Things you forget - summary page 32

Some real golden ideas in this thread!

Great thread! Wish we'd seen it during prestart!!!!!

My suggestion isn't so much things you forget as an idea for how to get a cost effective size increase in your house.
Our house design is quite long and has a central passage way with rooms to right and left, opening to an open plan living / kitchen.
We extended (stretched) the house in the middle by 2.5m to create a bedroom/study on one side of the passage, and split the extra 2.5m on the other side of the passage between main brm and theatre.
So this gave us not only an extra bedroom but more spacious rooms. This variation (giving additional 14.75m x 2.5m space) cost under $9k (Western Australia)!!! It was simple because it just lengthened the house without complicating roof lines or anything.

typically this is what volume builders allow. For us, they actually were happy to split the house in two places, making bedrooms bigger in one area, and our living rooms bigger in another.

If you are increasing the ceiling height of your home, check the door under the stairs is the same height as other internal doors.

To add to the above - include the garage access door - typically it is 2040, not 2340 - usually an upgrade.

Review location of hot water sytstem tank outside as its bulky. It is relocatable at a cost.

I had ours moved closer to the kitchen and it costed me $180 to extend the pavement.

Yes, get the hot water system installed in a equidistant location.

Our plan had it located near the master ensuite, which was an awful long way away from the laundry and main bathroom.

Over time your water bills will go up from the wasted water going down the drain whilst you wait for the hotwater to arrive in a distant room. Worse if you are on tank water to waste good water.


Consider a looped hotwater system where the hot water is run by a small pump that flows from the tank right around the whole system and returns to the tank, which means your hot water is there at the tap all the time.

not my idea but a new post in the forums
have roof trusses designed to take weight loads and updraught of solar panels

Really ? I believe the design of trusses these days is more than sufficient for solar panels.

I know you have to make allowance if you are putting in solar hotwater, if the tank is going up there too, because that's an awful lot of weight added in the one spot.

dont want this thread to get too full but here is the post i was referring to
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89192&p=1744877&hilit=solar+roof+design#p1744877

I am runnign into a same scnerio with Henley now, I guess we will have to negotiate. Get them to do 50% as it was not your fault.

I will be going atleast 6 months more .. I will threaten them about going with another builder. which i would if they try to charge me too much.

have plumber fit solenoid for shower timer if teenage children spending too long in the shower
my son went in shower, i went shopping, came home over one hour later to hear shower still running

I could have laid the HDMI cable across the ceiling to another side of the room (theater) for my Projector feed. Now I have to use Wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver as a work around.

It's a good idea to lay the data cable for Security PoE cameras during the framing stage.

If you have 2 different roof systems (i.e. tiled and colorbond) on the same house, make sure your gutter for each roof type matches the colour of the roof.

We had gutter colour as "monument" to match the tiled roof but we also have a section of colorbond flat roof with box gutter, had to put a variation to get the box gutter to be the same colour as the colorbond roof.

If you plan to install motorised curtains (which I believe is an absolute must for any curtains wider than 3 m), make sure you rough in power connection for the motors at the motor level and from the right side.

Here are a few more items that I've uncovered:

- Consider insulation in the walls to the garage if it is a hebel construction. It appears that if you build with hebel, the garage walls may not actually be brick (could be just stud walls).
- Timber panelling on the ceiling of your portico (to match timber panelling in the alfresco - if you get it)
- Look to extend robes in bedrooms if there are voids on either side - usually plumbing, but depending on the option they may be empty cavities.

Remember to allocate space on external walls for clothesline, air-conditioning unit, water tanks etc.
We have so many windows in our house that finding a spot for the above mentioned has been problematic.
If we'd thought about it at the planning stage we could have resized or rearranged windows to make room.

Remember to prewire for solar if you're not getting them installed by your builder. Means no conduits on the outside of your nice new home

Our land will settle soon, so we are going through some plans and designs. We have decided on the "Twin Waters 330" with a few little changes.

Here is one tip that may help cover all the little things you may miss. It's helping us!

Sit down with the plan, and go through your routine....
Morning routine - Wake up and switch off your alarm, walk to the bathroom, will it be dark when you get up?, How close is a light switch etc.. Will I be making several trips up and down the stairs just to get ready for work?

Making breakfast.. "I walk past the bench to get to the fridge, grab my eggs and have to walk back to the bench to put them down".. etc... Right now I live in a raised house, so basically single living. My routine is to put the kettle on, go have a shower, come back and make eggs and coffee - then go get dresses (I'm not starkers...). I'm building a 2 storey house, so to do that, I'll have to get up, walk downstairs, put the kettle on, walk back upstairs, take a shower, then walk back down to make breakfast, then walk back upstairs to get dressed... I'll have to readjust my routine, or get fit in the process.....

Our cooktop will be away from the sink which will be in the BP, so for ease, we are installing a small sink n the bench for meal prep - peeling vegies and rinsing stuff, not for dish washing...

One thing I'm not a fan of, is the open ensuite to the bedroom. My partner does all sorts of shifts, so turning lights on at 4am to have a shower will certainly wake me up.

Cheers for this thread - its been great - and certainly has caught out a few sales people when I come loaded with questions. When you pull out 12 pages of notes and questions in front of them and stat asking about provisional costs, cost plus contract, driveway passovers and what not.. they start treating you differently.

Cheers
B&A