Browse Forums Building A New House Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 61May 22, 2014 1:12 am Thats devistating news! Is there smy provision to off site storm? Have the other builds been off site do you know? Recently moved to a 60's home in need of some improvement! http://s797.photobucket.com/user/leenii ... ch%20House Old house: http://s797.photobucket.com/albums/yy25 ... loo/House/ Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 62May 22, 2014 10:08 am Oh no, that's not good news. Was the builder on the ball?? I know that is harsh thing to say but they are in the business so should have been on top of it. I hope you can find a solution that still allows clean subdivision of the block, will putting the storm water on the other part of the block devalue that block when you come to sell it? Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 63May 22, 2014 11:31 am leni Thats devistating news! Is there smy provision to off site storm? Have the other builds been off site do you know? There are a couple of new builds in the street. I'll have to try and catch the owners to see what they are doing. I was told that they were using the street's storm water drainage, but you never know. The council has a policy so I actually wonder if there's been a formal assessment against the policy. I also thought that given the zoning and the infill development that the council would actually increase their capacity to take this water. Marcia Oh no, that's not good news. Was the builder on the ball?? I know that is harsh thing to say but they are in the business so should have been on top of it. I hope you can find a solution that still allows clean subdivision of the block, will putting the storm water on the other part of the block devalue that block when you come to sell it? It's too early to comment on the builder and I'm not sure I have all of the information at the moment, but its hard not to be incredibly frustrated. As I've read elsewhere on here, the test of a quality builder will be in the solution that they find for the problem. The only way to continue with the subdivision is to put the soak wells where there won't be any future building (i.e. the battle axe driveway or at the front of our property). We will also need to allow room for drainage from the subdivided house as they will face the same issues. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 64May 26, 2014 2:21 am Hi D_rail, sounds like we are having a similar journey with horrendous site costs in the Eastern suburbs though ours is due to a sloping block. We came from SA and investigated building with brick veneer only to be told it would be more expensive....and no one in WA would want to buy a house that wasn't double brick! Were you happy with the demo company you used? If possible are you able to PM their details? Good luck with your build, the Aurora is lovely and big! Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 65May 26, 2014 1:27 pm Dame Ritrka Hi D_rail, sounds like we are having a similar journey with horrendous site costs in the Eastern suburbs though ours is due to a sloping block. We came from SA and investigated building with brick veneer only to be told it would be more expensive....and no one in WA would want to buy a house that wasn't double brick! Were you happy with the demo company you used? If possible are you able to PM their details? Good luck with your build, the Aurora is lovely and big! Our investigations showed that whilst Brick Veneer saved on site costs, the additional constructions costs meant brick veneer was only 10k cheaper. Given the attitudes in Perth about brick veneer, we thought the savings weren't significant enough to justify building brick veneer. Attitudes are changing slowly but until the costs are bought into line, I think double brick will continue to dominate local thinking. PM on demolition company sent. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 66May 26, 2014 5:48 pm D_rail Dame Ritrka Hi D_rail, sounds like we are having a similar journey with horrendous site costs in the Eastern suburbs though ours is due to a sloping block. We came from SA and investigated building with brick veneer only to be told it would be more expensive....and no one in WA would want to buy a house that wasn't double brick! Were you happy with the demo company you used? If possible are you able to PM their details? Good luck with your build, the Aurora is lovely and big! Our investigations showed that whilst Brick Veneer saved on site costs, the additional constructions costs meant brick veneer was only 10k cheaper. Given the attitudes in Perth about brick veneer, we thought the savings weren't significant enough to justify building brick veneer. Attitudes are changing slowly but until the costs are bought into line, I think double brick will continue to dominate local thinking. PM on demolition company sent. When you are building on the coastal plain it's no problem. But when you are building on reactive clay, brick veneer or timber framed seems the least costly solution. Also we sandgropers are used to houses that are relatively quiet internally, room to room. My friend bought a brick veneer on a semi rural block, and it is very noisy by comparison. We stayed the weekend a few years back only to hear her hubby snoring all night and we were three rooms away!!! We had to go home for a good night's sleep Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 67May 27, 2014 12:07 am D_rail Dame Ritrka Hi D_rail, sounds like we are having a similar journey with horrendous site costs in the Eastern suburbs though ours is due to a sloping block. We came from SA and investigated building with brick veneer only to be told it would be more expensive....and no one in WA would want to buy a house that wasn't double brick! Were you happy with the demo company you used? If possible are you able to PM their details? Good luck with your build, the Aurora is lovely and big! Our investigations showed that whilst Brick Veneer saved on site costs, the additional constructions costs meant brick veneer was only 10k cheaper. Given the attitudes in Perth about brick veneer, we thought the savings weren't significant enough to justify building brick veneer. Attitudes are changing slowly but until the costs are bought into line, I think double brick will continue to dominate local thinking. PM on demolition company sent. Thanks D-rail Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 68May 31, 2014 10:03 pm Treeseachanger D_rail Dame Ritrka Hi D_rail, sounds like we are having a similar journey with horrendous site costs in the Eastern suburbs though ours is due to a sloping block. We came from SA and investigated building with brick veneer only to be told it would be more expensive....and no one in WA would want to buy a house that wasn't double brick! Were you happy with the demo company you used? If possible are you able to PM their details? Good luck with your build, the Aurora is lovely and big! Our investigations showed that whilst Brick Veneer saved on site costs, the additional constructions costs meant brick veneer was only 10k cheaper. Given the attitudes in Perth about brick veneer, we thought the savings weren't significant enough to justify building brick veneer. Attitudes are changing slowly but until the costs are bought into line, I think double brick will continue to dominate local thinking. PM on demolition company sent. When you are building on the coastal plain it's no problem. But when you are building on reactive clay, brick veneer or timber framed seems the least costly solution. Also we sandgropers are used to houses that are relatively quiet internally, room to room. My friend bought a brick veneer on a semi rural block, and it is very noisy by comparison. We stayed the weekend a few years back only to hear her hubby snoring all night and we were three rooms away!!! We had to go home for a good night's sleep We're glad we're building double brick for this reason. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 69May 31, 2014 10:22 pm We're another week on and still no progress, in fact i think we've gone backwards. I've taken a bit more of a hands on approach and have been in contact with the council who advised that an application for connection to the street drains had not been received. The builder has assumed that this would have been considered during the building permit process (simply because our contract mentioned connection to the council drains). So much for their expertise in dealing with the council. In the meantime, the builder has engaged an engineer to come up with a drainage solution (still pending). I shared my council information with the builder, who subsequently checked with council and was advised of the correct process for applying for access to the drains. After confirming with me what I already knew, the builder said they still might not make an application because it would take another fortnight and their application might be rejected. The logic astounds me and we wouldn't be in the current predicament if they had of simply followed council processes in the first place. This process is clearly outlined on their website! On a positive note, the new house up the road got permission to connect to the drains and our site classification is worse than theirs. In my mind, our application should be approved. I've requested further information and an explanation of how it's going to be resolved from our sales rep, so let's hope we can find a satisfactory outcome. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 70Jun 01, 2014 12:06 am Fingers crossed there will be some sensible solutions for you soon. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 71Jun 01, 2014 12:13 am Treeseachanger Fingers crossed there will be some sensible solutions for you soon. Thanks we're more confident there is a solution. We just hope the builder finds a cost effective one! Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 72Jun 01, 2014 12:54 am Just found your thread. We also built with DA in the eastern suburbs. Our site costs still make me feel queasy but I try not to think about them. We had a pretty good build with DA, the pre construction part is the most frustrating bit. Takes forever. We also had to pay for dropped footings for a future deck ($5k). Apparently it's necessary. We have been in our place for 6 mths now and all is still good. Only a few minor issues for our 6mth maintenance service so I feel the quality of our build was pretty good. Hopefully being in the same area you will get the same SS as us as she was brilliant. Went beyond the call of duty for us. I hope you can resolve your current issues so you can get started. All the best. My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64437 KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Conditions... 73Jun 02, 2014 12:59 am Tracyw Just found your thread. We also built with DA in the eastern suburbs. Our site costs still make me feel queasy but I try not to think about them. We had a pretty good build with DA, the pre construction part is the most frustrating bit. Takes forever. We also had to pay for dropped footings for a future deck ($5k). Apparently it's necessary. We have been in our place for 6 mths now and all is still good. Only a few minor issues for our 6mth maintenance service so I feel the quality of our build was pretty good. Hopefully being in the same area you will get the same SS as us as she was brilliant. Went beyond the call of duty for us. I hope you can resolve your current issues so you can get started. All the best. Thanks Tracey. I reacquainted myself with your thread and build. I recall reading through your thread when we were choosing the builder. I see some similarities with DAH, including issues with pricing on recessed sliders. Great to hear you had a good SS. Hopefully we end up with the same one. I love the newstead brick, but unfortunately it's discontinued. Whilst it may be too late, those wine barrel planters from bunnings only have a three year life before rotting. We've just replaced four at our place and one at mums. We didn't go with the drop footings but still haven't decided on our alfresco flooring. We're on the flats in the East, by the river. I'm envious of your spot in the hills and your outlook is just fab. If only all of these sites were sandy and easy to build on! Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 74Jun 03, 2014 5:37 am Site costs for sloping blocks are often not really so high. It is just a matter of pricing policies. Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - Building permit, Condition 75Jun 09, 2014 9:41 pm It's taken a while, but we have a positive outcome on our drainage situation. There are some additional costs involved and we're still trying to get an explanation on them, but they're nowhere near what we feared they may be. In summary, the council have been a dream to work with and DA got there in the end. On a positive note, we received our final plans and are almost set for construction. There are a few minor mistakes in the final plans, but they've been dealt with promptly. We have a couple of minor clarifications still to send through, so we're hoping its smooth sailing from here! Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - update with final plans 76Jun 10, 2014 7:19 pm Yay, hopefully this was just a speedbump on the road and you will see some physical progress soon! Re: KDR - Perth Eastern suburbs - update with final plans 77Jun 11, 2014 10:42 pm Today we signed off on the extra drainage costs. An additional $3,400 which probably should have been in our contracts from the start. While we're happy to have cleared the issue, it should have been resolved quicker and shouldn't have incurred as much of our time and worry as it did. In our few hours of research and single phone call to council, we came up with the same plan and drainage calculation that cost us $880 and took the builder four weeks. We appreciate they may need engineers certification on the design, but it really was simple with the council guide. We also finalised the final drawings and found a few remaining credits. We're now ready for construction and hope the rain holds off for a few weeks until we get our pad down. As soon as the ground is cut, any rain will turn the site into a pond, which will undoubtedly result in a longer wait and potentially more costs. We need a 900mm sand pad, so there is a fair amount of earthworks to occur prior to our slab. I actually have suggested waiting until Spring to start. It's fair to say that we've felt this period has dragged on for a longer than it should have. It's now over six months since we signed our PWC and we had already completed our site and soil surveys. Our changes have been minimal and the majority were flagged in December where we were told to deal with them at prestart. On reflection we're disappointed with the builders processes during this period. In terms of suggestions for others, I'd recommend the following; - don't be swayed by the builder promising to deal with things at prestart. We had a couple of things that either ended up being too difficult to do or excessively expensive (I.e. Cavity sliders requiring an additional stud wall). Get what you want up front and get it costed. - get everything in writing at once at the time of contract signing. Don't necessarily count on previous communications as there may be conflicting conditions/changes in you contract - check, check and check again every line item of your pricing. As the variations of prestart and others variations stack up so do the chances of double counting modifications increase - upgrades are expensive. The whole 'buying power' argument appears to go out the window. Standard shower head retails for $240 upgrade retails for $600. Upgrade cost $500 ?? Seriously..... Did you forget the credit? - remember you're in control until you sign the contract. Your bargaining position after signing on the dotted line appears to decrease, and for us it feels very one sided. Overall, we're still looking forward to our build and are glad we have chosen Dale Alcock. We hope their building experience and quality outperforms our experience over the past six months. At the end of the day, the quality of the build is the main game, let's hope they can deliver! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - ready for site 78Jun 11, 2014 10:53 pm Congratulations on making it through what I can only imagine must have been painfully slow for you! Hopefully it's all smooth sailing through the build. Dale Alcock Build in Honeywood Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=70204&p=1154102#p1154102 Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - ready for site 79Jun 12, 2014 9:55 am Hi D-rail, I've just subscribed so I can follow along. If there's anything I can do feel free to let me know. Sorry there seems to have been a few hurdles so far, but I have no doubt everything will work out in the end! - Shannon Dale Alcock Homes. We love building. T: 08 9242 9200 Mon – Fri 8am-5pm Sat - 10-4 thedacrew@dalealcock.com.au http://www.dalealcock.com.au http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - ready for site 80Jun 12, 2014 10:50 am Good to hear you got a solution that works and your build is progressing ... and I second all of your comments above, this is one reason we walked from another builder prior to ending up with Home Group. 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