Better Built Homes

ToWuAHome · Dec 08, 2020 8:58 am

Speakers

Which lighting company did you use please?

Cheers

We haven’t bought the additional lights yet as it’s still a while away. We were thinking of supplying and getting electrician to just install but again, too far away to confirm for sure. Blaire did recommend we drop her name at Beacon Lighting near Penrith. We’ve just been shopping around to see how much the lights we want will cost.

We had a zoom consult with Mint Lighting Design which we thought was helpful to educate us on where lights and switches should go, and how to layer light, how much light you want for the room’s purpose. But it’s not a must-do.

GoodKat · Dec 08, 2020 9:30 am

ToWuAHome

Speakers

Which lighting company did you use please?

Cheers

We haven’t bought the additional lights yet as it’s still a while away. We were thinking of supplying and getting electrician to just install but again, too far away to confirm for sure. Blaire did recommend we drop her name at Beacon Lighting near Penrith. We’ve just been shopping around to see how much the lights we want will cost.

We had a zoom consult with Mint Lighting Design which we thought was helpful to educate us on where lights and switches should go, and how to layer light, how much light you want for the room’s purpose. But it’s not a must-do.

We were thinking of speaking to a lighting designer as well, and I've heard Mint Lighting Design come up quite a number of times. We've also seen Beacon Lighting offering a similar service which we might do as they give you back the cost of the service as a voucher if you spend 1K with them in the future.

AnnaDeeCee · Dec 09, 2020 12:29 pm

ToWuAHome

Speakers

Which lighting company did you use please?

Cheers

We haven’t bought the additional lights yet as it’s still a while away. We were thinking of supplying and getting electrician to just install but again, too far away to confirm for sure. Blaire did recommend we drop her name at Beacon Lighting near Penrith. We’ve just been shopping around to see how much the lights we want will cost.

We had a zoom consult with Mint Lighting Design which we thought was helpful to educate us on where lights and switches should go, and how to layer light, how much light you want for the room’s purpose. But it’s not a must-do.

Not sure where you are located, but Minchinbury Lighting are probably the most competitive lighting shop around. My parents bought from there 20 years ago, and even my mates who built in Oran Park ordered from there too. We bought 9 fans from them two years ago and they were between $20-50 cheaper than anywhere else.

The shop is crowded and overwhelming, and actually always busy. Best bet is to go to somewhere like Harvey Norman, enquire about the lights you want, then take that info to Minchibury.

Speakers · Dec 09, 2020 12:57 pm

AnnaDeeCee

ToWuAHome

Speakers

Which lighting company did you use please?

Cheers

We haven’t bought the additional lights yet as it’s still a while away. We were thinking of supplying and getting electrician to just install but again, too far away to confirm for sure. Blaire did recommend we drop her name at Beacon Lighting near Penrith. We’ve just been shopping around to see how much the lights we want will cost.

We had a zoom consult with Mint Lighting Design which we thought was helpful to educate us on where lights and switches should go, and how to layer light, how much light you want for the room’s purpose. But it’s not a must-do.

Not sure where you are located, but Minchinbury Lighting are probably the most competitive lighting shop around. My parents bought from there 20 years ago, and even my mates who built in Oran Park ordered from there too. We bought 9 fans from them two years ago and they were between $20-50 cheaper than anywhere else.

The shop is crowded and overwhelming, and actually always busy. Best bet is to go to somewhere like Harvey Norman, enquire about the lights you want, then take that info to Minchibury.

Thanks for info. We are happy to travel a little for the right purpose 🤣👍

Lina C · Jan 04, 2021 11:17 pm

ToWuAHome

Agree with Speakers. You’re going to need to do your own research and keep an eagle eye on the whole process. Which honestly does suck a bit (royal commission into the industry sounds like a great idea haha). We’ve picked up mistakes like double charging for little things and missing requests etc. I doubt it would be much different with any other builder.

In terms of tiles, I think we are pretty picky (we went to colortile multiple times before our actual appointment and also other suppliers/websites) and we still managed to find what we liked (and wanted to pay). Don’t forget you almost always pay extra for labour as well if you like the fancy tiles! Like $88sqm for mosaic laying (+the difference above allowance for the tiles themselves). Our tile upgrades set us back about $13.5k. You also pay that outside of the building contract with BBH (30% deposit at appointment).

In terms of site costs, we found them to over-estimate. Our final fixed price for stormwater ended up being half the cost of the initial estimate. So saved us $10k

I’m finding the comms hot and cold recently. They were rushing us for contracts two weeks ago and now I can’t even get a reply. Which is disappointing because we were hoping to demolish this side of the new year but it doesn’t look likely now.

Hi ToWuAHome, thanks for your posting and congrats on the saving of $10k😁
Just wondering when did they update the final fixed price for site costs? At the tender or at the contract stage? We have been provided with 'fixed price' for site costs at the tender, however we were not advised that they would revisit this and update the pricing later. So I assumed that you were comparing the tender price to the initial estimate provided by sales and found it $10k cheaper? Thanks.

ToWuAHome · Jan 05, 2021 6:22 am

Lina C

ToWuAHome

Agree with Speakers. You’re going to need to do your own research and keep an eagle eye on the whole process. Which honestly does suck a bit (royal commission into the industry sounds like a great idea haha). We’ve picked up mistakes like double charging for little things and missing requests etc. I doubt it would be much different with any other builder.

In terms of tiles, I think we are pretty picky (we went to colortile multiple times before our actual appointment and also other suppliers/websites) and we still managed to find what we liked (and wanted to pay). Don’t forget you almost always pay extra for labour as well if you like the fancy tiles! Like $88sqm for mosaic laying (+the difference above allowance for the tiles themselves). Our tile upgrades set us back about $13.5k. You also pay that outside of the building contract with BBH (30% deposit at appointment).

In terms of site costs, we found them to over-estimate. Our final fixed price for stormwater ended up being half the cost of the initial estimate. So saved us $10k

I’m finding the comms hot and cold recently. They were rushing us for contracts two weeks ago and now I can’t even get a reply. Which is disappointing because we were hoping to demolish this side of the new year but it doesn’t look likely now.

Hi ToWuAHome, thanks for your posting and congrats on the saving of $10k😁
Just wondering when did they update the final fixed price for site costs? At the tender or at the contract stage? We have been provided with 'fixed price' for site costs at the tender, however we were not advised that they would revisit this and update the pricing later. So I assumed that you were comparing the tender price to the initial estimate provided by sales and found it $10k cheaper? Thanks.

Hi Lina,

For us, the stormwater line item was still a provisional estimate at tender so wasn’t fixed until contract stage. The stormwater detention system hadn’t been designed by the engineer yet. So if you received fixed price for all site costs at tender then I don’t think it’ll change! Hope that helps