Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 23, 2015 12:14 pm Hi there. As many before me, I have been silently lurking on the forums reading and learning from everyone's experiences. This place has been instrumental for us as we have designed our home and added inclusions to our build.
Some background info. My husband and I bought a block of land in Oct 2013. We went to many display homes and were in negotiations and one point with Burbank however were dismayed by the fact they kept escalating out site costs to a ridiculous figure which they couldn't justify once questioned. We do have a sloping block, 2.5 metres from front to back. We then consulted other builders and had the site costs come in at half the cost. After a couple of months of visiting display homes my hubby drew up a plan and we have secured an independent builder and couldn't be happier with the result. We are building a single story split level home because I wanted the yard and alfresco area flat and not elevated so we could see the kids from inside. Just got confirmation that we are ready to go with the site cut this week THANKYOU for taking the time to read about our build. Below is our plan Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 4Mar 23, 2015 7:09 pm Looks like a good plan Simmi! Did your hubby have any experience with drafting plans? We have done basic ones, but don't feel confident enough to draft them ourselves and want to enlist a professional. Also, did you do independent soil and contour testing? We are contemplating this as then I guess it gives us a bit of an idea of what we can expect before going to builders. Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 5Mar 23, 2015 7:11 pm Hope the build all goes well. You've got some good generous storage sizes, and put space into where you're going to use it, rather than just cramming in as many bedrooms as you can. New Build in Sunbury Vic 6Mar 23, 2015 7:27 pm Hi PV Build,
He didn't draft them Per se but rather drew to scale what we wanted on graph paper. Once we decided on a builder our builder had the plans done professionally as part of our build costs. Hope that makes sense. When we bought our block of land there was already an existing soil report that we acquired through the buy, however our builder carried his own out again as part of the cost of our build. Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 7Mar 23, 2015 7:30 pm Thanks onejohn!! We originally had it as four bedrooms however we knew we weren't having any more kids so scrapped it knowing that it would only gather dust as a spare bedroom so turned it into the kids retreat. Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 8Mar 23, 2015 9:21 pm Hi Simmi71, Did showing your builder the soil tests help with the reduction of the site costs when you were dealing with the bigger builders? My partner and I are going through a very similar situation. New Build in Sunbury Vic 9Mar 23, 2015 9:49 pm No, not at all tjam. They were escalating our costs and when I called in different builders and their quotes were more than $15,000 cheaper they could not justify the costs. We moved on because we knew we were being duped. It is also an idea to call a separate escavator with your site cut and they will give you a ball park figure. This way you can work out how much you are being ripped off if you are. Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 11Apr 26, 2015 2:06 pm So we've been waiting for 3 weeks for the site cut to be completed. The excavator started on the Wednesday prior to Easter. At about 4pm I got a phonecall from our builder saying that they'd hit a massive wasps nest. I actually thought he was joking as it is a flat block of land. Naieve me thought wasps nests were akin to bee hives and were in trees. He asked me to go around and he wasn't joking. They were everywhere and were trying to attack the bobcat. Finally he returned last Friday and gave us next Wednesday as a finish date. We then have set out and plumbing booked. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 14Apr 28, 2015 12:25 pm Hi Simmi71, congrats on starting your build, notwithstanding the wasps! What a pain. We should be starting to build in a few months in the outer east of Vic. Our floor plan is kind of similar to yours so I will be watching your build with much interest. Can I ask, are you building on a slab, what class slab did you need and what did your site costs end up at? Just interested for comparison's sake. Are you going with brick? what are your colours like?... hope you don't mind the questions! My blog: tashandpaul.wordpress.com Re: New Build in Sunbury Vic 16Jun 06, 2015 8:07 pm Hi Tash, Sorry it's taken so long to reply. My bad. We are building on a raft slab. Site costs were included in our overall build cost and I never saw a breakdown of the list. Wasn't really interested as the overall figure was within our budget. Have no idea what the classification was either. How about your site costs?? What slab did you end up with? Who are you building with ? Mel, Retaining wall will be complete by Tuesday. Plumbing was completed on Wednesday. Should have a slab by the end of next week. Fingers crossed How is your progression ?? No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6627 2 4669 that will depend on the kitchen bench depth. you'll have to specify it so it allows for both the tap and the sink 1 7381 |