Browse Forums Owner Builder Forum 1 Apr 23, 2012 11:36 am Hi all, I'm new to this forum and wanted some advice about Owner built homes or homes built to lock up stage. Do you have to be a qualified tradie to carry out jobs on the actual house? I have been getting quotes from builders for a normal house 19 sqms single storey, everything pretty basic for 170K. I can't believe they charge you 3K to upgrade to a 90mm stove.. I would really like to cut it down to 140K by going OB, but I'm not sure this will happen?? The other half has been quite handy since our first home renovation, has become quite the gyprocker, flusher, painter, put up a verandah, has got his certificate in welding and has completely renovated my parents rumpus room which was build very badly 20 years ago. I don't want to sound naive, but I'm sure I am, would his skills be enough to pull off the jobs from lock up stage? We're not after anything great in the house, it will be another rental and we might live in it in the long run.. Our uncle is an tiler, our friend is an electrician and our other friend does kitchens/pantries/vanities etc. All we need to source is a plumber/gas fitter, builder and building surveyor?? We also have a lot of time. We are sitting on land and couldn't afford to pull off another loan, so we're saving 2K per month for another 36 months and then we were going to borrow 50K from the bank and build.. We don't pay rent, just utility bills and groceries.. I'm just scared that we will go over what the normal builders have quoted us..We would even be happen with a 20K saving..But curiosity has got the better of us and we naively think we can pull this off??? =-/ Re: Curious about owner builder 2Apr 23, 2012 12:27 pm From what I am reading you guys are in a good position to do owner builder. Remember you don’t need to actually do any of the work to be considered owner builder but doing so saves money. Personally I would be either do the whole thing and not just from Lock etc. Your husband sounds like the person who has a can do attitude and not too scared to give things a go - this is very important. Want be doing is looking for where you weakness are (if any) and address them one by one. To be owner builder you need to have some of these main things taken care off. 1. Finance 2. Time to organise and be on Site and do some work. 3. Happy to learn and do research as you go . 4. Be able to manage people. Re going over budget – Most owner builders will go over budget but most of the time its because they realise its hard work and in the end don’t want to do it again so they usually up the quality of the house and go for something that will last them longer. The trouble many owner builders have is forcing them to go basic and stop going overboard. This is always are hard balance to get right. Re: Curious about owner builder 3Apr 23, 2012 3:32 pm Thank you for your response B STAR. When you said to do the whole thing, do you mean to source out contractors to lay the foundations/footings/bricklayers etc etc instead of going with a company that builds to the lock in stage? I have only started to research this in the last few days and we are very keen to do more research! About managing people? Can you expand on what would we need to actually do?? I guess I don't understand how I can tell someone what to do if I'm not qualified to do it myself?? It's going to be a big learning curve but I also feel that we are in a great position to try building our own home =) Re: Curious about owner builder 4Apr 23, 2012 4:15 pm In regards to the reference of doing the whole thing what I mean is you either Owner build the whole project or nothing at all. Getting a builder to do only to lock up is a waste of time and this is probably a fairly easy step and this is where you can save a lot of money as most people contract this part out. You need to know how to manage contractor. If you don't feel confident then I recommend doing a Cert IV course. This gave me heaps of confidence. Re: Curious about owner builder 5Apr 25, 2012 1:37 pm Hi Pandawoman I'm an owner builder and have contracted an older carpenter who is also a builder that no longer wishes to take on the big projects. We pay him an hourly rate to consult on all aspects of what we want and he's been a fabulous investment for us. I pass everything by him as soon as I think it up and use him as a sounding board to help my ideas come to fruition. I too would recommend OB from the start if you feel confident in project management but if you can hunt around for a builder to assist and build a good relationship with, it will give you so much insight and knowledge into how to achieve what you want. Our builder is able to correct errors in our plans, refine our plans to make our build more efficient and he has saved us loads of money. He has helped us with contacts and purchasing as well as doing loads of the work for us. He just doesn't do all the running around and coordinating which is where we are saving enormous amounts of money. More recently he has assisted us by liaising with a local manufacturer who previously wouldn't give me the time of day as my request was too small. Having a builder to deal with, some places know they'll get repeat work and say yes immediately whereas I couldn't even get the guy to come onsite. WRT managing the trades you simply ask them to do what needs to be done - you're not telling them how to do the job as such and you don't need to know how install taps to manage a plumber. You do however need to know where you want things installed and specify to them EXACTLY where to install. If you don't specify they may install where they think it should go and you won't get what you want by letting them try to read your mind. This can be as easy as handing over your drawings with details of where you want things installed but if your drawings aren't detailed enough, you'll have issues. You will need to become familiar with layouts and required areas though as you're not allowed to have power too close to water etc and you need to enable space to move around in your plans. The number of "helpful" people who suggested to me that we should flip our bathroom around to have the bath elsewhere taught me just how many people forget that you can't live in a drawing so be weary of "advice" from others who rarely understand how to make ideas happen. The tradies will help you with all of this if you are easy to deal with, just don't approach them expecting their advice for free. Ask the questions you need to when you're paying them but also keep things brief and don't take up too much of their time with wasteful stuff that you can get from elsewhere. You can always ask loads of questions in here The only thing I would recommend is that you plan, plan & plan some more. If you have 36 months until your project starts, you will have all that time to revise your plans, understand which materials and finishes you would prefer and what your details are. You'll have time to arrange purchasing and finance details. You don't want to be making changes in the middle of work, despite it sometimes being necessary. You also need to realise that mistakes happen mid project and correcting those mistakes is sometimes necessary, but often you just have to suck certain mistakes up and chalk it down to experience. Always you will be telling yourself you could have planned better to avoid such and such but you won't really know until you get there. If you're onsite when things are happening there's far less chance of major errors occurring but I'm not sure you can ever rule it out. My core plan is always to have everything necessary finalised prior to the trades arrival, so I purchase all materials needed and triple check with them prior to their arrival if they need me to have anything else for them to finish the job. I have plans with matching lists for the trades to finish when they arrive on site so that I know exactly what I want them to do and they're clear about my wishes. If they can't for whatever reason do what I want, they tell me and we then talk about how to work around things. I prefer tradies who charge an hourly rate but I've also been burned by a local plumber I no longer use who likes to go shopping in the next town over (40 min drive away) on my clock. You live and learn but if you have a cooperative approach with trades from the start and do as much as you can to make it easy for them, they'll generally help you out. Ask for recommendations. If you find a tradie you love ask him if he can recommend other tradies. Often good plumbers will know a good sparkie etc but they see more work and hear more stories than you or I about builds. Some of them get to know each other and who's good and who's not so great. Use them for their skills, their knowledge but also their experience. I have a fabulous worksheet I got from someone else in here which includes budget estimates, purchasing details and a schedule. This has been a fabulous tool for me as it guides me through the process and triggers me to consider things that builders need to think about. If you're considering OB it's a good idea to give yourself an idea of what you need to think about. People make one happy, not houses? I do not think so. Houses are more to be trusted than people. Elizabeth Aston, Mr. Darcy's Daughters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDX0tgONFs http://lightndreamy.blogspot.com/ Re: Curious about owner builder 6May 09, 2012 11:42 am You've had some excellent advice from BStar and MrsSnowden. Note that BStar listed FINANCE as Number One. If you need to borrow $$$ to build, the bank may be reluctant to lend money to an owner-builder with no builder's certificate. From their perspective, that's perfectly reasonable. Be prepared to shop around. Using an older tradie (carpenter is best) or builder to advise you is the way to go. We were members of the same club as a bloke who was a registered builder, and he was good enough to provide that assistance when we sub-contacted our place. Re: Curious about owner builder 7May 09, 2012 2:11 pm Thank you for your post MrsSnowden! a detailed post that made me think about alot of things. It will be a basic house as we are wanting to rent it out as we're not happy with the location of the land so instead of selling it and making a lost, we'd rather put a small house on there to rent with most of it being our own money, I dare say =/ We aim to have to have 100K in three years which we hope can get us past lock up stage! I guess my biggest fear is something going wrong and we have no knowledge to sort it out! Yes we are now keeping our eyes open for small, independent builders but are still stuck on looking for a building surveyor. Do contracts need to be drawn with the builder and surveyor? We have found an electrician we want to use. A man to do the kitchens, vanities, built ins, a tiler and have spoken to a plumbing company I already use for my rental.. I've found many Vietnamese contract builders but I'm scared to take the risk on them incase they cut a lot of corners (we are asian too).. Guess it's all fear atm with making the wrong choice which could in turn affect the whole project =) Re: Curious about owner builder 8May 27, 2012 12:50 am go for it youve got way more experience then we started with and even builders make mistakes you also have time on your side to actually research each stage and build it in your mind read others journeys and it wont seem so daunting its been fun and weve learnt heaps good luck dont be scared to do the lot and use tradies were your not confident in giving it a go stay safe happy building Hi folks, Victoria resident here. I've submitted my owner builder application to the VBA. I thought I'd share my experience so far. I submitted my application… 0 9455 Hi VK, I am now retired however I have stood beside over 300 owner builders in the past 18 years that have successfully built their own homes. First of all a building… 10 21070 |