Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 10, 2015 3:20 pm I'm starting this topic as we just signed the contract with Bentley Homes to build a Ritz 400 in Ashwood (Victoria) on a site with a slight slope of ca. 2m (split level floor included). See below some key dates in the process so far. In fact it's already quite lengthy and the construction hasn't even started yet. Next steps will be the old house demolition and obtaining the building permit. At the moment we're still waiting for the gas connection to be abolished (4 weeks since application now) and demolition permit to be issued by Monash City Council. 7/8/2015 - building contract signed and contract deposit paid 11/7/2015 - we moved out from the old house 26/6/2015 - tender signed (this part was difficult) and 2nd deposit paid 7/5/2015 - electrical appointment 5/5/2015 - colours appointment 1/5/2015 - land survey 22/4/2015 - first soil test 28/3/2015 - first deposit paid 17/3/2015 - loan approval from the bank Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 2Aug 10, 2015 3:32 pm Cant wait to watch your build progress, I hope it goes faster than ours. we knocked down our house the first week of may and still havn't started. Its a very long process Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 3Aug 19, 2015 4:47 pm Today is the new milestone in my saga: the gas connection has been abolished. Multinet Gas becomes a strong candidate to the title of "the worst service ever". It took them 5.5 weeks to remove the gas meter from the old house, including the period when they said the work has been done while it hasn't been done. The new chapter of my project is now "demolition". Starting today. Promised to have it finished within 3 weeks. Milestone: 19/8/2015 - gas connection abolished Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 4Aug 19, 2015 6:53 pm We had the exact same issue. I kept Calling saying when are you going to remove the gas, only for them to tell me they had already removed the meter. I said no it's still there and they said are you sure and I said ah yeah I'm looking right at it now. This happened 3 times before it actually was removed. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 5Feb 03, 2016 3:31 pm Some update from the building site: The construction started in Dec 2015 finally. The Xmas period delayed the works so the foundation slab was poured just recently, on 1/2/2016. So far, so good. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 6Mar 07, 2016 10:38 am Quick update: the frame stage is finished now, so the construction is progressing quite well. Although our independent inspection listed about 50 issues on frame stage, some of them reasonably serious engineering ones. The builder agreed to almost all of them and corrected already. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 9May 27, 2016 12:11 pm Hi raffiki: Great looking house in a nice area. I'm also looking at building with either Bentley or Carlisle, nothing concrete at this stage. Our land is also with slope around 2 - 2.5m, are you able to kind share your site cost, the floor plan and the extra that you had to add and their associated cost. Thanks so much Wade Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 10May 27, 2016 12:43 pm P656271 I'm also looking at building with either Bentley or Carlisle, nothing concrete at this stage. With this kind of slope you can probably forget Carlisle, they refused to built on our land, and we have 2-2.5m uphill slope (it looks like nothing untill you see it after earthworks). Metricon is building in similar slope on our street now, but they digged a huge cut into the backyard and posted large and ugly retaining walls. For now I'm happy we did it with Bentley Homes, as we're doing the split level ground floor, which results with a few steps inside the house, but the backyard will be on the alfresco level and we won't have the feeling of living in the cave. We managed to find 2-3 builders in Melbourne that had the ready house designs for split level. Bentley was one of them. Except from that, you have a choice of doing the custom design (which will cost you ca. 50k extra) or building retaining walls. For the additional costs for building the split level you have to add ca. 40-50k on top of the standard cost that would be on the flat land. If you think about adding extras, like cooling, decking, driveway, better appliances or flooring - that can be another 50k or more easily. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 11May 27, 2016 4:14 pm Thanks for all these info. It's really helpful, definitely save me time as I was going to see some of the carlisle display home this weekend. In term of the 40 to 50k cost on top of the standard, is it for the house/stairs that u added or the specific site cost (50k on top of 20k?) And is ur floor plan the standard ritz400, or does bentley let u make some changes? Thanks so much for ur prompt response and helping out a noob.😊 Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 12May 27, 2016 5:13 pm The additional cost consists of: - additional earth works on levelling the ground on two levels - stronger and split level slab - some additional site costs, like small retaining walls on the side of the building - steps inside the house (between theatre and main living area) and some additional enforcement designed by engineers on the line of split - higher roof on the ground floor near the entrance. It looks like it can be quite a cool feature: about 3.1m. But it attracts different garage doors and higher walls. Possibly I will need a tall ladder to change the light globes in this section. On the other hand I don't know what the cost would be if I choose the other option with retaining walls. There would be more earth to remove, the cut would be deeper and the concrete walls are not cheap for sure. We build the standard Ritz 400 as on company's website, the only change being the steps. Since then Bentley introduced another Ritz (385), but I don't think we would choose this one as we don't like the idea of master bedroom on the ground floor. Check Carlisle and ask them directly, maybe something changed since we were choosing the builder. They have quite nice floor plans. Other builders worth looking at are Esperance Homes and Zuccala Homes. Both declared possibility of doing the split level. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 13May 29, 2016 2:03 pm raffiki The additional cost consists of: - additional earth works on levelling the ground on two levels - stronger and split level slab - some additional site costs, like small retaining walls on the side of the building - steps inside the house (between theatre and main living area) and some additional enforcement designed by engineers on the line of split - higher roof on the ground floor near the entrance. It looks like it can be quite a cool feature: about 3.1m. But it attracts different garage doors and higher walls. Possibly I will need a tall ladder to change the light globes in this section. On the other hand I don't know what the cost would be if I choose the other option with retaining walls. There would be more earth to remove, the cut would be deeper and the concrete walls are not cheap for sure. We build the standard Ritz 400 as on company's website, the only change being the steps. Since then Bentley introduced another Ritz (385), but I don't think we would choose this one as we don't like the idea of master bedroom on the ground floor. Check Carlisle and ask them directly, maybe something changed since we were choosing the builder. They have quite nice floor plans. Other builders worth looking at are Esperance Homes and Zuccala Homes. Both declared possibility of doing the split level. Thanks again for all the handy tips. Went and saw some display house at keysborough yesterday, u r right Carlisle wouldn't touch any slope greater than 1.5m. Wife did like some of the other displays, will go and viist bentley next week. What are colour selection and extra inclusions in ur new house? Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 15May 30, 2016 10:10 am P656271 Raffiki, where office did you deal with, went to Mernda and saw one of Bentley's double storey design(it have few stairs), how many stairs did they put inside ur new home? We have 69cm level difference, 4 steps there will be, exactly between lounge and grand family. This was designed by Bentley especially for us, as they never did Ritz split level before. We've seen both Ritz 445 and Kyalami on display. Kyalami is quite interesting as it's indeed split level (but the steps are located closer to the garage if I remember well) and the house itself is more basic, so more realistic. To get something close to the Ritz being displayed, you would need to spend much more than 50k on extras. We kept our extras on low level: - took the bonus offer for carpets - upgraded flooring to bamboo - took the enhancement package offer - added flyscreens and locks to the windows - upgraded half of the stairs to hardwood - upgraded kitchen benchtop ceasarstone to 40mm - upgraded oven and cooker to Blanco (heard terrible stories about the standard Technika ovens) - added water tap to the fridge point - upgraded bath to spa - upgraded ducts to a width suitable for aircon - added additional heating outlets to bathrooms (I still can't understand how the baths can be left cold in standard setting). - some electrical updates - added the driveway to be built by Bentley. Colours were quite easy, but you have to give yourself almost a full day for that appointment. They've got a reasonable selection of items, but if you need any sophisticated products then you need to find them and Bentley could possibly source them for you. In our case we did that with Blanco oven and door handles (we wanted the round ones). Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 16Jun 05, 2016 9:09 pm Hope everything is going well for u, Raffiki We went to see the Ritz 445 today and had a chat with the sale lady K** who went above and beyond, provided with a list of inclusions and prices for that house. Wife is happy with the laminate flooring that they have on display, but just out of curiosity how much did u cost u to upgrade to bamboo flooring? Thanks again. Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 17Jun 06, 2016 9:42 am raffiki Quick update: the frame stage is finished now, so the construction is progressing quite well. Although our independent inspection listed about 50 issues on frame stage, some of them reasonably serious engineering ones. The builder agreed to almost all of them and corrected already. Who was your independent inspector? Do you recommend them? Re: Knock down and rebuild with Bentley Homes 18Jun 06, 2016 10:01 am P656271 Wife is happy with the laminate flooring that they have on display, but just out of curiosity how much did u cost u to upgrade to bamboo flooring? The bamboo floor (in lieu of laminate) was about 5.5k. At that time laminate floor wasn't in the standard and it was to be purchased separately with the carpets as a package. I don't know how it is now. The independent inspector is New Home Inspections. Not sure about this particular company (they seem ok, but I don't have much comparison), but would surely recommend to take a independent inspector, unless you're very familiar with the house building process and can pick up the issues by yourself. Unfortunately it looks like the builder is trying to cut the corners and inspections help to keep them on their toes. Some of the items they picked were not worth mentioning, but there were plenty of others, that were quite important (like missing bolts etc.). And it's not finished yet. The builders hate the inspectors, but that assures me it was necessary to hire one. We've had the offer of a short term tenant whilst waiting for CDC/DA home approval and demolition for our knock down rebuild. It would achieve a pretty low rent as it's… 0 13752 Hi I live in a 100yr old semi and my neighbour added an additional floor last yr and our architect has advised that we can knock down our semi and build a free-standing… 0 37712 if the original house is in good condition most of what you listed could be added in stages without the need for KDR and costs and disruption of having to live elsewhere… 1 13678 |