Building in Brooks Reach - Community Thread

Yay congratulations Neat was only wondering the other day if you had moved in yet or not?

As for the drainage as far as I'm aware the builder will do the drainage that applies to the house eg downpipes, sewer connection etc everything else would be up the chase up

Thank you! We moved in last Saturday
Have you had bubs yet!?

So we have to do any other drainage work not in relation to the house? E.g when it storms etc?

Yay neat welcome to the 'reach! Yeah any yard drainage unfortunately has to be done by you, not the builder. Ours is basically getting done with our retaining walls (yep it's all still happening! But almost done) which we have someone doing for us, we highly recommend him so if you need walls done (along with drainage!). His name is Anton from Total Concreting (well, it's his business) - you wouldn't find a nicer guy than him, he's a real gentleman of the trade and so reliable and best of all...he communicates!!! Good luck

Thanks Nat! And thanks for the tip!
I love a good recommendation! So is he doing your retaining walls and your drainage?
Wow that's been a long process for you! I guess it all just takes time though doesn't it.

You are most welcome!

Yeah he's doing our walls and the drainage that goes with it all. It does take time, but I think it is because we went through council. If you leave council out of it you could pretty much hop to it straight away. But if they are over 800mm or 900mm (can't remember) then you will need to engage an engineer to do the drawings etc - but maybe get Anton out to do a quote / consultation (if you're interested) and he will tell you for sure

Hi everyone.
Can anyone who has built with New Living Homes tell me if they have had any problems with the delusso appliances they install? In particular the oven/cooktop.
Mine has an automatic function, and even though it is not programmed it always comes on after I have used the oven manually. I also can't seem to turn the oven off after it has come by itself either, normally it just turns itself off again after a period of time.
I've also had problems getting the gas burners to ignite.
I doubt New Living Homes are going to want to know about it, they'll probably tell me to contact delusso.

We also just moved into a New Living Home, haven't started the kitchen yet, but some water taps are quite annoying. They are loose and leak a bit. Even worse, they didn't give us occupation certificate, so no where to put the rubbish ...

I had so much trouble chasing my occupation certificate from them. I didn't get my bins until a few weeks after I moved in. My neighbours who built with Travelle had the same problem.

Morning everyone!

Just wondering if anyone has a engineer they can recommend? We're getting our retaining wall started but it looks like it'll be over a metre so we'll need to go through council and an engineer. Thanks

I can recommend ours! Michael from MSL Engineering, it's his company and he has been pretty helpful. We were dealing with someone else from there at first and there were a few communication issues so Michael took over for us. He has been really helpful and has gone above and beyond (has come over on weekends / out of usual business hours). It's not cheap though neat but I think that will be the case no matter what engineer you go with. But at least you know it is built properly and solidly, I say it is worth the coin for peace of mind

Just make sure you specifically ask for Michael if you call there neat

Thanks Nat. Can you pm me how much? I've been prepared for it not being cheap!

Hi everyone.
Well we are finally in our own place now. We still have a few things to do but getting there slowly. Beechwood have to come back and redo all our outside tiles as the guy that cleans the bricks damaged them. So once they have finished we can get our driveway, paths and retaining walls under way. Can't wait to get it all finished.
I would love to know any recommendations for engineers and who to use for our retaining walls. Also if anyone wants to pm with a rough costing that would be great. I know this isn't going to be cheap but would be nice to have a ball park figure. We have someone for our drive and path so all good there. Thanks guys. Hope you are all still loving living down Brooks Reach. I know we are.

Hi all,

We're about to build in Stage 12 with AllWorths Homes. The builder said that they didn't do soil test on our lot but their engineer reckons it is H2. Is that worth it for us to get a surveyor to conduct a Geotech test on the soil?

I dug through this thread and back in pages 60-70, stages 7&8 are all H2.

I am new here just deposited on land in brooks reach, I am just wondering if anyone has built on land that has a north facing frontage? Do you mind sharing your plans here or as pm. What did you consider for passive cooling or warming etc? I keep hearing north facing frontage is bad, but just trying to see how to work with the land that I have.

This thread is clearly dead as you've all probably moved to the fb group, but does anyone know a quality carpenter in the Wollongong / Horsley area? And by 'know' I mean you paid them to do an A+ job and would be happy to pass on their details