Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 12, 2011 1:10 pm Hi there, My wife and I are looking at building a house in the barossa valley. We are in the early stages, have picked our design and recieved quotes from the builder, and have been to the bank for finance. All things look good so far. This is our first build and therefore are fairly inexperienced with it all. We have discussed the quotes we received with friends and family, the qoute in general is quite good, but a number of people have commented on how high the travel cost is. From the Adelaide CBD to where we want to build is 55kms. It takes about 1 hour on the expressway. The travel cost on our quote is: $4235. When we had other quotes from other builders, the travel cost (to the same location) was around $3000. My wife and I were just wondering if this was around the same to what other people have paid as this price does seem a bit high. Any help or advice people could give would be greatly appreciated! Re: Travel costs 2May 12, 2011 1:13 pm Where is the builder travelling from? Surely not the CBD? Travel costs are a new thing to me... (unless you're talking about holidays!) Re: Travel costs 3May 12, 2011 1:32 pm Hi Erin, I doubt they would be travelling from the CBD.. I only used it as a reference to highlight the fact that its not as though they have to travel for hours and hours to the middle of nowhere, thats all. Travel costs are new to me also! Re: Travel costs quoted by builder 5May 12, 2011 4:40 pm It's a pretty standard charge and most builders have a cost for building outside what they define as their standard area, it just isn't necessarily always called travel costs. I think on our contract it was "outside standard building boundary" or something similar. We are a similar distance from Melbourne CBD and the charge with different builders for my estate varied from $0 to $10 000 extra. Our builder charged $3 000. A lot of builders give their tradies extra travel allowance money when they have to travel a greater distance to a site, I'm guessing companies doing a lot of the deliveries would have a similar charge, so it all adds up. Even though there would be tradies in the area, most site supervisors like to draw from the same pool of tradies that they normally use as they have built relationships with them and trust their work. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: Travel costs quoted by builder 6May 12, 2011 7:53 pm I understand its a standard type of charge, and didn't even think much of it until a couple of our friends who had built in the area recently pointed out the cost and said it was much higher than what they paid in travel costs. Your point about taking from the same pool of tradies is probably true, and I guess that is what is happening here. I'd just like to know how the costs are calculated, as my consultant seems to be dancing around how they actually calculated it. I suppose I just wondered if any people who have more experience getting a house built had a better idea! 10 15745 Hi Mofflepop, I would recommend finding a building designer to prepare plans, they should design to your specified budget. The benefit is you can tender the project out… 9 20416 |