Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 28, 2012 12:20 am The better half & I are in a bit of a quandary over potential costs for our knockdown/rebuild; having bleated about it to a few people today, it was suggested that this place is a goldmine of experience. I've searched around a bit, but haven't found complete answers ... so wonder if a noob could be indulged? The short version is that we sorta/kinda had an idea of what we wanted, we had an idea of what it might cost as a custom build (which is already close to twice what something a similar size would cost as a project home), we started talking to the first builder seriously who initially told us we were going to be pretty much on the money ... but in the last couple of days we got the initial predicted costings back for what we've had them draw-up, and it's WAY over budget. We've got a meeting with them on Monday, something might happen then - but I can't see how. I'm not even sure what to ask; maybe our main priorities & reasoning, and people might have some suggestions for what we should be doing? We've got a block that's an OK size, not super-wide, but there are limitations. We're not at all averse to project homes in principle; but I want a 4-car garage with enough height for a hoist, and we really want to be able to capture breezes & almost never need aircon similarly to the d0dgy old house that's currently here - it seems silly to spend all that money & go backwards. We've also got a few other desires in terms of mod-cons, but the main drivers for the design are the oversized garage & needing to fit that plus living-areas onto the ground floor, and wanting what's termed 'green' for more comfort (and I guess warm-and-fuzzies) than running-cost reasons. We did visit a one-off display home we liked; it had no aircon fitted, and on a high 30's day it was very comfy inside. We figured we had our builder. They went broke before we even started talking to them about planning; the guys who gave us this scary costing are the first we've spoken with seriously, and they seem genuine. I guess my main concern is the 'green' thing. And here's where questions start. I know about general comfort & efficiency principles; certain walls need to have large thermal mass, others not (and I know it works after standing barefoot on the tile/concrete front porch on a cold night after a sunny winter's day) ... windows facing prevailing breezes should be a bit smaller than windows at the other end of the house to avoid pressure build-up ... but I don't know how to be sure what calculations are needed, sun-shade sizes & orientation etc. How to know your builder actually knows? And can you somehow get a project home builder to apply a few intelligent mods to a design in order for it to work, but at a more affordable price than a custom build? Can you do enough research yourself to work those things out, and get them (such as a thermally "large" central wall where they'd usually use tissue-paper) to include your changes with the price staying sensible? From a size/shape point of view, is it possible to get a project home adjusted, if we find something sort-of similar to what we currently have drawn, if the plan we currently have can't be changed by more than about 50cm in certain directions in order that it all fit on the block? And if so, are relatively major changes expensive enough that we're better just going with a custom build from scratch? To be honest, we might even have been happy to be forking-over not far short of 7 figures for our "dream home" to be built; but as the initial costings have come back being that much more (and it's only a 280sqm house apart from the garage), I'm now questioning just how expensive the extra stuff we want is going to be ... what we want doesn't seem that far out of the ordinary? Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 2Apr 28, 2012 12:38 am Wow forg. That's an awful lot of info. Could you help us out with some photos, plans, specifics on location, maybe even approximate pricing so we can get a better idea of your actual situation? We won't bite, promise! Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 3Apr 28, 2012 12:54 am OK ... well, I admit I didn't intend to launch-in quite with that much 'stuff', and adding plans etc makes it even more voluminous ... Location: western Sydney Price: well the place we looked at, a year ago, was ~$530k base-price, but it was a one-off build (not a project home - a display home so you could see what that mob could do). We didn't think the design we've had drawn this time was any more complex, but we've got a few additions such as ~$50k in solar under-floor heating & tiles throughout & a wee bit of landscaping (but not much). But the indicative/guesstimate price from the first stage of drawings has come back at not far off $1.2m ... that's just to knockdown/rebuild. It's a fairly level block of land, you can see from the drawings below ... these aren't the latest, they're a couple of incarnations old but from a cost point of view they're near identical to the latest. http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/originalForg/house_v1_downstairs.jpg http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/originalForg/house_v1_upstairs.jpg http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/originalForg/house_v1_elevations.jpg http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/originalForg/house_v1_views.jpg Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 4Apr 28, 2012 8:39 am Hi Forg, Trying to build 'green' or sustainable as you intend and we are doing adds on lots of costs unfortunately. I know I could build a similar but less green design to our house and I could cut costs dramatically. For information and working out things like crossbreezes I recommend you check out the 'Your home' manual. It's a technical guide from the Alternative Technology Association (ATA)to doing things a sustainable way and a very interesting read. http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html You can also buy it as a hard copy. This is what we mainly used to design our home, and I know for a fact that the draftsman who told us he knew quite a bit, didn't. Our builders are open to everything and actually have my copy of the manual now so they can learn more, I wouldn't rely on builders for knowing this stuff unless they actually state they have proper experience and knowledge on it - and if they do that then ask to see some of the places they have built. My best advice really is to know the stuff yourself, then you can guide when things start to go off track. Good luck Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 5Apr 28, 2012 1:28 pm Hi Looking at your plans your are struggling a bit to have a good green design with a North Facing Block which is the hardest orientation. When I designed my first passive solar house the builder told me for the first 4 months that I had got it facing the wrong way. it was only while he was doing the final fitout he realised the house was right. From the houses I regularly see most builders would have the same level of knowledge unless they specialise in Green Building. You will find some more opinions about passive solar on my blog. Looking at your drawings one obvious saving would be a lightweight construction for your all fresco. A better Passive solar solution would be for the 2nd Floor to go the full width of the block so maximising the 2nd Floor North Facing Windows and also giving you more North Facing roof for Solar Panels. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 6Apr 28, 2012 1:30 pm You can see why it is $1.2 mill ... The single basin in the ensuite , no walk in pantry and the herb garden. Must be, cos there ain't nothing spectacular about that plan! People will sort you out on here and get you in the right direction. Jodge has a thread re solar design etc take a look there too. Good luck. Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 7Apr 28, 2012 7:16 pm Hey Forg. . . don't mind Kiwi She has a thing for vanities. . . and herb gardens, it seems!
I think you've come to the right place. . . if you have the time, patience and thick skin to answer all of our questions and hear from our building experiences. . . Which part of western Sydney are you building in? Edit: and we paid around $400K to build our house. . . all 42ish squares of it. . . I wonder if you could give us a bulleted list of all of the things that you think you're paying extra for? Maybe we can get some input from people who have had these things installed before, as to the cost you should be expecting, then we can maybe put the pieces of the puzzle together. Firstly I'd say, ditch this builder. .. there are good local builders out there who will do it cheaper, I'm sure. . . they may be a bit scared of some of the things that you're asking for if they haven't done them before, but maybe you can tell them that you'll hire your own contractors for these bits, and do a work around. Here's the thread about passive solar design, you should take a l k http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=55057 Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 8Apr 28, 2012 11:17 pm Hi forg Welcome, as kiwi and jodge stated 1.2m seems like a lot of money even taking into account some of your specific requirements a few of us are building with zen homes which mostly does custom homes at project homes prices. Before going wth these guys i had two ther builders to choose from around the same price so you have choices...I can tell you I'm spending less than half your quotes for 48sq in north west syd. Suggest you look around as I see it would cost no more than 600k for what you want.. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions. Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 10Apr 29, 2012 1:10 am I like Kiwi Luck forg Timeline Aug 08-Land Mar 09-Demo/Titles Sept 10-Handover No1 Sept 11-Handover No2 April 12-Sold No2 Aug 14-Land/Demo Jan 15-Slabs viewtopic.php?f=31&t=25736 Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 12Apr 29, 2012 11:09 am Kiwi liker.....not lover!! Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 14Apr 29, 2012 5:39 pm oh dear. excuse the crazies. hehe Well done for posting your plans. Something many new members struggle with. Welcome to the forum. I hope that you are able to get lots of help and support. there are some people with loads of experience in designing/building greener here. Hope some maybe able to help you out. Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 15Apr 29, 2012 8:41 pm Thanks for the pointers, everyone! It sounds like I'll have to start scouring eBay for bulk vanity purchases? I've seen that technical manual briefly when Googling for passive solar info, I think I might download all the PDF's on Tuesday when not-bandwidth-limited internet returns to our home. We've also pimped our drawings around a few builders that do custom designs (one more boutiquey one, also Alkira Homes & whatever Japanese company bought Jennings although Jennings didn't strike us as being super interested in delivering what we want) and await some more info from those guys next week. Additionally, we saw a couple of side-entrance designs when very seriously interrogating project-home designs; we sorta wondered why the option wasn't ever suggested to us given the width limitations we're seeing, and we've found that the Rawson Homes Edge II will go close to what we want with fairly minor modification so we're waiting to hear from them next week too. So a few irons in the fire at the moment ... Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 16Apr 29, 2012 8:48 pm Hey Forg. . . can you tell us which suburb you're in, or at least an area? Word of mouth recommendations really are the best kind for builders. . . you might find that you're buidling close to someone who has a great builder. Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 18Apr 29, 2012 9:34 pm Hey Forg - Welcome to H1! We were in a very similar boat to you - Want to build as green as possible (solar orientation, cross ventilation, good insulation etc.). We didn't think we could afford a custom build, so we spoke to a few project home builders. One went bust a few weeks before we signed too! (I noticed you had the same experience - I wonder if it was the same one?). We spoke to Rawson too, and we liked their designs particularly the Benham and build quality (as they build a lot in our area). But we found a custom builder who was actually well priced - a bit above project homes, but way cheaper than usual custom builds. (hello gogo and scgia!! As for green principles though, I am afraid many builders (including our builder) is not really clued into this. The best thing we ever did though was to start out by commissioning a 'green' architect who drew up the concept with green design elements (cost us $3,300) then we went with the plans to the builders from there. So there are lots of different ways around it and to get best of both worlds! Good luck! ps: and yeah, don't mind kiwi. She is scary but we all love her! SunshineT's Build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34585 Designs start: 4/12/09 DA: 5/7/11 Demo: 22/12/11 Slab: 24/2/12 Keys: 31/8/12 Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 19Apr 29, 2012 9:54 pm pps: just had a closer look at your plans. I can see the what bashworth was saying. Your garage is in the prime solar orientation position. Does the garage have to be on that side? A few of us are solar orientation passionate, so just say the word if you want us to seriously comment on your plans. (Some people don't like too much criticism, so good to say that upfront if you are set and keen on your plans!). And I was wondering, what is that "Forg's bit" in the master?!??! SunshineT's Build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34585 Designs start: 4/12/09 DA: 5/7/11 Demo: 22/12/11 Slab: 24/2/12 Keys: 31/8/12 Re: Cost Surprise - new home, odd but not way-out desires 20Apr 29, 2012 10:03 pm that would be the space he has been allocated by the mrs for his clothes. did you not show that on your plans for your dh? 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