Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 17, 2010 2:35 pm After trolling around on the net looking for information on building houses, I stumbled onto this forum and it has been a fantastic source of information being able to see how other people out there building as well. The types of issues people face, the time frames it takes to build, people's choices of colours, designs etc. As I haven't found anyone with my design on this forum, I thought I would add the Noosa 228 to share my experiences and progress. I've made a few minor changes to the original design, like a full dwarf wall from the dividing the lounge and the living area, converted study to a 4th bedroom, extended the garage out 800mm. I've chosen to stay with the classic facade, due to limited budget! I was going to go for a nice portico, but had to cut back. 3 houses on my street that are up already all have porticos, so I guess I'm more unique! I've tried to keep my colours fairly neutral, and I really hope I've made a decent choice. I don't have much of a colour co-ordination! Using 1.5x height bricks and standard roof tiles. My block of dirt is 500sqm and fairly narrow. This was probably my first mistake for choosing something so narrow and trying to squeeze a single storey house on it. The minimum house size had to be 220sqm to satisfy the building covenant. The issues that I've come across, it would definetly have been better choosing a slightly bigger block and paying the extra bit at the start! Length = 15.237 Width = 32.763 Initially, I didn't think the block of land was on that much of a slope, but to an untrained eye and newbie land buyer, it had a fair bit of a decline and would require a retaining wall. Ok, so I understood that a retaining wall would have to be put in from the start, the wall didn't require to be higher than 1m high, so it shouldn't require a structural engineer to design it. This was OK at the time. However, having such a narrow block meant I only had 1.5m on either side of the house which was the minimum distance before you required to have an engineer designed retaining wall. I thought, I just managed to design my house to fit into this category. I bought my block of land before anyone else on my side of the street, and I thought I would have been the first to get my house built! But I was wrong, my neighbour on the right hand side managed to have their house started to build probably over a month and a half earlier than me even though I did everything as quick as possible. Different builders can obviously do things alot quicker! Now, I didn't think this would cause an issue at the start, but it helps to be the first to build! Why? Because my neighbour built a retaining wall on the boundary before I did. I thought, great, I don't have to build a retaining wall anymore on the right hand side because the neighbour already put one up, but I was wrong. This now required me to get a structural engineer to design my wall because I had to come in 200mm from the boundary to put my retaining wall up. So my house was now under 1.5m to the wall, I pretty much have no walking room on the right hand side, and I now had to retain the neighbours retaining wall which meant it had to be extra deep! An initial quote of $2250 for the RHS wall was now $5500! All because the neighbour got their wall in first. If we somehow managed to work together at the start, we could have done with the 1 retaining wall and save us both alot of money and I would have extra space on my side! Now it just looks kinda silly having 2 retaining walls so close to each other. This has probably been the biggest headache so far and also regretting that I chose the narrower block at the start, and in the end after all the extra retaining wall expenses would have only been slightly more expensive to get the larger 600sqm block next door. I'm hoping for a smooth finish and don't find out any other unexpected costs to pop up! I thought i'd share a fairly detailed timeline. Shows how quick or long things take to get done! My timeline: 13/06/2009 Initial land sighting 12/07/2009 Signed land contract 13/07/2009 Initial request to build Noosa228, preliminary agreement 14/07/2009 Land Deposit 22/07/2009 Finance approval submitted 24/07/2009 Finance approved 13/08/2009 Tender Letter received 14/08/2009 Land settled 12/09/2009 Wet area tiles selected 15/09/2009 Received building contracts 19/09/2009 Signed building contracts 21/09/2009 Sent building plans for approval to developer 24/09/2009 Builder receives approved building plans 25/09/2009 Received lenders package from builder 28/09/2009 Delivered lenders package to financier to get approval 9/10/2009 Colour selection 10/11/2009 Council approved plans returned 17/11/2009 Sent request to Structural Engineer to design RHS retaining wall 20/11/2009 LHS retaining wall started 21/11/2009 LHS retaining wall completed 24/11/2009 RHS retaining wall engineer designed plans received 30/11/2009 Building start date - site scrape 3/12/2009 RHS retaining wall started 4/12/2009 RHS retaining wall completed 11/12/2009 Screw Piers and piping in place 17/12/2009 Concrete slab completed 11/01/2010 Frames started ~Building a Noosa 228 through Coral Homes~ My building thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28456 Re: Building a Coral Homes Noosa 228 2Jan 17, 2010 8:14 pm Hi Noddy, Welcome and congrats on your build so far. I look forward to following your experience. Where abouts are you building? That's a real bummer about your retaining wall. But good to see you got it all sorted and you were still able to proceed. Also a bummer about the narrow block but I guess you live and learn. You've made some great progress already and you'll be finished in no time. Which bricks did you choose, the 1.5 are a nice size, we've picked double bricks. Good luck with everything Re: Building a Coral Homes Noosa 228 3Jan 18, 2010 10:59 pm Hi Renee, I'm building in Underwood, QLD. Feel sorry for the builders working today on my house! What a scorcher of a day, 36 degrees! I went with the Leyburn bricks. I was wanting to go double height originally, but after changing my mind over and over again, went with the Leyburn 1.5x height. Colour selection is hard! You keep changing your mind! Even till the last minute when the colour selection lady went through and confirmed it with me, i still made last minute changes to some things. ~Building a Noosa 228 through Coral Homes~ My building thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28456 Re: Building a Coral Homes Noosa 228 4Feb 13, 2010 7:07 pm My site supervisor changed on me during the Australia Day week and make sure they are up to date and know all the details you have told your previous supervisor. It couldn't happen at a worser time as the walls and electrical wiring were going up on the week beginning 25/1. I was meant to be advised when I would require to get accoustic batts and wasn't until I called up that I was told it walls were meant to go up that day. So I had to rush to get those installed. I was also meant to be reminded to contact the Telstra subcontractor to do the phone cabling, but was not told. Although the initial form did say it was my responsibility to contact them before walls were up, but lack of communication to when things were going up caused issues. So, make sure you rely on yourself and find out exactly when things need to be done! Lucky in the end, on Friday, I managed to get the Telstra subcontractor out on a Saturday, else by Monday it would have been too late. If walls were fully up and then they lay the phone cables in, it would have costed an extra $200! The walls were completed on the Saturday as well, which I wasn't expecting them to be working on the weekend! Luckily they got the phone cables in. I also haven't received my weekly update on progress for the past 2 weeks from the new site supervisor which the old one had done. Lack of communication! Some more pics of my house development 15/01/2010 Frames completed 19/01/2010 Second stage payment - Frames 25/01/2010 Electricals & Plumbing started Cabling work 25/01/2010 Wall reflective insulation and accoustic batts installed 28/01/2010 Ethernet cabling finished 28/01/2010 Accoustic Batts installed for lounge Accoustic batts Make sure you check they put your batts put in properly. They put my batts in the wrong place as specified on the plans, and I had to contact my SS to make sure it was moved before the walls went up! 28/01/2010 Bricks started 29/01/2010 Plasterboards started 30/01/2010 Telstra sub contractor phone line install 30/01/2010 Plasterboards finished My dwarf wall between the lounge and dining. Lazy tradies leaving their rubbish around 1/02/2010 Cornices installed 10/02/2010 Garage door installed 12/02/2010 Internal doors and kitchen table Right hand side fence, don't like it how they left a gap between the retaining wall and the fence ~Building a Noosa 228 through Coral Homes~ My building thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28456 Ask the council if there is a chance of getting build over easement exemption. Sometimes easements are unused and 24cm is not all that much. Good luck. And yes any builder… 2 13745 In Qld it is a requirement that a builder must have a cost breakdown, for building a home to the same specification, with the same inclusions and the same finish. So ask… 1 1693 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74686 |