Browse Forums Owner Builder Forum 1 Jan 16, 2012 6:25 pm Hey Everyone Just bought a block in Perth Metro with a 2 bedroom shack on it I am keen to build a kit home on the block but Perth prices are way out of line with eastern states. Has anybody built a PAAL or MET-KIT home. I would love to see the build quality and hear about any issues faced. Cheers Re: Owner build kit home 2Jan 17, 2012 11:12 pm hi lucky phial, I am currently building a PAAL kit home in Lower Chittering I have blog on this site which list what I have done so far currently in my third year of owner building blog name modified Camden supplied by PAAL homes, if you have any questions please do contact me. Cheers Heath. Owner build kit home 4Jan 18, 2012 4:57 am Hi We are building a Paal home. We aren't owner building, we have contracted a local builder. I have asked the builder about his experience and on the whole he said it as pretty good. They got our frame up in about a week (and it is a large house because we have a Castlereagh with an attached Argyle 3 for the in-laws). The frame was on several pallets and he did say that they weren't in any particular order, so there was a bit of searching through through required to find the next panel at times. Generally the allowances for fasteners etc from Paal were generous but we did run out of Tek screws and he had to purchase more, while we have hundreds of other fasteners left over. I had a quick glance through the construction manual before I gave it to the builder and it seemed pretty comprehensive, but it isn't just an Ikea flat pack assembly . When I have told people that we were building a Kit Home I have got some funny looks - people think pre-fab caravan kind of thing and I have to explain that it just looks like a normal house. From a quality point of view the Paal components (frames trusses) go together well and have some nice features like pre-drilled holes for cables/pipes. The rest of the kit is standard building materials supplied through companies like Bunnings, Reece, CSR etc so these are the same sources and products that a package builder would use. I have found Paal very easy to deal with right through - from working out several versions of initial designs through to supply and delivery. There has been the odd mistake but they have rectified it quickly. They are also very flexible, which we liked. We have removed their kitchen, tapware and electrical from the kit for which we received a rebate. Paul Re: Owner build kit home 5Feb 26, 2013 2:28 pm We built a PAAL kit home about 12 years ago and lived in it for 10 years. It was very well made. Probably the best made home we have ever lived in. The instructions were fairly straight forward although there were two glitches that they may have corrected by now. The instructions on how to put the cladding on wasn't quite correct (which wasted a couple of days work) and the wall material in the wet areas should have been joined differently or in a different place. Where they joined the finished work kept cracking. The areas of join that were tiled over meant you couldn't see the crack. The crack did not seem to affect the tiling as after 10 years the integrity of the tiles and the adhesives/grout was still perfect. We did everything ourselves except for the electrical wiring, the plumbing and the kitchen cabinets. The steel frame made far fewer cracking noises from expansion and contraction than our previous wood framed home. PAAL were very helpful in the design stage and everything was delivered as promised. We did not purchase the tiles, vanity, tub or kitchen from them as we wanted to choose them ourselves. I would absolutely recommend a PAAL kit home to anyone thinking of buying one. A huge advantage of building it yourself is that you KNOW what is what. The house we are in now is a reno and although it is a solid house some of the things we have found and encountered during renovations and revamping makes us think WTF were they thinking doing THAT? We'd rather build than renovate now we have done both. Sorry but you have a crap builder. Probably too late now. For our last build I only spoke to builders who would allow me easy access (at no cost). I used my own sparky… 10 9820 If so what were the "special circumstances" under which it was granted? "Note: If the development consent is for 'dual occupancy' an owner-builder permit can only be… 0 14070 Waiting for the interest rates to go down is also waiting for the building prices to go up, you will likely lose. Perhaps you can get the builder to lock up stage, but… 4 3658 |