How long does it take to build?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm building in Sydney and things are very different up here to you guys in VIC

I just want to wish you all the best with your build and look forward to hearing about its progress.

You might like to start a blog to keep track of what is happening... it has helped me be able to refer to specific dates thing have been done, that I would not have remembered otherwise.

Good Luck

we bought our land mid March, signed with PD the day before , site scraped mid June, slab poured 7th July, bottom frame done within a week, top frame took longer as someone kept stealing our wood, bricking took just under three weeks.

We are in week 11 now since slab and house is framed, bricked, windows are in as are insulation, bath, electricals, heating and cooling and plaster around the voids and bulkheads. Plasterers were supposed to start a week ago but didn't arrive till last Friday. Our building contract is 254 days, standard for our house was 210 days. I know some people who have had handover within 20-22 weeks.

That's 254 days from day one on site. For us that was site scrape on 13th June. Our contract take us through to mid Feb but I believe we'll be in way before that (hope so anyway!).

Meeting with our SS tomorrow for the first time so I hope to get an indication from him where we sit with handover etc.

Hi Jas n Rach

The actual start date depends on your contract, but make sure they are clear about when the start date actually takes place, it's very important. We had a HIA contract (which is pretty standard I think) and start is within 21 days of council permit being issued. If they haven't commenced within that time you count from the last day within the 21 days (hope that makes sense).

You should also have a clause that states a weekly amount for liquidated damages, This being the amount they pay you once they go over the nominated build time. HIA contract has this but it's pretty much up to the builder I think as to the amount they pay.

Builders can also request an extension of time which they must put to you in writing. This will extend the build period. You can object if you think the request in unreasonable. If your build is going over the Christmas period then they will most likely send you a notice (ours was 28 days). This actually extends the build time for them and has to be added on to the number of days already nominated by the builder.

As to how long it takes there are a lot of factors at play. As long as you prepare yourself for the most amount of time they can take according to their contract, then anything less is a bonus. From what I have seen on the forum, two storeys do seem to take a bit longer than single storeys and for some reason can become more complicated. Plus depending on the house size i.e. 50sq as opposed to 35sq would also probably take longer.

Not sure about everyone elses experience, but brickies seem to be one of the hardest trades to get at the moment which is causing a few builders delays, but this might have changed in the last couple of months.

Hope some of this helps. Good luck with the build.

Wow, sounds great. Who are you building with?

What!!! We had one brickie for our two storey (42sq's) and he worked his butt off and did it just under three weeks. He did have a young guy making the mortar and another young guy raking/ironing the mortar but the brickie was the only one to lay a brick! Three months is a bl**dy long time!

Hey jas'n'rach PD have guaranteed start and guaranteed 20 week finish, thats part of there marketing. So most likely you get the same deal as 'house-to-be' if you use PD.



Our builder is very similar to Kexkez, using a standard HIA contract which I think is the standard 250 working days. With a must start within 6 weeks.