Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Here it goes... the start & already qns qns ... help? 12Jun 01, 2007 9:05 am We didn't have to do anything other than say what we wanted in the house and pick the colours for everything. The lovely guy (sales rep at the display home) was great to deal with. He sketched up our house and sited it on the block for us.
Same goes for when we dealt with Henley. The sales rep at the display home also went to the trouble of sketching up a siting drawing for us. And we didn't say anything other than we had picked a block and were interested in one of their houses. kevin, regarding item No. 1: the builder is possibly talking about the structural variations. They give out those massive books that has every kind of option you can add/vary with your respective floorplan. I'm thinking they would want you to read through that (because there's quite a lot you can change) then tell them at the appropriate time. There's things such as the order and type of cupboards you want in the kitchen. Take for example overhead cupboards in the kitchen - do you want all open shelving; all with doors; combo of open shelving and doors; maybe some with opaque glass? Also do you want to convert the 4th bedroom to a study or maybe add on an alfresco? I only know this because when we were originally going to build with Henley I read through that variations book a hundred times! LOL Item 2: I think said builder doesn't do flooring because they've had a lot of clients previously that would prefer to do the flooring through an external company. From what I've been told you go get quotes from flooring companies and when you finally pick one you submit that quote with the builder's final quote to the bank and they will lend you that much. It's not a matter of not being able to get the flooring as part of your mortgage but more a matter of you have to do the research and picking yourself. Item 3: Not very experienced in this area because our site costs were fixed. And I'm not aware if they even found any rock on our block. All I know is that the discovery and removal of rocks costs quite a bit. So builder probably doesn't want to be out of pocket if they do find rock. But I'm sure other posters can help you in this section. And lastly, I think the whole siting thing is just them giving you a chance to propose where you would like the house on the block incase you have things in mind for certain parts of the block. For instance, the southern end of our house is 1500mm from the edge of the property boundary. All fine but then we moved the watertank (some 800mm wide) to the southern end of the house and our builder somehow 'forgot' to resite the house. So, now we have maybe 600mm to squeeze through where the fence and watertank will meet. Eeekk! [sneakersss] Re: Here it goes... the start & already qns qns ... help? 13Jun 14, 2007 1:19 pm YSSIM kevin, regarding item No. 1: the builder is possibly talking about the structural variations. Don't quite agree with this, my understanding is, once contract signed, they charge you a fixed fee on top of the cost for the change. And that change could be anything from colour, to door position, interior, ...etc. It's stated in the contract, have a look and you will see it. Cheers Allan http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/ Re: Here it goes... the start & already qns qns ... help 14Jun 14, 2007 1:33 pm kevin 3. After the soil test, the builder is saying that the site costs will be fixed except for rock? Doesn't the site cost cover rock? I think it's because they need to do some excavation. Therefore if there's rock when they do the excavation they need extra effort to handle that, which means more $$. kevin 4. Any other advise before we proceed for the first appointment? Always shop around and talk to at least 5 builders. Then use the specials/experience from one of them to get a better deal from the others. It's a painful process but worth the effort once you got your dream home finished. Good luck! Cheers Allan http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/ If your patio is going to be 35 sqm then that's going to need Council Approval. The fact that they previously approved your 25sqm patio will be irelevant 1 5547 Hi there, long-time lurker but first time posting. I've bought a house 2 and a bit years ago and last year we had some major water damage on a converted pergola area… 0 7954 Yes, unless you are in a low intensity rainfall area or the area is protected from rain. Do you have access to NCC Part 2 or can you download it? I can email you a copy… 10 12554 |