Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 05, 2011 4:00 pm Hi We are looking at building on acreage and are in the process of going over quotes and budgeting. Are there any provisions you didnt factor in when doing your budget? What were they? We have no power connected and will be on rainwater only. So obviously they are in the budget. We are looking at building in one our flattest paddocks, clsoest to the road and closest power pole. So we need to factor in a gravel track etc. For anyone that has built on a rural block or acreage, can you let me know what things you missed and/or wished you had factored in? What cos tmore than you thought and what was the most frustrating? This will be my second build, but my last was in town and was a straight forward and very cruisy build. This will also be a house that we will not be moving from as its on a family farm. Ta Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 2Dec 05, 2011 4:09 pm You haven't mentioned septic tank or equivalent? Two years ago I was going to build on a block where there was no town water and therefore no sewerage and having lived on acres for many years I knew what I needed. I started investigating reed bed treatment systems and was warned off them by council who stated they wouldn't approve them because they've had problems with them in a few situations and they were also against one of the fully automated 'phone home' type systems that cost an arm and a leg! What surprised me was they wanted a pure and simple good old fashioned septic tank, suited me because it was the cheaper option and the bloke who did the pumpouts just lived down the road and gave local residents a cheaper price. Unfortunately that build didn't eventuate for several reasons. One other thing you haven't mentioned is a phone line. Like electricity it can be expensive to run phone cables to your house. Good idea to build close to power, even better if there's a big transformer on the pole! That's all I can think of right now....if you are on a main road you might be restricted to location of your gate, so check with the RTA/Main Roads/etc as well as council. Good luck and enjoy your home among the gum trees!! Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 3Dec 05, 2011 4:12 pm ooh good thread. will keep my eye on this as we are doing the same thing on 10 acres south of Perth. Ally, one thing we kinda didnt bargain on was the HSTP. I didnt realize alot shires dont allow the old style now, so we have had to get that extra cost on. Plus we have to put on fire fighting attachment [not quite sure of the technical side of it all] onto our water tank. And there is also a fire levy but not sure if that goes to builder or shire. And just for building out of the metro area, the surcharge from different builders has ranged from $3000 - $12000, with some builders saying they charge 5% -8% of total contract price . Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 4Dec 05, 2011 4:34 pm GoN when I was getting building quotes 2 yrs ago and they started talking about a surcharge due to having to cross the river on a ferry, I offered to buy them half a dozen annual ferry passes that I would hand to various trades as they came to work on the house. Maybe you could offer to pay $xxx above contract price to cover fuel but 5-8% seems an awful lot? When we were in business we 'never' charged travelling as an extra, we saw it as part of the job...if you want the work, then you pay a bit extra to get there!! I forgot about bush fire zoning in my previous post...for that riverside house it was only fire rated from one side, and if I wanted the rainwater tanks on that side then I needed to have concrete seamless or steel tanks...if they could be moved to the other side of the house I could have poly which were much cheaper. Flyscreen mesh on windows needed to be stainless steel on the rated side but could be poly on the other side. Same as cladding and other stuff such as roofing, window frames, even landscaping and mulch, everything on the rated side had to be fireproof. Of course, if there was a huge, swirling fire there would be nothing to stop it swirling to the non-rated side of the house where it could have taken hold very easily. Imho, it would have been better to build the 'whole' house as fire rated...not half!! The fitting you mention on the rainwater tank (can't think of the name of it right now) but it was fitted at the base of the rainwater tank and the household outlet was fitted at (eg) 600mm above ground...or wherever they deemed it should be depending on tank capacity. That way there was always xxx litres of water for fire fighting left in the tank. The only fire levy on that block was charged by the insurance company and they couldn't tell me how they could charge it on one side of the house and not the other...they were still scratching their heads over that when my plans changed and I didn't proceed with that build. Ally are you in a bushfire rated area? Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 5Dec 05, 2011 6:12 pm Ooh I forgot about some of them!! We are in a bushfire area, so we have to have a pump fitted to our tanks and a levy is also added into the quote. Travel is exxy though. When I built last time it was between $3k - $10k, depending on the builder. I think from memory we paid around $5k. Septic will be a bio or envirocycle. Our council is pathetic and wont agree to anything else. Ive been told to allow between $10k-$15k for this. In one quote, it was $12k. I have no idea on how much I owuld have to outlay for the track/driveway though. Im thinking around $10k, but I know it will probably be alot more than this. Its not a long driveway, around 20m?? Ill add more as I think of it Building on rural acreage - budget question? 6Dec 06, 2011 5:14 am Hi Our driveway is about 120m, but the first 50m is sprayseal that was put down when the subdivision was created (we are on approx 5 acres in a rural residential area). The builder put an allowance for earthworks in his quote and this covered the driveway too. It took the bulldozer that was doing our cut about 10 minutes to make the track (so that cost nothing really in the scheme of things). It would have cost about $2000 if we had to get the bulldozer in just for the driveway. They then put down about $5k worth of road base and covered it with a layer of fill. This has been compacted by all of the vehicles using it and it isn't too bad now (about 3 months in). Once everything is finished we will get the bobcat in to patch up some rough bits and we need to put in a rubble drain at one point where we get some run-off from a neighbours dam. One thing I hadn't budgeted on was termite protection. This cost about $5k before the slab went down (we have a big slab because we are doing a dual occupancy). I think we will have to pay more for a barrier system around the house too. If there is a phone line "at the gate" Telstra don't charge to install the line as long as you provide the trench. In the next week or so we will have a trench dug to the gate and the electrician will run the mains to the house while a Telstra contractor will run the phone line. It may be different if there is no Telstra infrastructure nearby. Paul Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 7Dec 06, 2011 7:24 pm Paul, we have our Telstra pit across the road. So Im not sure how much it will cost. Thats something we have to look into. Termite protection is fixed into our quote, well all quotes we have had has it factored in. The driveway I am hoping we can do ourselves. Weve got the tractor there and access to other machinary if needed. Mates rates It would be the gravel etc thats the killer. The other tracks and shed sites on the farm have used a certain type of rubble, the name escapes me atm, but we will use the same. It doesnt get boggy and stands the test of time (and Winter). Building on rural acreage - budget question? 8Dec 06, 2011 7:28 pm If the pit is across the road then as long as there is a spare cable pair it shouldn't cost anything. Paul Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 9Dec 06, 2011 7:35 pm if you do you drive try quarry for your crushed rock l got 50m cheap by dealing with them direct. Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 10Dec 06, 2011 9:33 pm Our driveway is 250 m long and only cost us around $4000 for the lot from a paddock to a crushed rock driveway so if your going to do most yourself I cant imagine will cost you too many $$$ we have been in our house for 4 months and had the track down for around 18 months now havent had to do anything to it. ITs all nice and compacted now just a little dusty as the weather dries it out. Have you thought about putting in a bore for watering your garden ? as rain water will only go so far. And fencing ? We are on 7 acres that is one large paddock so for us we need fencing but not sure what your needs are. Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 11Dec 07, 2011 1:10 pm Paulw, thats good to know. Im sure if I ge tthe box number and call, they should be able to tell me? Dexterredcat, ours in on 200+ acres with a natural spring in the creek etc. It flows all year round, so we are lucky. But we cant dib into it too much as we use it for stock. We havent discussed a bore. But the way things are here, well, we will be charged and metered if we use a bore. Fencing is the normal farm fence - mesh and barb. Weve got all the stuff there ready to go Our local quarry is good with their rubble, they just put a bit much clay in it though. But we will go through them Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 12Dec 07, 2011 9:07 pm Hi Ally. We are only 2.5 acres, not that rural really. We set our house back 15 metres thinking it would be heaps. Now that it's done though, it really seems so close to the road. If I had my time again, I def go back further another 15m. Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 13Dec 07, 2011 9:50 pm Oh really? Ours is probably more, but Im not good with distances. Ill ask my partner when he gets home. Were sort of stuck with where we can build. Where we originally wanted to build was on a hil, but access and power was to hard to organise. So were on the lower side but the creeks at one side and the road at the other. So were sort of stuck. But we are lucky that the road isnt busy, so shouldnt be too bad. Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 14Dec 07, 2011 10:13 pm Seeing on your on 200+ acres, I'm sure there wouldn't be too much traffic anyway. Btw, your land sounds amazing. Love the sound of the spring running through! There an underground spring on our land but as mentioned, as soon as you tap it now, you metered and charged! Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 15Dec 07, 2011 11:31 pm Thanks Mike. It is really lovely out there. Peaceful and just bliss. I cant wait for the go ahead so I can start my own build thread!!!! Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 16Jul 14, 2012 12:54 pm Hi all, i see no one has posted on this thread for a while. I'm wondering if anyone is further along in there build and has tips? we have a 5 acher block north of perth its a very slopeing block with heaps of iron stone. i think we may have a huge challange putting a house on it (getting all the utility's up to the building envilope alone scares me) any input would be great! kate Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 17Jul 14, 2012 1:22 pm hi ds, my tip would be to be sitting down when you get the siteworks quote. whatever builder you choose, see if you can source your own siteworks people as this will make it cheaper. do the same with your electrical run-in. depending on how far your setback is from the road, we were also allowed to source our own for this as we are nearly 60m from the road. also double check that the builder actually builds in your area. dont just assume the salesperson knows what they are talking about. - this happened to us. we went thru the process with one builder, changed the plan blah blah blah, was the day before we were going to sign the PCQ and he sent us an email - 'sorry, we dont actually build in xxxx' . To say we were pi44ed off at the time would be an understatement. But in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened. As since i posted last time, we have signed with a builder with a plan we LOVE and have just started brickwork this week. also check with your shire/council whether they allow septic or you need an ATU, as this could add another $15000+ to your budget. hope you find a builder that will build you a gorgeous house. Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 18Jul 14, 2012 7:27 pm Yeah utilities is the killer. We are building on 2 acres, there are houses beyond we we were but we had to pay to 'upgrade' the transformer. Luckily people to our immediate left also started building at the same time so we got to halve the cost - only $9 thousand each...... Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 19Jul 17, 2012 10:19 am We did have the power company do a quote, it was $35,000 for main power under the road, transformer, and 150m of cabling. That would put us 30m from the pit on our side of the road. We were quoted on our house design $350k+, and that was for a fibro looking homestead, colourbond roof and drop return verandah, like the old style homesteads. And that was before they even looked at the paddock we wanted to build in. The septic people quoted us $15k for an enviro-cycle that could be used closer to the creek but with less run off. It went straight back into the lawns and gardens. Unfortunately though, my partners parents wouldnt let us build, so we went through everything for nothing. The farms still there, we just cant build out there yet. So we are building in town for now. His grandma also has a farm which we are hoping to buy in a few years time. Fingers crossed. Then we could renovate the cottage thats there for my dad. Thats our plan anyway Re: Building on rural acreage - budget question? 20Sep 02, 2012 11:30 pm thanks guys, yeah we just flew down to perth for the week to meet with builders, earthworks poeple and draftsman regarding our block. And yes it looks like we wont get much change fron $60,000 for earthworks,tanks,power conection ect... (good thing every time we fly down and actually STAND ON OUR ACHERAGE we love it more and more) how's everyones builds/houses going??? any updates/advice would be great:-) Hi Renee, Boundaries in NSW are generally shown on Deposited Plans. When they put boundaries into SIX Maps from these plans, there are various reasons that these often do… 1 2023 1 4581 Coming back to your old stomping grounds, huh? Renovations on a budget can be quite the journey. It's like giving your house a new lease on life. The twist of not knowing… 1 3475 |