Browse Forums Owner Builder Forum 1 Apr 08, 2011 12:10 pm Hi Everyone - I'm new here. Have finally decided to owner build a small granny for my adult daughter after lurking on the forum for a while. It is in Perth WA. I am retired so decided that building in timber was going to be too physically demanding. Would anyone who has built in light steel have any advice on the following; Suppliers of lightweight zinalume steel kit sets ( not frames ) in WA to get a quote. Do I need to do a professional course in construction Can I install the foundations/ subfloor on stumps ( if council permits) myself or do I need a tradie Is there anything else I need to know of importance. e.g what tools. I have done two owner builds before but the builds were in wood or brick and I had tradesman do most of the work. This time I need to DIY as the DW has put the budget at a limit of $30,000 to build a small 8 x 3.4M simple reactangle design. Nothing fancy so hopefully I am not overly optimistic in acheiving it. Many thanks for any suggestions. Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 2Apr 09, 2011 1:04 pm Hi Fairhavens, Just to answer some of your questions, I am currentley building a steel frame homw in WA it's not hard at all as long as you can use basic hand tools you will be fine as regards to stumps same again all very basic and for any special tools maybe laser level for setting up of stumps frame very usefull if doing alone hope this helps. Cheers Heath Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 3Apr 09, 2011 3:20 pm Thanks Heath. I wondered if there was anyone doing the same as me in WA. Have you got any recommendations about a kit supplier in WA? I did appreciate the comments about the 'doability' of the project. The installing of the stumps was particularly worrying me but I notice there are commercial floor systems with adjustable steel stumps to make it easier. Did you use any of them? Regards John Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 4Apr 16, 2011 2:13 pm Is it beacuse of Bush fires in WA? Or ease of use? We are considaring using steel too for a house next time instead of wood Make your own Organic Vegetable Patch, Learn How to Build a Pergola http://www.homestyledesign.com.au Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 5Apr 16, 2011 2:42 pm Hallelujah! Some one else interested in the topic. We are building in steel for many reasons - not the least the ease of handling the materials as I am retired and physically the build will be demanding on all levels. Light gauge steel has many other advantages as can be found on the websites but perhaps the other BIG reason is cost. If I can work with materials that are easy and light to handle I can do the work myself ( very simple granny design) to a large extent and save massively on employing labour for what is a relatively quick and simple construction method. I am now looking at buying the steel from a supplier rather than a kitset home company. I have found this week there are several suppliers of light steel that will do the take off from siupplied drawing and cut to length etc. All the best in your project. Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 6Apr 17, 2011 11:38 pm Hi Fairhavens, I must say if you are interested in quick and easy then I'd just have a grano slab layed then build straight on top. No need to muck around with stumps and subfloor. Was there any reason you wanted to go this way? If you have a slab layed you can then set out and build your frames on a nice flat surface. You should be able to bang out the frames and get them stood up in a day if you've got some skills. Hope all goes well for you. Feel free to ask away if you have questions. Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 7Apr 18, 2011 4:34 pm Hi Chippy, Very pleased to have your comments. Although I have had several opinions I was told in most cases using stumps would be cheaper and easier to build with than pouring a slab. More particularly no labour costs if I do a stump subfloor myself. Also the granny will be located at the bottom of a sloping driveway so i wanted to be sure there was not a flooding problem though I realize they can raise a slab in Perth with piling up the sand. I am about to go to a draftsman ( hope he is conversant with light steel) for a set of plans and of course I am trying to price it and do due diligence. I might need to rethink using solid polystyrene board for insulation and go with the old 'pink batts' as they are a quarter of the cost. The cost of supplying the steel will be the clincher as to whether the project goes ahead. It appears to be about $6 per liner metre for 90mm framing etc so I might have to go with a 75mm spec. I have been told this will be wide enough for the required insulation to meet the 'basix' requirements. At present we are up to $17000 in costing without the steel and tradies ( sparkie and plumber and a small amount of fixing carpenter) so it will be touch and go if we get within the $30k budget. Would very much appreciate any cost saving measures you might suggest although I have done this to a large extent by now deciding to do as much of the build myself ( with some help from my son). Many thanks again for your offer to help. Regards John Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 8Jun 10, 2011 4:12 am Hi John, Sorry it's taken so long to reply been busy doing the OBing thing, I used Lysaght Quika Floor which is a height adjustable steel fooring system I did look into a concrete slab would have been alot easier but the site works blew it way out of contention for the sloping block we have built on to give you an idea lowest point is 300mm high and highest point is 2.6m high and the steel floor worked out about 10k+ cheaper you can view my topic on H1 Modified Camden by Paal Homes has everything I have been through so far with pictures from beginning to now, I went back to the Paal website recently and the have a offshoot company called Met-Kit http://www.metkithomes.com.au/ you should go and have a look and give them a call you may just get what you want in your budget frame don't be afraid to change stuff around to get what you want they are very accomodating. I did try alot if not all the kit home suppliers in WA and found alot of them to be to exspensive alot of money for not alot at all so I went to the east coast for our kit home over there they are so much cheaper than WA I just found WA very overpriced for what we wanted, any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Cheers Heath Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 9Jun 10, 2011 6:10 pm Hi Heath, Thanks for the additional info. I was not optimistic about having anymore input to this thread after the long interval between posts. So many thanks. I am currently waiting for Wanneroo Council 'planning' to pass the first set of plans - which they have indicated they will do after supplying some additional info to them. So I now face the next phase of getting the drafting done and engineers cert for the detailed drawing with the 'shop details' for the building permit. Have asked several places with suss answers and await a further quote from an engineers practice so hopefully this will result in a reasonable cost - something a good deal less than the $2500 given as the first price i received. The next challenge will be to get supply of the light steel at a reasonable price. I have already had one quote but it included preforming the trusses and wall frames ( which I do not want) at around $6.5K. This probably explains the high price as I was expecting it to come at around $4K. Any suggestions anyone on suppliers that will not try to 'preform' the materials into trusses etc. Many thanks again. John Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 10Aug 11, 2011 3:55 pm Hi Fairhavens, You will have trouble finding a steel framing company who will just supply you 'stud and track' and allow you to do the rest yourself. As the efficiencies in LSF are that it's prefabricated and ready to erect, it doesn't make a lot of sence to get a bundle of sticks delivered to your site for you to screw together. Of course, if you have a massive freight distance this may be slightly difference. May I ask who you have asked to quote on your design? My customers in WA will be able to help... Cheers Pete Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 11Sep 12, 2011 11:37 pm Hi Fairhaven, you may have decided on the light steel option but just to make you aware of another option, there are a number of companies in Perth that supply insulated panels SIPS that tilt up (like the tilt up indistrial concrete panels eg Bunnings etc) but only weigh 20-40kg per 1.1m panel! They are load bearing and are fixed to each other with a wood or steel strip at the base to the pad, (bolted or nail on) and fixed at the sides with the same. There are different materials used in them but SIPS Industries (Bibra Lakes) and R-Control (Welshpool) do wood particle board with inner polystyrene core. Innovative Building Supplies (Agent for Paneco) (Camboon Road Malaga) do MgO panels with polystyrene insulation and FBM Corp (Camboon Rd Malaga) do fibre-cement panels with polyurethane insulation. The panels are load bearing, self supporting , come in approximately 1.1m widths and 2.7m + lengths, can be cut with normal tools and can have roof panels (including self supporting insulated roof panels) fixed directly to the top. These materials have been rated for cyclonic winds and have incredible load strength. I have been on the www.ata.org.au site numerous times reading about the SIPS (Structural Insulated Panels) thread and posting what ever I've found. We are keen on using the same when we finally sell our current house so that we can build a liveable shed in the hills. Check out the companies above or go on the ATA forum if this sounds like it may fit the bill. The costs vary but from what I can see the total cost is approx $60 per sqm for Paneco and roughly the same for the other wood composite polystyrene boards. Two of the products from companies; Paneco (Innovative BS) and FBM Corp can be painted on directly internally (no plasterboard required) - and need no external treatment to waterproof them and can be used for internal and external walls. Paneco and Bondcor (Canningvale) have roof panels which need no framing but can be attached directly to the wall SIPS. Anyhow, theres my spanner for your works, good luck Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 12Sep 27, 2011 3:42 am SIPs are great. We built our house with them in 2007 over here in the UK - feel free to ask any questions you may have, our build website has pictures of the SIPs etc, www.chardselfbuild.co.uk. I would only recommend polyurethane panels however as polystyrene is not as good for many reasons. Our build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64997&start=40 Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 13Sep 27, 2011 3:30 pm Hi I had a look at your blog - well done to push it through. It seems an immense amount of work to do everything yourselves. Are you happy with the comfort levels, any problems with moisture/condensation. Any reason you didnt use SIPS on internal walls. Also with regard to polystyrene vs polyurethane - apart from flammability and insulation values did you have any reason to use polyurethane over polystyrene. In Australia unfortunately the vast majority of SIPS are polystyrene. As we have a block in a bushfire prone area I would feel safer with a polyacrylate or polyurethane core but not fixed either way yet. Anyway, well done on you job on your house and blog. Re: Owner build granny in light steel - Any advice? 14Oct 01, 2011 2:13 am Thanks Fireflies. Very happy with comfort, the whole house heat recovery ventilation is essential though as it is quite an airtight construction. No problems with moisture. A few of the internals are SIP to support some of the first floor structure. I've heard bad things about polystyrene with regards off gassing and it breaking down very quickly, it's not used in the US much now and barely ever in the UK. Maybe when I get to Oz I can set up the first PU SIPs plant ?? Our build thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64997&start=40 Any advice on how to ensure the kit home granny flat that im thinking of buying will get council approval. The kit home companys wont release plans without a deposit and… 0 7270 hi guys. Please be nice. First time home builder in Qld. 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