Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 208May 11, 2018 4:02 pm Hi guys, we're cautiously hopeful we have found a workaround for stormwater after meeting with council twice this week and talking to the neighbour next door to us. The council engineer showed us a council pipe in our neighbour's property that runs into a creek further down from our house. The pipe is on our neighbour's property very close to our fence, we chatted to them and they are fine for us to connect to that pipe on their land. Been spending this week going over our tender variations and floorplan changes and aiming to send it all through to H&H this weekend so they have time to re-do the tender costs before the tender deadline. After feeling quite deflated last week, it's good to be back on track Did you guys consider wall/cavity niches in the living areas of your build? I see them in the display homes where they put the tv on the wall and floating shelves, I like the look of them and thought it might be potentially cheaper than custom cabinetry. Kjane, we're thinking of a dwarf wall on one side of the alfresco too (similar to the alfresco in the Elsye display home with the bbq against the wall). Do you remember how much you were quoted? Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 209May 11, 2018 4:40 pm That sounds like a great work around, you must be feeling a lot relieved. Good that you have some understanding neighbours. Great to have you back on here.Now you can get back to some more exciting planning stuff Are you making many changes to the plan? We do not have any wall cavity/niches in our living areas. Agree it does look really nice. We are having the dwarf wall and it was $1,200 for a 1200mm height wall. We also had the gas point put in on the alfresco. We ended up having to put a 300mm privacy screen on top of the wall too to take it up to 1500mm due to council regulations as we are built up a bit above the natural ground level at the back due to the sloping block. So I'm glad that we went with the original dwarf wall as otherwise we would have been up for 1500mm of privacy screen which I think could have worked out to be more expensive for something that looked nice. We plan to grow plants (maybe herbs) along the privacy screen to turn it into a bit of a vertical garden in the alfresco area. Do you have your tender from the other builder back yet? Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 210May 11, 2018 5:18 pm The dwarf wall cost is not too bad, probably easier done during build than after the build. The vertical garden will look lovely and multifunctional if you have herbs there (within easy reach of kitchen too!) We never met spoke to these neighbours before as their property is on another street, it's just our backyards that look on to each other. We are very relieved they are reasonable and understanding. We took inspiration from the upgrade list you and Seren1ty put in this thread and will be sending our extensive wishlist to H&H! We are literally putting in everything we want and then will cull it down after sticker shock. Some items on the list: - Increasing ground floor ceilings (due to our slope, we were told we might end up having an internal step so didn't choose it in the $30k promo, but tender came back with no internal step, so we are adding it in as we love high ceilings) - Extra insulation to ceiling and walls - Bamboo flooring to living areas and stairs - Skylight in stairwell - Recessed alfresco stacker tracks - Same floor heights in bathrooms and laundry as rest of the house (don't know if this is standard but our old house has different floor levels so I want to avoid that if possible) - Our tender plan had a sliding door from the laundry to the side of the house - we weren't sure why since the standard inclusion is a normal door - so we're asking for a door to be put in that is more secure) - Enlarging the alfresco area so it lines up with the wall of the house (if this comes back too much, we will forgo) - Dwarf wall on one side of the alfresco so we can have the bbq against it. - Due to changes to our floor plan, we ended up with quite a large butler's pantry. H&H put together a fit-out quote with sink, at first I wasn't sure I wanted a sink in the pantry but after much researching, it's growing on me. So we will request a water filter in the WIP sink and have all the small appliances in there so all the breakfast activity, school lunches, meal prep etc can be done in the pantry, then we close the door and conceal all the mess. - Wall niches in the living areas (curious if it might be cheaper than custom cabinetry) - Doubling the number of powerpoints - We've been told not to add any new windows to the plan due to basix...but we are changing some of the sizes to fit our furniture better. Our external plan came back with lots of retaining walls needed on the sides of the house and across the front, including the driveway. Do you guys need retaining walls? I don't know how we could put a retaining wall across the driveway? We were going to ask John on Sunday if he could shed some light, maybe it's just the way they draw the plans. I'm researching retaining walls now and it looks very pricey... Haven't got the other tender yet, they keep saying it will come through soon but still waiting. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 211May 11, 2018 7:01 pm Not great that you don't have the other tender back yet. There seems to be some horror stories on here about people taking up to a year in admin before they even get to site. It would be interesting to see if the other builder picks up on the stormwater issue too or if you would be just surprised with that down the track. Great list of changes, I wish I had done the recessed alfresco slider stacker doors too but don't want to pay for a variation now. We asked about the floor heights of the bathrooms when we were at the display in Kellyville and Sean was saying levelling the floors on the upstairs level is doable but may be expensive so be prepared for a big chunk of change on that one. Our plan came back with retaining walls on both sides too, about 7m each side and yep I nearly fell off my chair when I started researching the cost of them and the front low brick fence. If anyone hears of a cheap fencer or landscaper let me know :-?:-? Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 212May 11, 2018 7:42 pm Awesome news Zen! That's a great list of changes, the skylight is a great addition, one that I'm sure you and kjane will be very happy with. The retaining walls are not that cheap, but it does depend on what material you want them built out of. We will need a similar length of retaining walls to kjane. Our landscaper is on course to start basically straight after handover. He's a builder as well, so can do the driveway and retaining walls, plus fences, plants and anything else like tiling or a Pergola if needed. PM me if you'd like his details. We got a few quotes and there can be a big difference in price (think 50% more), so make sure you get a few quotes! Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 213May 11, 2018 11:26 pm That’s awesome, Seren1ty! Will definitely get details from you when we start gathering quotes for landscaping. It might be a while as we’ve been told due to a neighbour’s tree too close to our property, we’ll have to go via DA rather than CDC. We’re mentally preparing for a long wait. Kjane, H&H were concerned about stormwater, the other builder raised concerns about flood levels which H&H were not concerned about at all. We didn’t understand why the other builder was so fixated on the flood levels when we never had any problems with it. Will be interesting to compare the site costs from both. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 214May 16, 2018 9:28 pm We got our tender revisions back today. We requested the increase in ground floor ceiling height to 2750mm and because of that asked for increase in height to garage and alfresco. HHH were confused by this request and now I'm confused too. I thought this was to increase the garage door and alfresco door height to match the increased ceiling height, is this correct? Seren1ty, I think you had a variation to increase the garage and alfresco as well, do you remember how this was worded in your tender? Also, what kind of cavity sliding doors did you and kjane select? I think kjane mentioned cost of the CSD she got was about $350. We got our quote back at $450 for a single 2040mm high x 720mm wide CSD - just want to compare to the ones you guys selected? Thanks for your help! Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 215May 16, 2018 11:51 pm Hi Zen, good to hear that you got the tender back and hope the sticker shock was not too bad. We raised the ground floor ceiling height to 2750mm from the promotion (value as per promotion $3,999) and also "raised head height to ground floor windows and sliding/stacker doors" to 2400mm also from the promotion (value as per promotion $1,999). So that covers all windows and alfresco doors on the ground floor. As an addition we increased the garage door height to 2400mm in lieu of standard which cost $450. Hope this makes sense, happy to try to clarify further if it doesn't. We put in a few CSD's, the one for the main bathroom entry (2040mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of opening was $450. I'm gathering this was more expensive as there was no door there originally. CSD to laundry (2340mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of hinged door was $200. CSD to ensuite (2040mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of hinged door was $200. Sorry, when I wrote $350 I think I looked at the price for something else. Where are you planning to put the door? Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 216May 17, 2018 12:01 am Quick question for you Seren1ty, when you had your floorboards laid did the edges go under the skirting boards so its just floorboards and skirting boards or did they need to put wood at the base of the skirting board on top of the floorboards where they meet? I'm sorry if this makes no sense at all, I tried to look at your flooring photo but now can't seem to find them on the thread. Wish I knew some more building jargon sometimes! Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 217May 17, 2018 8:41 am kjane Quick question for you Seren1ty, when you had your floorboards laid did the edges go under the skirting boards so its just floorboards and skirting boards or did they need to put wood at the base of the skirting board on top of the floorboards where they meet? I'm sorry if this makes no sense at all, I tried to look at your flooring photo but now can't seem to find them on the thread. Wish I knew some more building jargon sometimes! My 2 cents and I am not Seren1ty or expert - If the flooring is done by builder then he will ensure that skirting is fixed after the flooring is done. Often they 'tack' the skirting so it can be effortlessly removed while flooring is installed. Then the skirting is firmly nailed in. Where installing skirting after floor lay is not possible then 'scotia' is used along the join. If you choose to install Luxury Vinyl Planks, then those are cut to the edge, so scotia or installing skirting after flooring is not required. Trim is installed where 2 types of floorings (say carpet and timber) meet. Trim is also used in places where there is difference in adjoining floor heights. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 219May 17, 2018 11:33 am kjane Hi Zen, good to hear that you got the tender back and hope the sticker shock was not too bad. We raised the ground floor ceiling height to 2750mm from the promotion (value as per promotion $3,999) and also "raised head height to ground floor windows and sliding/stacker doors" to 2400mm also from the promotion (value as per promotion $1,999). So that covers all windows and alfresco doors on the ground floor. As an addition we increased the garage door height to 2400mm in lieu of standard which cost $450. Hope this makes sense, happy to try to clarify further if it doesn't. We put in a few CSD's, the one for the main bathroom entry (2040mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of opening was $450. I'm gathering this was more expensive as there was no door there originally. CSD to laundry (2340mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of hinged door was $200. CSD to ensuite (2040mm high x 820mm wide) in lieu of hinged door was $200. Sorry, when I wrote $350 I think I looked at the price for something else. Where are you planning to put the door? Thanks so much, kjane! Exactly the wording I was after. Our deadline for tender acceptance is tomorrow so I've sent the updates back. Our additional requests have added an extra ~$40k to the original tender a week ago and that's before internal selections.... ouch! My husband and I are debating on what stays in or goes out, let's see who wins... We added 2 new CSDs, one between WIR and parents retreat (we modified the original Sienna floorplan so the WIR is between the master bed and the retreat) - that one is 450 and the other CSD is in the ground floor rumpus, slightly wider so that came back at $490. Makes sense these are more expensive since they are new doors, thanks for helping us muddle through this! Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 220May 17, 2018 11:45 am No worries It's hard to pull it back, we ended up needing to drop about 20K to get it to a not so eye watering amount. I had to try to control my husband more so than me, he was like Oprah at the internal selections "upgrades for everyone!!!" Before I call the council hoping you might know the answer (and save me being on hold on an international call for an hour!). I was reading in the paper today that Ryde council is stopping the processing of development applications https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developers-hit-back-against-state-government-housing-pause-20180516-p4zfpk.html . Do you know if that applies to knock down rebuilds/single homes or is it just for large scale developments? Really hoping it doesn't apply to us... I have a really long hallway which is 1100mm W x 11500mm L I would appreciate if anyone can give suggestions to light it up with Linear LED lights that goes from wall to… 0 9336 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 109708 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! 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