Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 26, 2017 11:32 am Hello,
I Thought I would share the experiences we encounter during our home build as I have read along with a few others on here and found them helpful. Hopefully someone finds this information useful particularly because our land has quite a bit of slope. I will try to answer any questions you might have when I can but I won't be checking in every day. The introduction/ details. We live on the mid north coast of NSW in Coffs Harbour. Our land is in Korora which is just north of Coffs Harbour. We are building a family home that we intend to stay in for about 15 years until our 2 children leave home. They are still quite young so it’s a long term home for us. As of this moment (March 2017), we are at the stage of the framework going up. The land we bought, we fell in love with as it has a northerly aspect looking into the public reserve with mature native trees and a lagoon down the hill. The challenge with this site is primarily the slope of the block but there is also a sewer line running across the back fence line and down the low side, just inside the boundary. It slopes down and to the right from the street with a fall of approximately 3m in every 10m. We knew this would increase the build and landscaping costs, but the location was just what we wanted. It's 5 mins drive to Coffs major shopping centre Park Beach Plaza, 5 mins walk to the kids new primary school and 10 mins walk to the beach. In the early days, we were considering a single level home on bearers and joists to keep the home from being down behind retaining walls and to elevate our views up into the canopy of the treed reserve. Very early on in the project, we discovered the reason why the project builders are typically cheaper than others, they will not build on bearers and joists. Period. They all want slab on ground. This way all their costs are predictable and they can market house and land packages without having to get draftsmen to design custom homes for difficult sites without someone else paying for it. This build method would have meant a cut in at the front of the block of close to 3m! This to me was unacceptable as it would mean while our neighbours homes are all built up around us (except for the treed reserve obviously) we would be "in the ground" and all you would see from the street is a roof. No thank you. We have a display village just north of Coffs Harbour at Sapphire beach where there are about 6-7 or so builders with homes to view. I have no problem naming names so..... [b:1d9704q9][i:1d9704q9]Builders that flat out said no to bearers and joists[/i:1d9704q9][/b:1d9704q9] Dixon Homes Perry Homes MacDonald Jones Homes Coral Homes The MacDonald Jones salesmen didn’t even offer to show us through their display home. There was also Adenbrook homes but I cannot remember if they would build what we want, but we quickly discounted them due to the sales person we dealt with tried to convince us to pull out of the purchase of our land and buy a flatter block as we "would get more home for our money" on a flatter site. While I can appreciate this would be true, we had already decided this would be our home site and paid a holding deposit and I found this advice to be a little less than keeping up with my ethical standards so we said bye bye. Keep in mind that these are the responses[b:1d9704q9][i:1d9704q9] I got[/i:1d9704q9][/b:1d9704q9] from these Coffs Harbour franchises. Your region and experiences may be different and you should ask for yourself. [b:1d9704q9] Builders that would be open to B&J (from the display village) [/b:1d9704q9]Blue Ribbon homes Pycon Homes Bently Home[b:1d9704q9]s [/b:1d9704q9] All three of these builders were great and offered to work with us. Bentley Homes had a great looking display but they don’t design homes or have plans to use. So we would be getting a plan set drawn up elsewhere and then getting them to quote it. We wouldn’t have known if the plan was viable until after paying for the design. Blue ribbon and Pycon were also great and they would design or modify designs. However, they were both a bit more expensive compared to others with similar levels of inclusions. Feeling less than inspired after our display village visits, we decided to reach out to some of the local based builders in the region. We talked to Toscan Homes, Integrity New Homes, Balance Design and Construction and GJ Gardner. All of these builders were all offering great service and great finished product, but there was at least one thing with each that was keeping us from going ahead. Eventually we settled on Hopwood Homes. Brian offered to meet us on site on his day off and was enthusiastic about the site and guided us towards a home split across 2 levels going down the block which also maximises the outside yard space at the back for the kids. He designed the home and talked to “some people” he knew about the sewer to see what effect on the design it would have and we really liked what he came up with. [url=http://hopwoodhomes.com.au/:1d9704q9]http://hopwoodhomes.com.au/[/url:1d9704q9] To be continued……. Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 3Mar 26, 2017 5:28 pm Welcome!! We are building in Naughtons Gap or better known as North Casino. So glad you decided against GJ, we are building with the Grafton office and we are having so many delays We have a slope and GJ did a 3m cut for us, didn't even offer B&J. Looking forward to following along GJ Gardner Modified Coolum 277 viewtopic.php?t=83643 Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 4Mar 26, 2017 8:00 pm charlibear Welcome!! We are building in Naughtons Gap or better known as North Casino. So glad you decided against GJ, we are building with the Grafton office and we are having so many delays We have a slope and GJ did a 3m cut for us, didn't even offer B&J. Looking forward to following along GJ Gardner Modified Coolum 277 viewtopic.php?t=83643 Thanks. Just want to say that the sales experience we had with the Coffs Office of GJ Gardner was not a bad one, on the contrary, they were very accommodating and didn't try to steer us away from B&J or anything. We elected to go elsewhere for reasons mainly focused on the contract price. Cheers. Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 13Mar 27, 2017 8:14 pm Looking great what a huge project but it will be so worth it in the end congrats on sticking with your block it's going to be awesome. Do you have any floor plans we are building in Valla so I am keen to follow your journey Milestone coral homes modified stradebroke 32 Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 14Mar 27, 2017 8:27 pm Milestone Looking great what a huge project but it will be so worth it in the end congrats on sticking with your block it's going to be awesome. Do you have any floor plans we are building in Valla so I am keen to follow your journey Hi, Yeah thanks, we can't wait. Here are our floor plans.... Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 15Mar 27, 2017 8:32 pm Love your plan I normally like to think if this was mine what would I change but I wouldn't change anything. I absolutely love the alfresco and living kitchen Coral homes Modified Stradbroke locked out Milestone coral homes modified stradebroke 32 Re: Building in Korora NSW (Coffs Harbour) - Hopwood Homes 16Mar 27, 2017 8:50 pm Milestone Love your plan I normally like to think if this was mine what would I change but I wouldn't change anything. I absolutely love the alfresco and living kitchen Coral homes Modified Stradbroke locked out Thats pretty much what we thought when the builder showed us his ideas. Hi All It has been a few weeks since my last update. The build has been progressing well. No major issues to report. The scaffolding was dropped today, gyprock will be… 96 356973 A survey must’ve completed by a certified surveyor. This form part of every DA requirement 3 223610 Need advice on the backyard plan above. Should I excavate and cut all of the dirt to level with the house slab or semi-excavate as per photo above? Both left and right… 0 24865 |