Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 41Sep 15, 2010 7:06 pm HI waterwheel most of the builders will be willing to do wider passageways and doorways. at a price of course. Make sure you allow more than the wider width for any sliding doors though. We did our ensuite shower as hobless for wheelchair/shower chair access and made sure the room was larger than a standard esuite so there was plenty of room to manover. You might need cto consider the kind of sink you use to allow the wheelchair to fit slightly under the cabinet. Getting a shower than can be a handshower would be a good move. We also made the main hallway and main doorways wider for wheelchairs. Just make sure they do the right width. We almost ended up with the wrong width. Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 42Sep 19, 2010 2:24 pm Hello all, Just found your forum and very interested. We are just finishing off plans for a custom build on a rural block in Braidwood NSWand would like to at least include a rammed earth spine, running east/west for both thermal mass and aesthetics. Can anyone suggest rammed earth builder(s) in this part of the world. As with the thread so far, we have been told rammed earth about double the price of double brick and "no one does it here". Any leads much appreciated. Col Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 43Oct 01, 2010 1:15 pm We received our first building design proposal last Wednesday and I have been working through it with the designer for the last week or so. The initial concept would not have worked very well if we were to have a family in the future so we needed to add some rooms and move some things around to future proof the house for the worst case scenario (I know, bad wording) of having 2 children. Being a graphic designer by trade I have the software to allow me to work directly with the CAD drawings the architect had sent us. So below is the plan with changes we have made since the initial proposal. I have sent this to the architect to use as a guide for drawing up a revision: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We also have a blue print for the overall look and feel of the building. I found this amazing place in Victoria which we will be basically emulating as far as materials, colours etc. We told the architect to imagine it was a LEGO set being broken down and built into our buildings shape and size: http://holidaygor.com.au/properties/rottenpointhouse/rottenpointhouse.shtml We expect to get the latest revision of the plans in 1 to 2 weeks. I will upload some elevations as well at that point. Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 44Nov 08, 2010 6:35 pm Have shown hubby your thread as he would have loved to have built a rammed earth home. So we will read with great interest on all your progress! http://ourgreenmounthillpolehome.blogspot.com my homeone building thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=36586 Signed plans July 2010 Council Approval Oct 2010 Build Start 14 Nov 2010 Expected Movin Feb 2011 Building with Total Home Frames a 2 storey pole home in Greenmount Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 45Nov 08, 2010 7:14 pm ColinandLea Hello all, Just found your forum and very interested. We are just finishing off plans for a custom build on a rural block in Braidwood NSWand would like to at least include a rammed earth spine, running east/west for both thermal mass and aesthetics. Can anyone suggest rammed earth builder(s) in this part of the world. As with the thread so far, we have been told rammed earth about double the price of double brick and "no one does it here". Any leads much appreciated. Col If just for thermal mass- Have you thought of the idea of having some concrete poured insitu? ( it finishes just the same as RE... colour you want... stone you want ) everything else is the same, ie poured into forms and rammed or vibrated. The thermal rating is different to Rammmed Earth/Limestone in that the density of the concrete is <50% more than RE/L. So 'thermal cycling' (depending on the thickness) 12 hours to heat up and 12 hours to cool down being ideal. Could be worth a thought. cleopatra Have shown hubby your thread as he would have loved to have built a rammed earth home. So we will read with great interest on all your progress! Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 46Dec 07, 2010 9:57 am Hi Dan, Have loved reading your story so far! We are hoping to buy a block in Waterwheel soon and looking at housing options. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind PMing me the builder you're going with and how you've found them so far? Love the fact you can outsource as much as you like This might sound stupid but how did you find out all the little things that need to be done (ie Bushfire Attack rating)? Will def be keeping an eye on your progress. Good luck! Chuffy Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 47Jan 28, 2011 7:30 pm Hi Dan & newie Chuffy, Any news on the home front Dan We have just signed with Ventura finally,i think the sales guy was ready to pass-out on us Chuffy,all blocks out there need to be built within the bushfire rating. Some-one on here(sorry forget atm) had theirs done & it was only an extra $2,000.Its quite simple really,closed in eaves,covered chimneys,double glazing windows etc. The Armadale shire will give you heaps of info if you give them a buzz. We are organizing our own earthwks,through the builder is a killer,you could poss break the $70 ++++ down to $35-$45,000. One of our quotes came back as $48,000,nope still too high We have no special req for the earthwks so that price is They can all think of all the excuses they like for the price,its aload of CARP! SORRY BABY RANT THERE & i do feel better Block bought 1st RBC X! 2nd Ventrua,Keeper! Pstart 18/7/11 Ethwks jan 2012 Slab Bricks- finished 7/6 Roof Trusses 15/6-cbond 21/7 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41185 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 48Feb 08, 2011 11:30 am Gday Dan just found your thread. Im another person building in Bedfordale.. Any info you need that I might have already gone through ill pass on. Our Siteworks were quoted at $90K by the builder! We ended up doing them ourselves for $45 including the shed sandpad! We also have a BAL rating of 12.5 which came to about an extra $5k total with the builder. My build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=33640&p=476552#p476552 Prelim signed 23Dec09 Contract signed 18May10 Earthworks Building Licence 13Aug10 Earthworks Started 11Oct10 Building Licence issued 11Nov10 Slab 18Jan11 Bricking Started 16Feb11 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 49Feb 08, 2011 11:37 am kerry-ann Any news on the home front Dan Hi Kerry-Ann! I've been flat out lately with work so have not been able to post an update for a while. I think the Christmas period has slowed us down a bit and we have had a few issues with the builder. We are in the process of ironing things out and hopefully will find ourselves on a swifter path to success. Will keep you posted! Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 50Feb 08, 2011 11:41 am jenx Our Siteworks were quoted at $90K by the builder! We ended up doing them ourselves for $45 including the shed sandpad! We also have a BAL rating of 12.5 which came to about an extra $5k total with the builder. Hi Jenx, thanks for the useful info ... if you get a sec could you PM me the name of the business you are using for your siteworks ... cheers! Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 51Feb 14, 2011 7:38 pm Hi, im looking at buying a block in waterwheel ridge too and have just read this thread. Any updates on costings so far? Wanting to build a farmhouse living 313sqm of living area any ideas on sitework cost for these blocks? Thanks Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 52Feb 18, 2011 5:15 pm Hi Pauleen,welcome to Dans thread Builders charge around $75,000,employing your own is MUCH cheaper,go local. It also depends on which block,some have bad drainage & need alot off extra/special work done. Ours needs nothing special,we were lucky & we are employing our own earthworker. We are building a farm house,its about 390 without elfresco etc! Can you give us a hint which block you like,might be able to give you an idea,maybe not though! You really need a soil test done! cheers Block bought 1st RBC X! 2nd Ventrua,Keeper! Pstart 18/7/11 Ethwks jan 2012 Slab Bricks- finished 7/6 Roof Trusses 15/6-cbond 21/7 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41185 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 53Feb 18, 2011 6:43 pm pauleenwilson Hi, im looking at buying a block in waterwheel ridge too and have just read this thread. Any updates on costings so far? Wanting to build a farmhouse living 313sqm of living area any ideas on sitework cost for these blocks? Thanks Hi Pauleen, Welcome to the forum! Siteworks costs will vary a lot pending on the home you put on there. I'm not sure where $75k has come from but on a normal flat sandy block for the average sized home, you're looking from anywhere between $10k upwards. Site costs are dependant on a number of things hence why it can vary so much: - Contour and gradient (more slope can mean more dirt to move, plus the addition of retaining - this opens another can of worms for what sort of retaining you'd like) - Soil type. There's a range of soil classifications including H, M, S etc. Clay isn't a lot of fun to build on so the builder will add a sand pad which again varies pending the size and type of home. Adding a sand pad can add height to the home which some people don't like the look of, so the other option is to remove clay and fill the hole with sand. Ever notice a farmhouse on a paddock sitting a bit high? It's usually because of the raised sand pad underneath and the home would be sitting on clay (or a flood plain)) - Septics, drainage and power. Some shires are open slather with what type of septic and ATU you can use, others are quite specific. If you ring the shire they'll be able to tell you otherwise the builder will know if they've built in the area before. Some blocks don't come with power domes and telstra pits, so this becomes part of the earthworks. Whether you go single or double phase power, the length of the pits etc will affect the cost. We've done short runs (10 or so metres, all the way up to a few hundred metres). - The earthworker. Prices can vary quite dramatically pending the earthworker. To use us (i'm a builder) as an example, we get 3 quotes for earthworks and have had variances of up to $40k. When we've asked questions we've found they can become quite comparable as they may not include certain items, use bigger excavators etc. It's also important to use a reputable earthworker who knows what they are doing. There's plenty out there and it's not all about the cheapest quote - trust me - as someone who mostly builds houses requiring significant earthworks we know who the bad ones and good ones are. Some builders will place a margin on earthworks, some won't, and some will allow owner earthworks. To use us again as an example, if we do them, we'll place a small margin which covers the costs of our admin and site visits along with futures. In the event we don't use the nominated amount for the earthworks, we'll credit it back to the client. Believe it or not, it is possible to build a house and get money back If the client wants to do the earthworks, they can but need to take out their own building licence as they are not allowed to do it under our licence, and need to present us with a compaction certificate. Hopefully this gives you a better insight. For what it's worth, some people will say there isn't much to it and builders are just ripping you off. I can honestly say it's not about ripping people off, and the big priority is to get it right. Poorly done earthworks make for bad foundations which leaves you in a home that can have settling issues and plenty of wall cracks. Hence why i say make sure you use someone who knows what they are doing. I've been doing this long enough to have sadly seen people think they know what they are doing, and they get ripped off, slugged extra when they hit site, or have problems with their home once complete. When your spending that much money in a house which holds a roof over your family's head, it ain't worth cutting corners. At the time when it's all new, the big thing is to save money, shop around, find cheaper avenues etc but often in the end, the write out isn't that much better. Last year saw an increase in the number of owner builders. I think it's fantastic that people want to have a crack at building a home and encourage it, but only if people actually get educated on what they are doing. I reckon once if not twice a month we had people ringing up asking if we could finish their half built home as it had all become too hard, and they had blown their budget. You'll be able to save money in certain areas but a builder will be able to save you money in plenty more areas. We know the right rates, the right trades, and buy materials a lot cheaper than the public. Why? Because we do this day in day out everyday. Hopefully this hasn't come off as a rant , just hoping i can give you a bit of inside info that will help with your decision. There's a lot to building and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us a PM and i'll try help out where i can. When people have asked previously i always try to answer without bias as i love the idea of building homes, and want everyone to have a crack at it at least once in their life. Be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster! - once you're sitting in the backyard with your family around you enjoying a beer or glass of wine it'll definitely all feel like it was worth it. Jay W Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 54Feb 18, 2011 6:57 pm Hi Jay,the $75.000 came from your company It was a top ess though! It is very well known among owners around that area that builders charge 1 price,earthworkers another,some people have had quotes for that amount only to find earthwork companies that work in that area all the time will charge about half that amount. Now if those companies were not doing a proper job,builders like yourselves would not use them. They are doing the same job for half the price in some cases. cheers Block bought 1st RBC X! 2nd Ventrua,Keeper! Pstart 18/7/11 Ethwks jan 2012 Slab Bricks- finished 7/6 Roof Trusses 15/6-cbond 21/7 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41185 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 55Feb 18, 2011 8:00 pm I'm not sure if it's a matter of 'ripping people off', builders are running a business designed to make money. But saying that, I personally find a 25% mark up (25% is how much RBC mark up their site works — they will tell you that upfront if you ask) to be far too much. I think I would be happy to allow a builder to take care of it for me at say 10%? But 25% is ridiculous at the sort of money your talking about for a semi-rural property. For us personally it is a deal breaker. Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 56Feb 18, 2011 8:28 pm I think there needs to be some clarity on what prices people are getting for their earthworks. I can say it until i'm blue in the face as we will show quotes for earthworks to people upon request but there isn't that big a mark up. I'd have to look at the $75k one but what the earthworker gives is part of the earthworks. They send us that quote and it gets added to the costing schedule. From that we then put in prices for the other items as the one earthworker won't necessarily do it. Trust me, it comes out in the wash as we have had countless people come back to say us that they didn't save much money in the end. When we charge a margin which covers site visits and time in the office, planning etc, a lot of people who do owner earthworks don't account for it. For what it's worth earthworkers will have a lot more loyalty to a builder as they are the ones providing them with the consistent work. A client who builds one home will often not return for many years later with more work. We will line up the work for them so they'll keep coming back to us as they need the work. That doesn't mean we are price takers either as we know what the going rate is for items, and will often email back the people with evidence of previous work done etc. As for the 25% margin, that was a while ago as we have reduced it significantly since then. Admittedly it used to be around 40% and there's still plenty of builders out there charging that much margin on earthworks. You're right in saying that as a builder, there's no ****** about it we are definitely there to make money. But with the amount of builders in WA, coupled with the level of demand, it's not like we have a licence to print money either. When people discuss margin, they're not accounting for what that margin is based on. Margins can purely be what money you make, or a margin that includes the money you stand to make plus the overheads of your business. You mention the margin as a deal breaker but at the same time, we've set ourselves up so that if someone doesn't want to pay it and take on the risk, then by doing owner earthworks they are not paying any margin at all. Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 57Feb 18, 2011 11:08 pm I was literally told 25% mark up on site works by an RBC representative yesterday? Sorry but I am a bit confused — are you from RBC and saying that it's not that much anymore? I understand what you are saying as far as visiting the site and planning etc. but some of us like myself (I work for myself) have no problem being at the site everyday if need be. As far as it being a 'deal breaker' I mean this literally, as in we cannot afford to build with the markups. We simply did not expect a fairly level, cleared, hills block would incur close to $70,000 in site works for 180sqm (living area) home. Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 58Feb 19, 2011 6:12 pm I know what price mark up that my builder added as the Earthworks company had already quoted the site for the builder and handed it over to me. Was a $65K quote for the builder which was passed on to me as a quote of $90K. Im not sure how much the admins get paid and how many times a drive out to the site is needed but im sure its not $25K worth!! Thats the reason I decided to do the siteworks myself and not through the builder My build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=33640&p=476552#p476552 Prelim signed 23Dec09 Contract signed 18May10 Earthworks Building Licence 13Aug10 Earthworks Started 11Oct10 Building Licence issued 11Nov10 Slab 18Jan11 Bricking Started 16Feb11 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 59Feb 19, 2011 8:34 pm Jay is the CEO of RBC,his family owns Country Homes down south & Plunkett as well,please correct me if i'm wrong Jay You can get your own inspector for around $400,i know one we have used afew times & were very impressed. A friend of ours use to work for a local earthworker,he has said that excessive earthworks done on blocks was common place. Many a time he was told to do this & when he asked why it wasn't needed he was just told to do it. Cost example - $1,charged $10. Pauleen,if you want some info PM some members & i know they will be happy to help. Jenx is a perfect example off shopping around & is building in the area we are chatting about. As i said before,some of us have found the earthwork quotes to be strangly very different. The local ones also supply the septic etc in their quote. Where as some builders will give a earthworks cost,plus septic ++++++++ all extra. We looked at two plans,very similar but the inclusions in one beat the other by miles & the standard items were far better also. eg: ELFRESCO INCLUDED,HUGE WALK-IN LINEN & PANTRY,LAUNDRY CUPBOARDS WITH BUILT IN BASIN & CUPBOARDS (NOT JUST THE OLD FASHIONED METAL TROUGH) (Sorry,not shouting) Solar power & hot water,bigger rooms...... We found this plan at the last minute,plus this builder was willing to GIVE us extras to build our home. (well you pay for them somewhere) but they must still be making money to include these things. Plus the house was only 3msq smaller,the other had one more room so this plans room are bigger. Its cheaper & i cannot believe that the quality/survice blah,blah is less then others. Sorry Dan for the highjacking. Anyhoo,must go the tribe is hungrey, BBL cheers Block bought 1st RBC X! 2nd Ventrua,Keeper! Pstart 18/7/11 Ethwks jan 2012 Slab Bricks- finished 7/6 Roof Trusses 15/6-cbond 21/7 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41185 Re: Dan's Rammed Earth Home in the Bedfordale Hills, Perth W 60Feb 21, 2011 2:01 am Hi Dan-yool. I'm the General Manager for RBC. I'm not sure where the 25% has come from but i can assure you it isn't the case - i sent out a memo to all staff only months ago explaining the change in our earthworks policy. Admittedly, we used to charge a higher margin. Not long ago we had a couple of jobs which had significant earthworks ($260k + cost to build house) and when i saw the mark up with our margin and what we were going to make, it wasn't right to keep using this approach. Years ago when we weren't seeing the same $ values it was fine, but now, definitely not an honest way to do business. Don't get me wrong, as a person running a business i want to make money, but not through exhorbitant margin. So we revised our policy and dropped our margin. Even now we are still investigating other ways to calculate fair margins across the board. It's hard to explain through text on a forum, but the general plan is to have a price for the earthworks, then a cost on top of that which covers our admin etc. Without explaining how a whole building company works, when a builder attaches a cost to something they also need to factor in things like risk and futures. The same way supermarkets adjust prices for the events in Queensland. A larger amount of earthworks usually means a higher level of risk. The builder needs to account for the fact that things may not go to plan - homes are a man made product and incur problems such as human error, unknown elements, and all the fun and games of things like weather. We need to enter a fixed price contract with a client, therefore we need to make sure we know what to expect. As an example, i had a client where we put in $20k for earthworks which included rock breaking. This was a fixed price. They pushed to do owner earthworks and we ended up letting them (this was a while ago before our change in policy). The first day on site they encounter rock. They started removing it and a couple of trucks later, they managed to remove it. Their cheaper quote ended up costing them a fair bit more than $20k. If they had gone into the fixed price contract with us we would have incurred that cost. Just how it works. On the forum i see a lot of people saying things are always skewed toward the builder, but to be honest, i try to make myself impartial to the builder client bias and i find it's pretty fair. Where i think it comes undone is that the builder, with their experience knows a lot more so tend to make quick educated decisions. Sadly for a lot of people it's only the one time they may build, and they don't know how the system works. This is were it really comes down to finding a builder who you can work with together and have a great relationship - definitely not easy to always do. As Kerry-Ann says, look around and find out how it all works. Every builder is different, the important thing is they'll get you there in the end. My advice as someone who has grown up with building: - Take a look around, and get to know how houses work and what to look for - Price isn't everything. You get what you pay for and treat it like a spectrum with Quality and overall finish at one end, and price at the other. There's still quality in a cheaper home but price will get you the finishing items which really set the $500k homes from the $200k homes. - To quote a builder, 'check the spec'. It's important to see what each builder includes and what it's really worth. A 900mm oven may seem like a good option, but the difference between a 600mm and 900mm oven is bugger all when comparing tile allowances or kitchen cabinets. - Doing things yourself can be a great way to save money....if you know what you are doing. If you don't, there's a really good chance it will cost you more. And it's not just about $$, keep in mind your time and sanity has a cost to it as well. A DIY course at bunnings doesn't compare to a trade who has done the job day in day out for years. - If you are having to cut and butcher costs at the beginning, think twice about building. It costs money at the beginning, during and at the end. We've built some great houses over the years and it can be a little hearbtreaking when you visit them a year later with no flooring, newspaper in the windows and no garden. People will get there eventually but sometimes it's worth waiting a little longer to be that little bit more comfortable at the end. I'm on here not to sell RBC, but to hopefully contribute and help people in a positive form. I love building, i love people wanting to build and i love helping out where i can. Hence why i'm on here at all different times. If you need a hand with anything, feel free to shoot me a PM or email and i'll try my best. Jay Even if it's not being sub-divided and you want to keep it as Torrens title, you will still need to talk to a town planner or Council themselves, to see if they will allow… 1 11039 Thanks again Simeon for being so elaborate. Appreciate it. Its gives us a very idea. Kind Regards 4 3692 We already paid for somfy motors for the blinds. The quote above was purely for “pre-wiring” so the blinds company can install the motors and blinds. That’s why we… 5 16289 |