we are meeting with them on the weekend to talk more. Our start will be around the same, late Jan - early Feb, will take that long for all the paperwork etc. I'll pop onto the NBG site now and check out your house Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 16Sep 25, 2009 8:47 am Hello Jess, Yeah, that area around Chaddy's great (my word chadstone shopping centre has grown over the years!). I live in the North-East of Melbourne, went to school in Mernda, then out to Clayton for further ed., and have worked out as far as Hallam in the SE!!. So in commuting over the years I have frequented Chadstone quite abit!! Demo quotes are going ok. A lot of people we contacted don't seem that interested in the job, or say they will call back but don't! We have one firm quote, another who gave a verbal quote and we are yet to see it in writing, and still waiting on one more who comes back from holidays next week. I did contact demo depot, but I don't think they were interested in coming out my way. Yeah, tell me about it! The paperwork is frustrating. Good luck with your meeting with Prostruct, which plan are you wanting to build? We had wanted to try to get it in for a November start this year but I think it is all too tight! Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 17Oct 09, 2009 12:33 pm We've now signed our contracts and handed over the 5%! So far our builders have been good, and have been in touch with us a couple times since. We were a little bit miffed as no one at NBG had informed us that we needed to demolish and do another soil test before plans can be finalised and a building permit obtained! Luckily we enquired and found out, otherwise it would've been a situation of everyone waiting for everyone else! We also found out we have to get a dispensation from council for our garage wall as it's average height is over 3m. (There goes another $220....we've already had to pay $95 for a letter from the council telling itself that we don't need a planning permit!!) I measured the neighbour's garage wall yesterday as it is right on our boundary and theirs is an average of 3.6m! (So he better not object to my garage!)... Any ways... bottom line is that so far...so good.... lets hope it stays that way. Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 18Oct 09, 2009 4:40 pm Hi we also did a knockdown and rebuild in the Chadstone area. I can relate to all the extra issues you have in this scenario as compared with a vacant block. We are almost at handover with M. I called 10 demo companies and got quotes from 5. The one we used and I can highly recommend (they were also the cheapest) was Pearcedale plant hire. They got the permit quickly, nothing was too much trouble, turned up when they said they would. They even took photos for me on the day of demo as I had to work. When the site cut was done some further pieces of foundation was found from the original house-I asked as a favour if they could pick them up not expecting that they would-they picked them up the next day. Nothing was too much trouble. Our asset protection permit with Monash council was about $2000 and the power pit was about the same from memory. We looked into the idea of selling the house but wouldn't have been worth it with the penalties that M charge for each month after 150 days you have to get onsite. We ended up selling the hardwood floors for a great price and the oven and gas log heater on e-bay so got something back at least. Hope this info helps and good luck, look forward to seeing your build. Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 19Oct 12, 2009 7:55 am Hi jspitz, Thanks for your info.. I've enquired from at least 8+ demo contractors and only got quotes from 2 so far. I've given some contractors over 4 weeks to provide a quotation and still nothing. We're close to finalising our demo contractors though, I think we'll simply pick from the two quotes we have (one of which includes Pearcedale by the way). It's good to know others have had a good experience with them. Re: Knockdown-Rebuild [Our NBG Buckingham] 20Oct 30, 2009 9:05 am Its been awhile since I updated our progress. We've locked in our demo contractors (Pearcedale Plant Hire) and now are madly packing so we can move out asap! The main thing holding us up at the moment is the abolishment of services work! The electrical abolishment can take up to 20 working days from the date of vacancy! It kinda annoys me that they start the clock from the day you move out! We rang like 3 weeks ago to let them know our moving out date in the hope that the abolishment could be organised to take place as soon as possible after. We are gunning to get the old house demolished in the first week of December so a second soil test can be performed prior to Christmas and the final plans released by NBG to our Builder. So many delays and waiting!!! 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 13658 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 8445 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 2181 |