Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 2Apr 09, 2013 7:31 pm 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: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 12Aug 12, 2013 5:07 pm Well, things are moving along now. Our plans have gotten planning approval, demolition has been set in motion, and we have signed our building contract! Next step finalise finance and await building approval, and last few bits to sort out for prestart. If all goes to plan, we should be in our house by April next year. Cant speak highly enough of Right Homes so far. Cant wait to move into our new home! Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 13Aug 12, 2013 6:39 pm That's fantastic! I'd love to see your plans if you don't mind sharing them. We have another appointment tomorrow night to go over the plans before costing. Nearly there! We're also organising finance and have just been told that the bank is willing to discount their loan by 0.96%, so it's worth pushing them on that if you haven' already done so. Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 14May 12, 2014 7:10 pm Hi How are you going with the builder? We are in the very early stages of trying to find land & whether to go design build or other options. We have a tiny budget of $200k and want solar, greywater etc systems in for this but we are looking at having a small house with only necessary rooms - ie we don't need an activity/theatre/study etc as seems to be the norm in Perth! Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 15May 12, 2014 8:41 pm So we are 2 weeks off handover now. It has been 6 months since site works began, 10 months since we decided on the builder and started doing plans, and 12 months since we bought the property. Pretty painless overall, and we LOVE the house. Cant wait to move in! We built with Right Homes, they are a small family business (almost everyone seem related in one way or another- the builder's wife is the accounts department, and his brother in law is the site supervisor for example!), and we quickly developed a good relationship with them. Some general details of our house to help with your budgeting- Our living area is 183sqm, add garage, solar pergola, and porch is a total area 246sqm, 3 bed 2 bath with open plan living area and a separate multifunction room. Fully custom designed house done with the company draftsman based on our rough floor plan sketches. This took some months to evolve with many redraws and thinking and discussing. We stuck well within council regulations and had no problems with approvals. We have had all the walls cavity insulated (double brick with rockwool fill), ceiling insulation, rainwater and greywater ready (piped), but will do PV, rainwater and greywater later. The concrete pad is green concrete made with fly ash. Without consideration for internal finishing's like curtains and use of space and PV etc to be added later, we have an 8 star energy rating. We have up-speced a fair bit on the finishing details (my dream bath and kitchen mainly!), although the standard finishing's are pretty good with Right Homes. We are saving a bit by doing our own flooring (livos products on the concrete), wall painting (Volvox), and decking on the builder-installed framework. We supplied all our own LED lighting, and ceiling fans for each room, but the builder installed it with lots of power and data points everywhere for future proofing. Total build cost will come in around the $280K mark, probably including the cost of materials for floor and wall painting and laying the decking on the framework in the pergola and porch. (We have lost track a bit of exact costings due to later variations). I guess it will add around $15-20K to the cost when we do PV, rainwater and greywater, so maybe around $300K all up? I think you will be very tight to achieve a sustainable house with all the fruit ready to go, to a good standard, on $200K. You need to expect to pay $1200-$1500 per square meter of house. Any less than this and you will have to start compromising A LOT. If you are still looking for land, then really focus on where the northern orientation will face, as this is the make or break for passive solar design. Don't expect to be able to plonk any old display home on your site, the design really needs to work for the site. We liked Right Homes because they are a one-stop-shop with no need to get an architect, tenders, subcontractors etc, but small enough to be able to do what we wanted. It was very hard with the big builders to get them to change things without a lot of hassle and cost. We were scared of cost blowouts of going via architect/tender process. Good Luck, it is fun, if a bit stressful Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 16May 12, 2014 10:03 pm Sounds like you found a great fit for your needs. I'd love to see some pictures sometime. http://www.housebythewater.wordpress.com From blank block to new home in Mandurah, Western Australia. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65564 Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 17May 13, 2014 1:34 am Fantastic nic and Tim! Really pleased for you, hope to see pictures some time too *hint*. We're finding the architect route really slow, a bit annoying but it gives us plenty of time to think about the design. Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 18May 14, 2014 10:02 am Will have to figure out how to post photos! In all my spare time (none)- D day (moving) 1 month yesterday and lots to do..... Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 19May 14, 2014 11:48 am Nic and Tim Will have to figure out how to post photos! Oh I can help with this as I also would love to see some photos ^_^ First of all, check this thread; viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1272 But if you can't be bothered with that, here is what I do; Step 1 - Sign up to an image hosting website. I use photobucket. Step 2 - Uploads your photos in the same way as you would on facebook back in the day. Navigate to the photo on your computer and click upload! Step 3 - Copy/paste links. On photobucket these will be on the righthand side of your photo. Copy the [img] code to your clipboard, then paste into your homeone post. Ta-da! Photobucket has a smartphone App also, which can make the process super easy if the photos are on your phone. Hope that helps Re: Advice for Sustainable Build on a budget in Perth 20May 14, 2014 12:03 pm are you aiming for 100% energy neutrality? If you are, you will need to budget even more. Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Coming back to your old stomping grounds, huh? Renovations on a budget can be quite the journey. It's like giving your house a new lease on life. The twist of not knowing… 1 3515 Versaloc is a mortarless besser block system that still needs a properly engineered footing. If you just do a 400x200 footing it will fail in time. At 17m long you need it… 1 18814 Can anyone recommend a good/affordable retaining wall and fence builder that I can get a quote from located in Sydney? 8 46368 |