Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 05, 2018 10:37 pm I was watching here for a while. Finally it's time for me to kick off my own building thread. We're building a Rawson Benham 33 (Lux inclusion & real living package) at hills area in Sydney. Here's a rough timeline so far. Oct/2016 Started the trip from home world kellyville Nov/2016 Tender fee $1200 paid to Rawson and S149 and contour done --------------------------------next year------------------------------------------------------ Feb/2017 flood study done Mar/2017 Tender presentation at Rawson HQ in homebush / Major change - raised ground level height to 2.75m / Tender acceptance fee $5000 paid Apr/2017 Visited PGH Brick yards several times to select brick & finalise all external elements Plan Presentation done-->A couple of minor changes mainly with windows size and location Jun/2017 Submission plan deposit $10000 paid July/2017 Contract signed ! / Internal selection done with Rawson / Tile Selection done with Tile direct Aug/2017 At the beginning of Aug, DA submitted to Parramatta council Nov/2017 At the end of Nov, DA approved --------------------------------next year------------------------------------------------------ Jan/2018 signed demolish contract with Site demolish Feb/2018 Old house was knocked down Mar/2018 SS appointed and collected my file Site pegout / Excavation / site level up / concrete piercing all complete Apr/2018 Plumber completed internal drainage , steel and waffle pods form work done , slab poured Inspector Macro building solution appointed May/2018 Completion of frame/installation of windows / Plumber rough in Jun/2018 Brickwork commenced at the beginning of the month July/2018 SS relocated to other area and got a new SS. Brickwork done / Roof carpenter is complete. Fascia and gutter installed. Aug/2018 Eaves Carpenter is complete. Sep/2018 Eaves are painted scaffold has been removed.Air conditioning and electrical done. Inspection done - mainly missing noggins on frame, stud straightening issue, Speed brace tails not fixed properly, leaking Garage roof. Oct/2018 Balcony done. Onsite meeting with SS in regards to the inspection result. Gyprock ,Kitchen and Stairs to be done TBC... A quick summary of the experience with Rawson so far: They got very good sales person who is able to adapt their standard design to your needs a lot. Their office admin process is a bit slow but eventually they got things done. My PCA never answer my call and I had to rely on email solely to communicate with her which drove me nuts. Finally DA was approved and I escaped from their pre-construction office process. Along the way after DA approval, believe it or not, 2 of design flaws were exposed , during CC, the certifier requested us to move the garage step backwards a bit to comply with industry standard. In addition,even post CC, the area manager identified the step of laundry was built on top of sewer easement, we had to relocate it around to rectify the defect. However when it got into construction phase, we feel much better so far. I get weekly email update from my SS and he responses to every call from me. Chatted with him onsite as well which was a great pleasure as I believe he is a responsible person. Lesson learned so far: The plan presentation lady omitted one of our changes and later on we had to pay $450 administration fee to get the change in though they absorbed the plan redraw fee. So keep the evidence of every change you asked during plan presentation meeting and check the variation form sent to you after the meeting carefully to avoid such situation. At the same time, scrutinize every variation price in each variation form, they may make obvious mistake. e.g. We had been charged $360 which should be credit instead ! Do NOT make any unnecessary provisional allowance to increase your contract price which may lead to additional cost. e.g. some of council contribution amount is proportional to your contract price. We were advised by PCA that more provisional allowance means higher contract price and could help you to borrow more money from bank. But when it came to construction loan fund release from bank, my lender actually removed all of unspent fund from contract price which reduced the money we borrowed. Post first inspection(pre-gyprock), Rawson ackowledged and fixed most of defects ( approx. 80%?) except Speed brace tails fixing issue. I feel they are responsible and react to customer quickly. TBC... Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 2Apr 06, 2018 8:35 am Congratulations, hope your build is fast and smooth. Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 3Apr 06, 2018 6:15 pm CG Scardycat Congratulations, hope your build is fast and smooth. Thank you! Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 5Apr 06, 2018 6:24 pm Fee121 Good luck on your journey. I will enjoy reading all of your adventures Thx a lot. Will try to update from time to time Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 6Apr 16, 2018 11:26 am Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 7Apr 16, 2018 11:27 am Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 8Apr 16, 2018 11:31 am Just wondering how the soft white foam support things on top of it though concrete poured between foam blocks and on the steel waffle pod. A bit worry to me though several of my friends told me the same done on their site when they built their house. Is it something industry standard to use foam under concrete nowadays? ! Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 9Apr 16, 2018 1:13 pm move this to the beginning of the thread Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 10Apr 16, 2018 5:59 pm Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 12Apr 20, 2018 11:37 am Thx. Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 13Aug 12, 2018 1:30 pm Frame & brick stage pictures Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 14Aug 12, 2018 1:31 pm Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 15Oct 26, 2018 9:19 am Hi AIB, looks like all is going much better now you're in the construction phase. Do you mind me asking who was your PCA & Plan Presenter? Also who are you using for your inspections during the build process they seem very thorough and we'll be needing the same for our build in the Hills hopefully starting before the end of the year. Build Thread: Building a Rawson Chifley 42 in Baulkham Hills NSW All progress photos on Google Photos: HERE Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 16Oct 31, 2018 8:46 pm JiMb00 Hi AIB, looks like all is going much better now you're in the construction phase. Do you mind me asking who was your PCA & Plan Presenter? Also who are you using for your inspections during the build process they seem very thorough and we'll be needing the same for our build in the Hills hopefully starting before the end of the year. Hi Jimb00 I have messaged you what you were asking for. Good luck with your construction. Cheers. Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 17Nov 05, 2018 9:42 pm Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 18Nov 05, 2018 9:42 pm Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 19Nov 06, 2018 8:22 am AIB Just wondering how the soft white foam support things on top of it though concrete poured between foam blocks and on the steel waffle pod. A bit worry to me though several of my friends told me the same done on their site when they built their house. Is it something industry standard to use foam under concrete nowadays? ! I came into this thread because we very nearly built a Benham 33 … … but I see nobody's answered this? The answer is that the foam isn't intended to support any weight at all. It's got two functions; it holds the concrete into it's "waffle" shape while the concrete sets, and it also acts as insulation underneath (although I don't quite understand the insulation part to be honest - I thought the soil was very good insulation by itself). Once the concrete has set, if you could get to it you could pretty-much take the foam away. And yeah, it's extremely common, most houses in Sydney are built this way. I think there are certain soil conditions where they don't; but with most Sydney soil conditions & locations, if the house is being built on a slab which is sitting on the ground then they're probably building it with these waffle pods. Re: KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney 20Nov 06, 2018 4:34 pm Forg AIB Just wondering how the soft white foam support things on top of it though concrete poured between foam blocks and on the steel waffle pod. A bit worry to me though several of my friends told me the same done on their site when they built their house. Is it something industry standard to use foam under concrete nowadays? ! I came into this thread because we very nearly built a Benham 33 … … but I see nobody's answered this? The answer is that the foam isn't intended to support any weight at all. It's got two functions; it holds the concrete into it's "waffle" shape while the concrete sets, and it also acts as insulation underneath (although I don't quite understand the insulation part to be honest - I thought the soil was very good insulation by itself). Once the concrete has set, if you could get to it you could pretty-much take the foam away. And yeah, it's extremely common, most houses in Sydney are built this way. I think there are certain soil conditions where they don't; but with most Sydney soil conditions & locations, if the house is being built on a slab which is sitting on the ground then they're probably building it with these waffle pods. Thank you Build thread [size=200]KDR RAWSON Benham 33 in hills area of Sydney[/size] Even if it's not being sub-divided and you want to keep it as Torrens title, you will still need to talk to a town planner or Council themselves, to see if they will allow… 1 6612 Thanks again Simeon for being so elaborate. Appreciate it. Its gives us a very idea. Kind Regards 4 1896 CDC Housing Code 3 When to apply Floor Area external face of wall vs Gross Floor Area internal face of wall. Reading thru CDC Housing Code 3, lets take a lot 915sqm.… 0 11026 |