Building a modified Coral Noosa 279 - We're In

Hello,

I've been a long time lurker of this site, now it's time for our own build thread. We are knock-down rebuilding in Sydney, building a modified Coral Homes Noosa 279.

This build has been a long time in starting for us, we originally started with another builder then pulled out of that and sat and considered our options for some months before finally settling with Coral. I think we have seen literally every display home in and around Sydney, and looked through almost all the designs available from all builders. Throughout that process we had a good idea of what we were after but looked around to ensure we'd taken in all available floor plan ideas, building styles and finishes etc. At the end of all of that I'm very happy with our decision to stop our first build early, with what house we are building now and with building with Coral.

It must be said, some of the time taken in getting our house started with Coral was due our own delays. Settling on our design modifications took us some months, and due to a certifier issue we had to restart the DA for the old house demolition just as we got the new house certified and ready to go - that alone cost us 6 weeks. Throughout it all though, the communication with Coral has been excellent and they've always been willing to help.

I'll edit this first post to track the build as it continues.

Notable Dates
06/09/10 - Paid deposit to first builder
12/10/10 - Purchase settles on house
23/02/11 - Pulled out of first build
25/09/11 - Started discussions with Coral on custom Noosa layout
25/01/12 - First Tender received
30/04/12 - Signed contract
20/10/12 - Old house demolition finished.
24/10/12 - Soil test performed. P site, H2 soil.
10/11/12 - Contour survey performed. Our 2nd with Coral.
12/11/12 - Initial peg out of site, Portaloo appears.
13/11/12 - Official Start date, met our Site Supervisor on site to go over tender and anything else.
14/11/12 - Site is benched
16/11/12 - Piers go down. Site is fenced.
19/11/12 - Initial site plumbing
20/11/12 - Met electrician on site
21/11/12 - Power pole appears with conduits to edge of future slab
22/11/12 - Termite collars put on plumbing. Pieces of form work appear.
23/11/12 - Form work starts in earnest.
24/11/12 - Form work finished (on a Saturday).
29/11/12 - Slab poured and meter box wired in.
30/11/12 - Water tank delivered.
03/12/12 - Frames delivered.
04/12/12 - Framing started.
14/12/12 - Frame finished.
17/12/12 to 21/12/12 - Brick and roof preparation (we almost had a roof).
21/12/12 to 08/01/13 - Christmas shutdown.
09/01/13 - Bricks started
22/01/13 - Bricks finished. Realistically - 9 days effort due to weather.
23/01/13 - Roof started
24/01/13 - Roof finished - effectively a 1 day job, they didn't do a lot on the 23rd.
25/01/13 - Solar installed.
25/01/13 to 30/01/13 - Plumbing rough in
30/01/13 to 02/02/13 - Electrical rough in
30/01/13 - Down pipes
01/02/13 - Air conditioning first install (rough in?)
02/02/13 - Data cabling (by myself)
05/02/13 - Frame inspection by H and K Ryan
05/02/13 - Bricks acid wash
05/02/13 - More cabling and wall ducts (me)
06/02/13 to 07/02/13 - Wall and some ceiling insulation (mostly done)
06/02/13 - Rear eaves
11/02/13 - Brick sills repaired/replaced
11/02/13 - Front eaves
12/02/13 - Plasterboard started. Most ceilings done.
13/02/13 - Plasterboard. Ceilings finished, most walls done.
14/02/13 - Plasterboard. Wet areas done. Filling and sanding of joins and screws.
<various other things - list hasn't been updated for a while >
31/05/13 - Hand over

Here's the original Noosa 279 floor plan that I worked from. This is now called a Noosa 29 and is slightly different here and there.

My first custom layout for the Noosa. I based the bedroom layout on Coral's Casuarina 275.

My second custom layout, and how it stands today. The facade and the raked ceilings through the entry are a custom creation too - based on the first house we had planned to build.





Gross building area now comes in at 294.79m2, or 31.7 squares. The increased space over the standard Noosa comes from the side extension to the garage, straightening the Lounge/Dining/Family external wall, extending the study forward slightly and the Bed 4/Laundry rear wall by about 1.5m.

The garage extension and Lounge/Dining/Family wall extension are standard options for the Noosa. The rear wall extension was necessary to fit everything in how we wanted it. The increase to the Study came about late in the process, it's been done for Complying Development setback reasons.

Edit: Here's my diagram of the floor plan showing the dimensions of the rooms. The final dimensions are slightly different here and there. Also note that Coral's quoted dimensions are "frame to frame", not "wall face to wall face". So rooms will generally be 20mm smaller in each dimension than shown on the diagrams, due to the Gyprock sheets on each wall @ 10mm thickness each.

Ooh love the glass hi-lite window above the door and the raked ceiling sounds lovely too. A lot of our delays were due to us as well, we kept changing our minds and adding things in.
All the best with your build.

The original house on our block. A classic post war house - complete with asbestos fibro under that plastic cladding. We purchased the property fully intending to demolish the house and rebuild, it's quite the norm now in our area.

Thanks! I just checked out your blog photos - you've got a great looking house already. I'm a huge fan of steel frames, I'm glad to see them becoming more commonly used now.

Here's the facade that we based ours on. We won't get the exact look, with sidelites to the door, manicured gardens and all that... But hopefully we'll get the essence of it.

I'll try to list any notable lessons learnt and suggestions that occur to me, just in case they add something for anyone. This is the first house we have built and I think we've gone through the same learning process as a lot of other people have done.

- List prices for project homes are almost meaningless. If you like a house and want to understand how much it might cost you - ask the builder for a quote based on your site, and the inclusions you might like. It's one of the first big lessons I think we all learn - that $190,000 house becomes $280,000 really easily. It becomes $350,000 easily too - but that's another matter of reining in your upgrades.

- Inclusion packages of "$90,000 worth of value for only 99c!" are ridiculous, and "Free air conditioning in November!" offers are rarely genuine. By all means go with that builder and get the package and all offers, but understand that the inclusions are already part of the base house price, or they will be added into the final house price by other means. Again, ask the builder for a quote to get the real price of the house with inclusions, on your site.

- Get copies of everything. You paid for the soil report and contour survey, be sure to get copies of them in their original format. The contour survey should be available as a PDF file and the native CAD (.dwg) file. This type of detail is absolutely essential later on if you change builders, or if you want to put up new fences, do landscaping, put in a pool etc. Be sure that the builder knows you would like these copies before you sign and pay.

- Scan (or download) every document. When you get display home brochures, special offers, contour surveys, invoices, council rates, electricity bills - scan them and keep the electronic copy somewhere useful. It makes it so much easier to find something when you're wondering, "How much did those other guys charge for that bathroom upgrade", or when the builder needs to see your council rates so they can submit your DA.

- Measure things. This might be more relevant for people customising their house design - take a tape measure with you to display homes and measure things. Are the doors 720 or 820? Did you notice that the 3rd bedroom was 2800x3000? How big is the fridge space? How deep are the robes? How wide is the garage? How wide are your cars? Keep in mind that the dimensions shown on display brochures can be misleading.

- Laser measures are priceless if you start to measure everything. If the prices for these things in Australia are still too high, try looking overseas on eBay, Amazon etc. I got a Leica D210 from Amazon US and it's hands down one of the most useful things I've purchased since getting a GPS years ago.

- Take photos. If you like that facade, that fountain, that letterbox, those windows etc be sure to take a photo. Not only is the photo useful but the date of the photo too (found in it's Properties). Did you see that display home in Dec or March? Was that kitchen bench colour you liked Bondi? I'll even go as far as getting the model number from the air conditioner in that display home - if they're charging me $15,000 for something, I want to know what model it is and what the real world price is for it.

- Double check everything. When you get a tender/contract from a builder and there's a line item that says, "Hot water heater 25L/min, Model ABC123 $699" - look up the model number online. Is it actually 25L/min? Is it what you actually wanted? Does the price make sense, of course considering the price of item that it might be replacing. We have spotted errors with this type of stuff with a few builders. It often comes down to copy and paste problems, as they get this detail from a tender done for another customer.

- Question the value of the inclusions/options. A lot (but not all) of builders put a significant markup on standard and non standard items to cover their warranty obligations, their time and hassle. If you want certain brand appliances you're likely better off putting them in yourself after hand-over. Air conditioners are notoriously cheaper and better to do yourself. Floor coverings too, and even as far as door handles and taps. Of course it comes down to the value of your time and how practical it is to do these items yourself. Can the builder give you access to site during the build so you can get the A/C done yourself? BTW - when I say "install yourself", I mean "organise it directly yourself".

- Use builders for what they're good at. This follows on from the above point. Project home builders are (or should be) very good at delivering concrete, bricks, tiles, windows, pipes etc. They're not so good at interior decorating. They're not an appliance wholesaler. They're not a landscaping company.

- It's more economical to modify the internals of a standard project house than to build a completely custom house.

- If modifying a standard house design, try not to move the external walls around to much. It gets expensive as it has an impact on the engineering of the structure, and builders get uncomfortable with that because it erodes their experience in building that exact house.

- Keep an open mind about the house features you want. Sometimes the layout/finish/feature you thought was a great idea at first doesn't end up being so important. We look at these houses in great detail while we're researching them, but once you're in the house you might never notice if that bit sticks out a bit at the back, or if that tap isn't exactly what you wanted etc.

- Understand the project home builder business model. This is a huge point. The service, attention and response time you get from the initial sales staff is not the same as what you'll get from head office once you proceed with the build. Also, the builders head office obviously has a lot of control but your house is literally being built by the site supervisor and a small army of sub-contractors. This is not to say you should accept bad service or substandard anything, but always keep in mind what stage you're in with what part of the business. It may help to modify your communication style and expectations (up or down) depending on who you're dealing with at the time

- Use forums and review sites, apply salt liberally. Forums such as HomeOne are valuable resources for all stages of the build and other sites like ProductReview are ok too, but when researching builders you want to search for trends versus individual highs and lows. The use of sub-contractors will mean that eventually all builders, good and bad, will produce a bad element of the build from time to time. What really matters is how commonly that occurs and how they react to the problem. If you research enough you should notice a trend that builder X is generally very good, builder Y is ok, the final result of builder Z is shabby, and that all the builders exhibit certain traits. Cheaper builders tend to be slower and have less customer service from head-office, but that doesn't necessarily mean the end product will be substandard.

- Be polite. Keep in mind that our builders have to deal with the general public and their customers have differing levels of experience, budgets, patience, communication style, blocks of land, weather patterns and expectations. My experience is if you try to be that customer who's polite and goes some way to understanding the situation/subject you're talking to the builder about, before you talk to them, then they'll appreciate the effort and you'll end up with a better answer/result.

- Ask questions (and double check the answers). Not many of us here are builders or want to be, but I think it's important to understand the technical angle of your house - if only to the degree that allows you to make a wiser, more educated purchase. Things like understanding the layout of the various materials (bricks, windows, frame, roof etc) and what supports what. That'll go towards understanding subjects like why making the garage door a bit wider, or the windows a bit lower costs a fair amount of money. Site costs can be alarming so it might help to know what bigger dollar items like drainage, piers and drop edge beams are exactly, and who needs them - one builder might say you do, but ask another what they think. My experience is if don't take too much of their time most builders sales staff are usually happy to explain things, and even sit there with a pen and paper and sketch this stuff out. Some of the sales staff are ex-builders and enjoy getting back into practical subjects.

The demo trucks lined up to take the old place away.

Our empty block, ready to go.

We arrive one day to find a four white pegs marking out various points of the building pad... and a portaloo.



Day: 1

I noticed something attached to that front left peg and had a look. This diagram was wrapped up in a plastic sleeve and tied onto the peg.



Day: 1

The block being cut, quite an interesting process to watch. We didn't need any extra fill and actually ended up with a bit more left over soil than I expected, but it'll go to good use levelling the rear of the block out.




The site benched and the building pad where it should be. I asked the operator to cut a bit out of the front yard to help us levelling it one day. He didn't cut as much out as I asked him too... thankfully. I think we'll be ok.



Day: 3

The piers are down. I would have like to see these getting wound in but it's a quick job, done easily in one day.



I've seen Coral using the traditional concrete piers for another build on H1 on what looks like sandy soil. For us, on clay, they used a product called IdealPier...

http://www.idealfoundations.com.au/idealpier.html

They review pretty well. Here's a view of the top of the pier, with the cap removed (I didn't do it).



Day: 5

The next day, the initial site plumbing is put in. Sewer connections, storm water drainage (x3) and fresh water connections to the future slab go in. They even ran fresh water and prepared a future sewer connection for the shed/granny flat we have at the rear of the block.

I'm impressed with how much work all of these trades are getting done in a day, especially the plumbers. I took these photos around 3:40pm in the afternoon, by the time I checked the site at midday the next day all the work was done.



Water tank overflow to the left, air conditioning in the middle and the tail of the three storm water running to the creek at the rear of block. Coral seem to have spec'd this drainage well, after the slab is done they'll have spoon drains dug in around both sides of the house.



The finished result.



Day: 8

We lived on site for two years before building. After putting up with drainage issues like this several times I was very happy to see drainage covered so well in the tender we received from Coral, and I'm even happier to see it starting to get dug in now.

A quiet day on site this day. Our new power pole was put in and conduit ran from it to just inside the future slab edge.



The surveyors must have been on site because a number of pegs were bashed in to mark all the corners of the slab too. Interestingly they marked the very back left peg with yellow paint, as that's the point where the slab is set out from.

Day: 10

Cant wait to see the progress.. We built the noosa 279 and have been in 6 months or so and love it..

We got the Eclipse package inclusions for our house, from about early-mid 2012. There's a new Eclipse package out now that looks pretty good - it's cheaper than our package and includes more big ticket items like frame upgrades (T2 or steel), Colorbond roof, solar power etc. I think the package we purchased had more in it in terms of door and tap upgrades but from what I read a lot of people either stripped them out or changed them anyway - as did we. At the end of the day you get what you pay for with these packages so I'm not terribly concerned that we could have got the same level of inclusions for cheaper etc.

Some of the options, upgrades and changes we've made from the standard floor plan and Eclipse inclusions are:

- Increased storage space to side of Garage.
- Brickwork over external doors and windows (replacing fibre cement sheeting).
- Removed patio from Dining, straightening the Lounge/Dining/Family room wall.
- Added extension under eave to Dining room. This is for a fireplace.
- Increased Study by 285mm to front.
- Increased Bed4/Laundry wall by about 1.5m to rear.
- Storage/Linen added to hall side of Rumpus (now the Kitchen).
- Bricks upgraded to Coral's range "D".
- Colorbond roof (with 50mm anticon blanket), and 1 extra roof ventilator (whirly bird)
- Insulation added to Garage external walls and ceiling.
- External wall insulation upgraded to R2.0 Acoustic batts.
- Ceiling insulation upgraded to R3.5
- R1.6 acoustic insulation and Sound Stop plasterboard to all bedroom internal walls and the Lounge/Dining shared wall.
- Double internal doors to Garage.
- Sliding stacker door added to Main bedroom.
- Carpet upgraded to Platinum range, carpet underlay to "Gold Premium"
- Bedroom doors upgraded to moulded panel (2340mm).
- Hot water heater changed to continuous gas unit.
- All windows changed, except for Lounge. Some are slightly larger, some are Awning. New window to Garage.
- Steel frame. This only became available very late in our certification process.
- Upgrade internal paint to washable (Dulux).
- Upgrade Bathroom and Powder room showers to same hardware as Ensuite.
- Bath upgraded to 1700mm model.
- Removed kitchen appliances. We'll supply these.
- Removed main living area flooring. We'll do this after hand-over, with floating timber floors.
- We've also organised air-conditioning ourselves, it will be done during the build.

There are a few changes there.

Hi Muppardo, very good to hear. Thanks for your thread on H1 too, we've referred to it a few times to look at various bits were were considering. I like your floors.