Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 21, 2012 1:49 pm Hi, I was after some advice on a few things. We are building our first home on a rear strata block, we have almost 430sq/m (20m by 21m) so are wanting to build a relatively good sized 3 by 2. We are looking at a few different builders, however having a hard time trying to make a decision. Has not been easy getting quotes or suitable designs. Seem to be looking more closely at Redink and Aveling developments. Does anyone have any advice for building on a rear battleaxe block, or had any experiences with builders doing these sorts of designs? Dont really know where to start - and its hard because most peoples experiences are with 'normal' blocks and house designs Any insight would be great! Re: Rear strata first home 2Nov 21, 2012 4:18 pm There are a few insights at http://www.anewhouse.com.au/?p=2234 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: Rear strata first home 4Nov 22, 2012 6:38 pm Perhaps Im confused If block is 21 x 20 and 450 sqm what is causing you any dramas finding a plan ( or Builder ) to fit the block. Block size same , how does having a long driveway to the rear cause problems. Like any build , council has regulations on building, and what can be built. Rear block still has ( Or can have ) as many bed/bath combos as you want, garage , back yard ( or side ) , alfresco etc. Strata has a few differences to green title tho, that vary so much council to council that I shall not be listing any here. I suspect 450 sqm of buildable space on this forum is bigger ( if only slightly ) than most 3 x 2 blocks. You may be better off as may not need things such as 6m setbacks and the like that most councils require from street frontage. Good Luck Note - I quite like my rear block , much quieter. Tho many say ( and perhaps I agree ) we cheeated ( I have too mispell this , forum wont let me call myself a cheeater ) by building both front and back homes and then selling the front to a very quiet couple 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: Rear strata first home 5Nov 23, 2012 10:46 am Look at Impressions, Dale Alcock Homes. tbh honest most major builder's have a units division. And a simple strata build is the easiest form of unit development. The only issues facing the builder are restricted access, and some additional surveying works. When you are looking at plan's, be mindful of the location of the sewer. The most common issue with rear strata homes is the main sewer pipe running down the side of the block. You will be restricted as too how close you can build to the pipe (Watercorp can assist you with that) Personally I think you are better off going to a designer and shopping your own plans, however if money is really tight then going to builder direct might end up cheaper. Re: Rear strata first home 6Nov 23, 2012 5:53 pm Hi, Thanks for your input. Basically, we have tried to engage a few builders over the past month (approx . However, as not all project builders have a great deal of strata designs we would have to pay money for them to do something up for us. We have had a great deal of trouble getting plans that would suit orientation of the block (i.e rooms where we want them etc) and even more trouble getting an idea of cost. Basically I am coming to the conclusion that it is too difficult to make a choice based on plan/quotes. It seems like we should make a decision based on the builder. Which then leads me to the issue that it is difficult to see what these companies are doing i.e. cant go and look at a display home, they are reluctant to give us an idea of specs etc. Each builder has differed greatly in their opinions in site costs / how to deal with a rear strata - which scares me because it makes me feel that they dont really know whats going on. I have taken to walking around the suburb we are building in, trying to talk to others who have built similar rear houses. haha. I just wondered is anyone had any good experiences building a rear strata in Perth - and if they could let me know that would be great! Re: Rear strata first home 8Dec 03, 2012 6:02 pm As a rule project builder's wont have standard design's for rear strata's as there is no such thing as a standard rear strata. but as Busy Busy said, builder's like Blueprint homes will be able to show you jobs they have done in the past and tailor a solution for you Re: Rear strata first home 9Jan 02, 2013 2:23 pm im building on a rear block with Redink and it's been great so far! We used a standard drawing and the redink people will adjust it to fit on our rear block and to what our preference is. i wld recommend redink! Re: Rear strata first home 10Jan 02, 2013 2:31 pm Thanks for your response eeleen12 - we have decided to go with redink as well! Have you started your build? We have got a draft of our plan but it still needs a bit of work. In the end, we went and looked at a rear strata redink built that was for sale - it looked so well done we signed the next week! Re: Rear strata first home 11Jan 04, 2013 3:13 pm the drawings and stuff started sometime in aug..and finally in nov the build started. right now, all the bricks are up and we are waiting for the roof to go up we've had no issue so far but wldnt mind if things went abit faster. where abts are u building? Re: REDINK Rear strata first home 12Jan 04, 2013 5:31 pm How exciting for you! I had a look at your plan - looks good! Ours is a little similar - although now I am having big second thoughts about having the garage off to the side VS straight down the driveway. Building south of the river - near Fremantle. We signed about a month ago - but because of christmas etc nothing has happened yet. Would be nice if we could get in before the end of the year, but not sure how likely that would be. Re: Rear strata first home 13Apr 26, 2013 10:51 am I am doing a rear build as well at the moment. We just got coucil approval this week and pre-start next week with slab down sometime next month. Site costs have been a lot more than we planned though but just looking forward to the build starting soon and no more renting. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64434 Building our own custom design based on the Elwood by Dale Alcock Land settled - November Plans submitted to council - January Prestart - March Slab - 18 September Brickies - 23 October Re: Rear strata first home 14Apr 26, 2013 11:30 am Hey navs! Good news! Who are you building with? We have done prestart but have stalled with the builder as they don't seem to understand the needs of a rear block ie: not calculated soakwells taking into account driveway & my thinking about service run ins. Urgh - having a 'problem solving' meeting today Re: Rear strata first home 15Apr 26, 2013 12:01 pm Hey, we are building with Dale Alcock Developments. Even though the site costs have amounted to circa $40k we were told about these when we got our plans and after the initial shock and dismay wore off we have finally (about 5 months later haha) come to terms with it. Are you building with Red Ink? The good thing about Dale's was they had a separate developments team who were very experienced in the specific issues when building rear strata homes so early on in the piece we were told site costs would be max 30k so even though it ended up 40k I guess at least we weren't going in expecting to spend 10k like on a normal front build. They also designed our home with us just describing what we liked about other display homes and helped us maximise space to make the most of having turning circles and stuff like that. Soakwells are a killer aren't they - hope you don't get stung too much and good luck today! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64434 Building our own custom design based on the Elwood by Dale Alcock Land settled - November Plans submitted to council - January Prestart - March Slab - 18 September Brickies - 23 October Re: Rear strata first home 16Apr 26, 2013 1:13 pm Hey. We looked closely at da - had a few meetings - loved them a their plans - but thought some of their site works stuff was a bit overkill I.e. wanted to charge to rip up existing driveway, charge for temporary driveway ad then charge again for new driveway. I also got annoyed that they wouldnt give us the same promotions as other builds! haha. But they were thorough and the showroom was amazing! We had a few reservations not building with a specific projects dept builders, but we saw some completed redink rear houses and they looked amazing. We mistook them to be from 'better' builders. Meeting was good today and redink ate fixing our site costs to protect against anything they may have missed - so can't argue about that! When do you think your build will start. Re: Rear strata first home 17Apr 26, 2013 3:55 pm We only met with Summit and Dale's and went with Dale because they had a 4 for no more promotion at the time so we thought they would work out to be more cost effective but IMO they factor in the cost of all their promotions so I reckon we would've ended up paying the same at Summit. My partner really loved their Elwood design and display home so we went with them in the end. Haha that showroom is amazing but everything we want is not necessarily in the aspire spec (which we are doing) but an upgrade! Dale told us other builders don't tell the clients the site costs up front and there's lots of surprises but having never built before I get the feeling they just say these things so we don't kick up a fuss about site costs which I feel are overpriced. Fantastic news that they are sorting it out without stinging you any extra though - that's a great outcome Build should start next month in May, probably towards the end I reckon but we've had the land since November so finally feels like we are getting somewhere. Have you started your build yet? Also where are you building? https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64434 Building our own custom design based on the Elwood by Dale Alcock Land settled - November Plans submitted to council - January Prestart - March Slab - 18 September Brickies - 23 October Re: Rear strata first home 18Apr 26, 2013 3:57 pm Sorry just saw you were building near Freo somewhere so ignore that https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64434 Building our own custom design based on the Elwood by Dale Alcock Land settled - November Plans submitted to council - January Prestart - March Slab - 18 September Brickies - 23 October Re: Rear strata first home 19Apr 26, 2013 4:45 pm Ohhhh I loved the Elwood! We spoke to lots and lots of builders (I think maybe 7-8) - to be honest they all said different things and would all pretty cautious about what they would give us. Da said they wouldn't give us that 4 promotion thing, which was why in the end we didn't build with them really. Was just a tad too expensive. I think you can rest easy knowing da are pretty thorough and build lovely houses! Do you have your plan up anywhere? Where abouts are you building? We have sorta had a few regrets about going rear battle axe - but in the end we know that we are so much closer to everything where we are than if we had tried to find a 'proper' block. We haven't started yet - maybe June/juku they will start. Longgggg process! Re: Rear strata first home 20Apr 27, 2013 6:48 am Wow sounds like you really did your research. I'm surprised they didn't give you the 4 for no more promo - who did yous peak to at Dale's? I think we've had similar regrets to you in terms of the site costs and having to wait so long for council approval, turning circles etc than if we had gone a "proper" block but there really is no land around close to the city and we didn't want to live in Kwinana or Burns Beach. We are building in Carlisle. Very happy with location. June's almost around the corner, we were expecting to start in June/July but now they are saying sooner so we're stoked. I might scan the plans and start a thread of my build tomorrow just for other battle axers in the future to know what they are getting into haha https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64434 Building our own custom design based on the Elwood by Dale Alcock Land settled - November Plans submitted to council - January Prestart - March Slab - 18 September Brickies - 23 October Hi All, see above image. The required setback from the rear boundary in my case is 5m, as you can see the shape of the site and location of the boundary is slightly… 0 8333 A quick update, we didn't have site start before Easter. Summit can't seem to give me a day when they are scheduled to begin, so I'm left with a vague "within 10-20… 4 26733 |