Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 09, 2013 4:57 pm I have been scouring this forum for the past 6 months or so during my totally indecisive stage of the "shall I buy/knock down/renovate?" process. The various experiences posted have helped greatly. In particular that wonderful "Things you forgot.." thread (thank you all for that really useful mountain of advice). Now it has come to my time to start asking some of the more experienced here for some advice. My wife and I have pretty much decided on building the Wisdom Homes Serenity 28 as a replacement for our rather tiny red brick home in Georges Hall NSW. Has anyone had recent experience of the knockdown/rebuild process with Wisdom? Anything in particular that we should keep in mind before/during (hopefully not after)? Any questions worth asking of Wisdom before we progress to actual action on our part? Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 2Feb 09, 2013 7:55 pm Congratulations kasyd! Hope it all goes well for you. I can't help with a KRB but there was a blog that did this and they built with Wisdom so maybe you can check that out. http://knockdownrebuildcosmopolitan.blo ... chive.html Aheron who has posted on H1 is also doing a KRB with Wisdom in Hurstville. But no blog or thread. Have a search for the various Wisdom threads and you can see who is active and currently building with Wisdom. Can't remember off the top of my head who else is doing a KRB with Wisdom. But I am sure you have searched thru H1 already if you've been reading H1 for a while now. Hope this helps. Good luck! We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 3Feb 09, 2013 8:07 pm We are intending to do a KDR with Wisdom. We are currently in the tender stage with them for the Majestic 45. I don't think there's any real "gotchas" to be concerned about. I'm getting Wisdom to quote on demolition but have also sourced one quote already from another demolition company myself so I can compare pricing etc. One thing Wisdom mentioned was if we source demolition externally and the footings/ground is left uneven etc then there may be additional site costs involved - that sounds reasonable to me, no different to any other builder. Make sure if you organise demolition that it states the footings will be filled and evened out. Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 4Feb 09, 2013 8:50 pm Hi kasyd As Onewheel stated above,we are also in the process of doing a KDR with wisdom.The difference I have found with Wisdom compared to others we dealt with ( we got to contract with another company and tendered with another 2) is they are transparent in the price of upgrades and their tenders factor in site specific conditions.For eg we have an upward sloping block so need steps to the front and halfway through the house and drop edge beams,which were all included from the outset. The only negative so far has been the slow admin process,but I'm sure you agree that as long as the final product is good then a few delays aren't too bad.. If you have any specific questions,let me know. All the best with making your decision and build. Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 5Feb 10, 2013 8:05 am Thank you for the fast responses. Your feedback so far seems to reflect my thoughts at the moment - not too many problems caused by the builder (no more than most anyway). I was wondering about the comparable cost of arranging our own demolition but, when it comes to me doing something myself, if it is not too extreme a cost difference I tend to try to leave it in one set of hands. As it will be a single story build I am considering leaving aircon off the list until after completion as I believe that may be the cheaper option. Floor covering I will get done at build time in case of slab/floor problems but is there anything else that I could possibly leave until after we take possession? Slow admin process shouldn't present too many problems for us as it just means longer before we have to start laying out money. No rush to get this done - we have somewhere to live during the build (rental property needs a bit of work so will live there and do what we can while our construction is under way). And while I think of it... Onewheel, your place is looking so good. Love those colours. We are still thinking over the outside look and your bricks are high on our shortlist. Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 6Feb 10, 2013 9:19 am In our instance,demo has worked out to be much cheaper sourcing it ourselves than through the builder,but this probably varies for each build. In regards to the doing things now vs later debate,the only things we are leaving to later are tiles to alfresco,landscaping and downlights ( getting standard batten in spots where we want downlights)..again this varies for everyone as a lot of people prefer to move into a come rely finished place...best thing is to get wisdoms suppliers to quote you and compare it to doing it after.. With air con,it was Included in our price-but from what I hear its probably cheaper to do it afterwards..maybe get wisdom to install the ducting to make it easier... Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 7Feb 10, 2013 12:13 pm kasyd And while I think of it... Onewheel, your place is looking so good. Love those colours. We are still thinking over the outside look and your bricks are high on our shortlist. Thanks!!! We are very happy with the bricks, which are Austral Symmetry Asphalt, they look great. The Wisdom Impression at Gregory Hills also has them. Aheron best thing is to get wisdoms suppliers to quote you and compare it to doing it after.. With air con,it was Included in our price-but from what I hear its probably cheaper to do it afterwards..maybe get wisdom to install the ducting to make it easier... Agree with Aheron, at Tender stage ask for pricing for everything on your wish list, so at least you have a quote from Wisdom, then you can shop around and compare. When you are finalising the tender, just subtract the items you decide not to have. Also if you are thinking of doing some things yourself, get a price for not having some items thru Wisdom, so you know what credit you will get back. For example tiles, in the tender we asked for the cost for NOT having the tiles done by them so we would know how much credit we would get back. Then we compared this to doing it ourselves. We also went to Di Lorenzo ourselves and asked them to show us Wisdom's standard range so we could see if we liked anything in that range. We shopped around elsewhere and found other tiles at similar prices to Wisdom tile allowance (ours is $35psm, but depends on what packages are on offer when you sign up), but we then needed to add labour charge for someone else to lay them after hand over. After all of that, as the house price included tiles plus labour cost and we liked some of the tiles in our allowance, we chose for Wisdom to do it. As for airconditioning, have a search of the forums for this topic, I read recently that just getting the ducting thru the builder and then the airconditioning unit yourself have both pros and cons. We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Wisdom Homes Knockdown/Rebuild - anyone done this alread 8Feb 10, 2013 7:41 pm Thanks for the advice. All very helpful. We are basically just attempting to keep our upfront costs minimised as this house seems to tick most of the boxes as far as she who must be obeyed sees it. We are reasonably sure about our finances but do not want to keep delaying this much longer. We are both pretty risk averse so like to have everything calculated as much as is possible well in advance for that nice warm feeling of relative security. (well-founded or not). We are planning to leave out anything that isn't essential to the build (such as alfresco tiling, aircon, most of the downlights, wardrobes/pantry/office fitout) that we think we can hopefully obtain cheaper/better quality after completion. Any other suggestions for 'later installation"? We had a brilliant aircon guy do our current house so hopefully he's still in the business. Anyone come across a good and reliable person for storage fitout/cabinetry? if the original house is in good condition most of what you listed could be added in stages without the need for KDR and costs and disruption of having to live elsewhere… 1 13680 If your patio is going to be 35 sqm then that's going to need Council Approval. The fact that they previously approved your 25sqm patio will be irelevant 1 5508 Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 18470 |