Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 22, 2013 3:30 pm Hi all, I'm a newbie here, so please be as nice as you can be. My wife and I recently moved here from the UK and are planning on building our own place here in Tassie (I know not all advice applies to Tassie but still, it is appreciated). We have done full renovations etc in the UK and are pretty good DIYers but not builders or sparkies etc by trade. In our old place, if things needed to be done, i'd do it myself, i've never employed a trade, except to lay carpets and fit boilers. My question is this, if we were to build a house from scratch, how much of the work am I allowed to do myself? When speaking to places like Hotondo homes, basically its none at all! But really what I guess I need is, the building to go up, water tight and lockable and then things like running wires, putting up batts, tiling, end point plumbing, i.e. taps, basins, loos etc, I've got no problems with. Things like under floor heating ive laid before. Fitting kitchens etc i've no problem with too. I accept that an electrician may need to sign off on the electrics etc but I don't see why I cant get more involved when i'm capable of doing it, i'm just not a registered and licenced trade. Does anyone know if it is possible to be pretty active in your own build? Another thing we have to think is that we are having to have a NON self-builder mortgage as we don't have the up front cash for that route. Please, really any constructive advice, links, companies or trades would be really appreciated. Thanks, Hockayak Re: How much building work can I do myself? 2Aug 22, 2013 3:57 pm I'm in WA - TAS might be different but it won't be massively different... Banks don't like giving owner-builders money. Especially if you aren't qualified and are talking about doing the qualified trade stuff yourself. You'll need a huge deposit before they'll consider you. If you owner-build in WA you are expected to take out insurance to cover defects if you sell your house within ?10yrs? (the assumption is if you don't sell it in that timeframe and something breaks it's your own problem anyway). Some things need a qualified person to sign off on - electrics and gas and water installation. Without the paperwork you won't be able to get approval to move in. Sign off doesn't mean they have to do all the work though - you could find a tradie who is happy to have you as their offsider, or happy for you to run all the basic wiring etc and just fit off for you, or just check your work and sign off etc. Have a look on the owner/builder forum here and see what they say/recommend. Don't know how good your back is, but if you are planning to go bricks/concrete then I'd consider getting professionals in to do that (it's not that expensive - the walls are the cheap part of the house!) and save your jelly beans for the fiddly bits that needs lots of swearing at. A house isn't considered complete and livable until the wet areas (kitchen, bathroom/s, laundry) have a sealed floor (tiles or vinyl or whatever), all plumbing is fitted off etc. So if you want to tile it yourself in the wet areas then you need to plan not to have council approval to live there until it's at that stage. Lock up isn't good enough. You can do your own owner builder easily enough. There's no reason why you can't. You can arrange the trades in as you please and do whatever on the build you like. Here in WA you take responsibility for making sure you meet the building regulations (and have to get a licence and do a short TAFE course about what those regulations are) and you then take responsibility if the ceilings fall down. Of course the professional builders aren't going to help you with that! An alternative is to get a house to lock up stage (so kitchen benches and bathroom etc installed but not tiling etc) and take it from there, but finding a builder who will do that could be tough because a lot of it will be on their builders indemnity insurance if something goes wrong in the following ten years. You could consider a kit home and owner build it - the kit home people will generally construct to lock up for you for a fee if you are wanting them to and you can then fit out to your hearts content. Re: How much building work can I do myself? 3Aug 22, 2013 7:50 pm snuck Banks don't like giving owner-builders money. Especially if you aren't qualified and are talking about doing the qualified trade stuff yourself. You'll need a huge deposit before they'll consider you. Yeh, I thought this might be the case, we have a good deposit but its not in the league that im lead to believe is required. Shame really. snuck If you owner-build in WA you are expected to take out insurance to cover defects if you sell your house within ?10yrs? (the assumption is if you don't sell it in that timeframe and something breaks it's your own problem anyway). I'd be fine with the idea of insurance covering any mistakes, though im a pretty picky bugger when it comes to stuff like this so i'd end up researching exactly all the codes etc that you mentioned. snuck Don't know how good your back is, but if you are planning to go bricks/concrete then I'd consider getting professionals in to do that (it's not that expensive - the walls are the cheap part of the house!) and save your jelly beans for the fiddly bits that needs lots of swearing at. Yeh I agree with you, the 'hard labour' part im inclined to let someone in the know get on with, its more the finishing off bits that im good at anyway. But even things like re-tiling a roof I've done. So its weird to think that the 'Aussie Dream' is a kind of fake, as most normal people aren't able to easily contribute to their own 'self build'. snuck You can do your own owner builder easily enough. There's no reason why you can't. You can arrange the trades in as you please and do whatever on the build you like. Here in WA you take responsibility for making sure you meet the building regulations (and have to get a licence and do a short TAFE course about what those regulations are) and you then take responsibility if the ceilings fall down. Of course the professional builders aren't going to help you with that! I looked up a TAFE course in Tassie but can't seem to find anything like that that isn't either a full time degree course or aimed at 11th Grade teens. This however I did find (its an online owner builder course) http://www.ownerbuildercourses.com/tasm ... ation.html Again, I would owner build if I had the major deposit needed. I found a Tassie owner builder advice manual that really laid it all out, what would be involved, it was really good. http://workplacestandards.tas.gov.au/li ... r_2012.pdf Thanks Snuck for getting back to me so quickly, the more I know, the better decisions I can make, thanks again. I posted the floorplan on Houzz.com forum and got some really good ideas and advice from people there. Then we reached out to a couple of renovation companies and one… 5 10018 Block of two storey townhouses requires painting on the roof. A brick parapet wall separates each unit and extends above the tiled roof. The parapet walls require sealing… 0 3497 1) I had requested R6 ceiling insualtion batts, however I noticed that on some areas there are huge gaps which will allow hot air to sweep in, and also noticed black/grey… 0 3476 |