Well, I have many questions relating to the home building project that we are looking at. I have been working overseas for a long time and missed the whole 'home price tsunami' which occurred over the last decade. So, on that note I hope that you will have some patience for a very green newcomer.
Have done as much research as I can from the remote site where I work but I know that there is a wealth of real information here so I will just dive in:
1. We have a block to build on (2 acres) so I will just premise questions with that.
2. We are having our own plans for the house drafted up and checked by engineers. Our first (and only) piece of good news relates to this as we know the Draftie and are getting all plans at a flat total cost of $4000 which seems very good.
3. The term 'Owner-Builder' scares me. I don't fully understand what it means. We aren't physically building any part of the house ourselves; we have a very reliable builder lined up who I have known for 20 years. So...we still just qualify as regular first home buyers or not? I haven't asked the bank this as they are OK with giving us a home loan for the projected amount that we need...but as regular home buyers. I don't want to get caught out during the actual application process by finding that we do indeed qualify as Owner-Builders and therefore need an astronomical deposit...help!
4. We have carefully spent much time looking at every aspect of what is required for the house. We are looking to build 2 stories from Donnybrook Limestone Rubble @ $150/ton which should yield 2-3 sqm of housing wall. Labour costs are placed at anything between $200-300/sqm. Anyone have any comment or information on this?
5. Looking at steel housing frame and roof trusses. Its a basic 10m wide, 18m long and 6m high structure. This should make the wall frames and roof trusses a little cheaper than other housing designs due to the basic rectangular structure...or not? I don't know why it's been so hard to get quotes for these trusses (we just need a rough estimate for budgeting purposes) but I guess that without the drafted plan finished it makes it ambiguous. Does anyone have information relating to price and engineering of these trusses and frames?
6. I have heard that the slab costs are about $240/m3 + reinforcement @ $10/sqm + filling sand @ $2/sqm + Plastic underlay @ $1.50/sqm + labour costs. Can anyone comment on this formula and maybe fill in the ever-scary labour cost?
7. The roof tiles that we are looking at are around $90/sqm installed. There is a huge amount of variety in this market. Is this considered an expensive choice? The type of tile is variable but we are finding it hard to locate competitive labour rates.
8. Ceilings are proving...interesting. I have checked around and have a preliminary quote of $13/sqm which is inclusive of plaster, gyprock and labour. Sound reasonable...or does anyone know of better rates?
9. Flooring - this scares me. Like many people, we would like wooden floors. Whether this is 'real wood' or perhaps even the ceramic wood being offered by some tiling places now is not fully decided. However, we have received estimates of around $70 /sqm for wood (installed). I have seen some of the cheap tongue and groove stuff warp before and am a bit wary but high quality wood floors are prohibitively expensive it seems. Does anyone have comments on wood floors as outlined above?
10. Plumbing work is proving to be a great new mystery. It gets even more fun when trying to project for a whole house. I was told by a fellow home builder to project around $700-$1000 per fixture. As this seems a lot for something like a tap...I am imagining that this price scheme includes all of the piping/connections involved. This is probably true for installation of showers when having to pipe through wall cavities/frameworks and taking into account plumbing from the second floor of the house to the central system. Is this about right or way off?
11. Electrical conversely seems suspiciously low. Thinking about wiring a whole house is scary enough but when told that it is around $30 per connection/outlet...I grow even more suspicious. This seems way too low. Thinking of ceiling/wall mounted lights, power points galore, RCD and the panel work...this equation would appear to send a Sparkie broke. Does anyone have reliable costing information about wiring a new home?
That's it for now but it's enough to keep me up most nights when I'm not thinking of competitive pricing on toilets, cooking ranges and whether we should get the square or round shaped tap thingy for one of the bathroom basins
![Shock :::](./images/smilies/Shok.png)
So, for all of the brave souls who have gone before us...can you shine some light on our project questions? All comments welcome with thanks!