Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 03, 2015 8:59 am Hi All, Our custom plans are ready to go to engineering, and once they're back we're going to go to tender with 4 builders (already chosen and completed house inspections taking place over the next week or so, and they have all seen concept plans and provided a rough estimate on those). Done some reading up on tenders, we currently have: - full plans inc. electrical - site plans, soil tests, establishment surveys - detailed schedule of fixings / fittings Going to request fully costed & itemised schedules as we may wish to go with 'prime cost' or self-provided (floors, cabinetry) where it makes sense. Aware that we need to closely review provisional sums for things like bathroom fittings, tiles & kitchen fittings as these can vary significantly builder to builder. What else should we look out for? Words of wisdom greatly appreciated. Our designer is being very helpful, but given we've never had to go to tender for a build, this is quite new to us Cheers Re: Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 2Dec 03, 2015 10:50 am You or your designer need to have a very detailed specification that you can give to each builder so they are quoting off the same page. The less detail, the more there are grey areas and you won't be getting quotes comparing apples to apples. Go through the house room by room and with something like a bathroom specify how many sq m of 400 x 400mm wall tiles, to how high etc. Most builders ( like I used to ) rely on the client providing that info and they won't want to spend days working out what you or a QS should have done for you otherwise some will just give you a general price per room. By the way as a former builder my idea of a building schedule is the sequence of events to build your house ( even though you can have a schedule of finishes of course ). A specification is a detailed list of fittings and materials. Building Schedule --> http://www.easyasnhs.com.au/newcastle/building-schedule Building Specification --> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=58422 although your designer should have a good one ( nearly always in Excel ) Stewie Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 3Dec 04, 2015 12:00 am Like what Stewie wrote, you should be very detailed In what you want. Detail it room for room. Make sure you know what included from the thickness of the timber frames eg, 700mm or 900mm x 350 or 450. What are the centres/spacing eg 350 or 450 centres. Make sure they do include the excavation cost for the plumbing of the whole land not just for the house as per hydraulics plans, so you don't have to worry about it during landscape stage i.e. Make sure you factor in 'all' levies - long service levy, do they pay or will you? and 'all' council fees sewer opening fee, drive way levy etc. inspection fees. Etc? We didn't know we had to pay for long service levy or home warranty insurance on top of our contract so we were a bit shocked since it cost a lot like $4500! Who will pay for connection of electricity (also the power pole, i.e. Did you want the electrical connected from your roof or go Underground via a pole in front of house). Gas connect Etc It's good that your house designer already got the spec for your bathroom and kitchen that helps a lot. It's a good time to look at things that you can do yourself such as flooring etc. Research or ask them about the specifics within the specs such as thickness of gyprock ( you can get 13mm or 10mm) type of process the do the bathrooms - different sheeting not gyprock, will the builder do a step down (which means jigging the floor joist height) or just have it like the project mob and have a step up (uniform floor joist height). all builder should be confident in providing you with a comprehensive quote, be patient and give them time to prepare it. Go for 5 quotes of you have the time. Quotes should be for Free, we got 3 comprehensive (10-20 pages) quotes and 2 very basic ones. In the end all the custom builder quoted roughly similar prices, we ended up going with the builder that was the smallest, since we felt completely comfortable dealing with him. My husband will never be in the picture to help me with the house so i was the one that needed to have that rapport with the builder. Our will build our house from start to finish, will not allocate the build to his site supervisions etc, since he has non. Always see the houses these builder have built and ask to talk to the people he previously built for. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75739&p=1299716#p1299716 Re: Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 4Dec 04, 2015 8:55 am Thanks B4M3. Thankfully our designer has a lot of the above on his notes sheets with full spec about thickness, spacing, plasterboard etc. We have reviewed and are comfortable with the proposed. We'll have to ask for detailed council submissions and what that entails I suppose, like you've said above. I'm fully guessing we'll have to do underground powerpit, and comfortable to organise that ourselves but yes.. I might go in and sit down with the designer before sending out to tender, just to make sure we're comfortable. Thanks Re: Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 5Dec 04, 2015 2:23 pm Have you had a good read of the " Things you Forget " thread... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5823 especially the summary on Page 32 --> ? Stewie Re: Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 6Dec 04, 2015 2:56 pm PVBuild, just on the provisional sum and or Prim Cost items. You should nominate these costs. The builder then simply includes these numbers in his final figure, but in the case of the Prime cost items they will allow for these items to be installed. So, basically on these components you are say here is a sum to include in the overall figure, but we as the owners have control on how this is spent. If you do not allow enough for these you will get a variation, likewise if the budget amount are not use you make a saving. I maybe I have misunderstood what you are saying around this. But if you have specified all the fittings and fixtures upfront then it is really up to the builder to get them, if he gets a great deal because he has good connections, that just his good business, he may or may not hand this onto you. You need to be sure you are getting the exact items specified, that all. Of cause you can ask them to itemize some components that you might wish to change or take out of the contract. HACK architecture Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Re: Going out to tender - custom build. Do's & don'ts! 7Dec 04, 2015 2:58 pm Hi Stewie, yep, printed out & highlighted! Thanks David. I think we'll have quite a few requests for itemised components, as we may wish to choose to do some of them ourselves. I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 73753 Hi I am wanting some opinions about the build of a steel shed I am going to get one about 4.5 x 2.5 m steel shed and the height will be about 2.3-2.4m high The one I am… 0 10548 Hey. Head to a metal and decide on which profile you will use first. Profiles with larger corrugations can greatly change the appearance of the color in different… 0 2181 |