Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 23, 2008 12:10 am Hi,
Have been looking at this site for a while, and used some of the ideas when we've been planning our home. Thought I'd take the opportunity to share some of our experiences of building (only at base stage atm) in Carnegie (just near Caulfield). Background: We'd been living in an old weatherboard for about 10years, which we'd outgrown and was in pretty poor condition, so it was either bulldoze or look for another house. Liked the area, so decided to get the dozer out! Issues: * 10.6m wide block restricted choice of "volume" builder * Block has been rezoned in Special Building Overlay for flooding, which meant that we had to have our floor 1 metre from the ground! * For same reason, would have had to have garage 70cm from ground, with massive ramp for access, so no garage for us. * On a main road with trams, presenting interesting access issues * Once the house was demolished, the final surveying uncovered the fact that our title was about 80cm out of alignment with the fences - and so were all the other houses on the street! Another few months to resolve that... * Our neighbour's sewer ran across our block, right where the strip footings had to go. * What with one thing and another, we demolished in June, and construction only started in late November. Solution: * Found a volume builder who has been very flexible with design, and we have a 6m wide house with bits that stick out to the side * Strip footings and screw piles with base bricks instead of slab (which we would have loved to have) * Sewer relocated, which was a bit messier than promised, and not as great for our neighbours as it should have been. * Bricks have been stored at the back of the block for subsequent use, to deal with restricted access down side of the house. Where we are: Just about got the base stage done, although I have some concerns about whether we're getting what was specified in our contract. (Another thread on this). We're renting really close by, so I can go past every day to see how its going, and take photos. Eventually I hope to be able to put together a stop-action movie with one second per day. Its been quite a process, with so many constraints on what we could and couldn't do with our site, and we've certainly learned a lot along the way. Its great to see something finally happening, and we're hoping that with the base done, everything will now get much easier (I know, I know...). Here is what it looks like at the moment: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ (it might not look like it, but there is still about 15m of back yard, and a bit more than a metre between the fence and the left hand side of the house) I really envy you guys who are building on empty new estates - you don't know what you're missing out on! Will let you know if we hit any other unexpected hurdles. I guess God didn't use subbies... Hi I live in a 100yr old semi and my neighbour added an additional floor last yr and our architect has advised that we can knock down our semi and build a free-standing… 0 37723 10 15761 3 1208 |