Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 02, 2009 10:37 am Our plans are approved and now we need to get quotes from builders. How many quotes should I go for? Do I have to go into detail for absolutely everything to be on the safe side or just tell him generally like price range for door handles etc. What are some of the things that inexperienced people like myself don't think of and forget. Things like council bond for crossover, extra fencing during work, dunny etc, should I work in a time frame penalty? HELP!!!!!!!!!!! Re: Tips on quotes from builders. 2Sep 02, 2009 1:26 pm I would be finding 2-3 builders that you like, contacting them and asking to see there building specs and standard inclusion lists, compare all of them to what you want and go from there. If you have a smallish list of "extras" you want on top of their standard inclusions, you could get the all three builders to quote them, if you want to go to that hassle, otherwise don't worry about it and make you decision based on who you like the most and who offers the most for price. Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13002 Site start: 8th July 2009 Handover: 11/12/2009! 5 months total build time. 40 sqs of luxuary...Bliss! Re: Tips on quotes from builders. 3Sep 02, 2009 4:16 pm We went for 3 quotes all with similar specs 2 came in at around the same price the other was almost $100 000 more so def get several quotes. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Tips on quotes from builders. 4Sep 02, 2009 9:26 pm If I was going to be getting prices from 2 or 3 builders I would first investigate how good they are. * Are they easy to talk to? * Who will I be dealing with during the build? * What is their quality like? * Are there negative reports on the interenet? * Get references This forum is littered with posts from peolple who are unhappy with their builder. I would first identify 2 or 3 builders that I would be really happy to deal with and then move on to the price stage. There are other things you need to satisfy yourself with apart from my short list but it's only a start. Re: Tips on quotes from builders. 5Sep 02, 2009 10:03 pm We went through the same process, got our plans done DA approved, you really need that in place since council could make you change things. I assume when you say plans are approved that you mean DA is in place. We went to 3 builders and had quotes with up to 200k difference, when I started to look at the differences, some aren't so obvious, things like downstairs studs are 90x45 and upstairs are 75x45. Spacings of studs are 450 mm centres on some and 600mm centres on others. So my approach was to write a mini specification and then to get the builders to quote to that and the prices were within thousands of each other. Then it came down to which builder I felt strongest about, reference checks and then so ahead. Experience to date has been good and construction i progressing well. As with everyone the biggest issues were site related, but even there rates were nailed down prior to contract so subject validation, you could calculate the cost attributable to rock breaking. Mind you we lived on site, ie visited everyday sometimes twice when the key site stuff was going on just to be sure that there was a tight control on the costs. Hope the above helps Dan Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. We definitely wish to settle and get these people out of our life. They are trying to charge us interest on late… 7 14187 Just be careful with building stability during construction, that is when the structure may be weakened, refer to your engineering drawings for stability methodology. 1 7205 Look at your bill from the electricity company. It should detail the charges. You will need to do some estimating and some calculations. Then charge the… 8 4194 |