Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 223May 17, 2018 2:04 pm We haven't heard anything from HH for a couple of weeks, last update we had was that it was going to the engineer for hydraulics for stormwater (I'll for sure keep you posted on that one). They notified us that we got our BASIX certificate though which is good. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 224May 17, 2018 2:46 pm Is that where you paid $10k for them to draw up the hydraulics plan? Yes, I'll be very interested to hear how your stormwater plans are - I don't think they will need your full provisional allowance if you can drain into the natural waterway behind your house. We have $25K PA for stormwater on our build...fingers crossed they won't need the full $25K - we found out the previous owner of our house connected up to the stormwater pipe on our property (we're fortunate our neighbour has lived in his property for 50 years and knows a lot of history and came over to tell us). What solar requirements did you end up needing to get the BASIX certificate? Did you have to budget for that too? We are getting so antsy with how all the costs keep adding up. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 225May 17, 2018 2:56 pm I am thinking of including solar panels as part of our build with Hall & Hart. Does anyone have any experience of having solar panels i.e is it worth it? Do you think it is better to get a third party to install it after the build? I was given the following rough estimates for solar panels 1.68 KW $3885 2.24 KW $4000 11.8 KW $22000 - without battery $38000 - with Battery Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 226May 17, 2018 3:00 pm kjane 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... What I read is major developments that add additional capacity to the area. I doubt your KDR is impacted., beside you probably will go CDC which bypasses council anyway. I wouldn't worry. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 228May 17, 2018 3:40 pm tand, sorry I'm no help with solar. In the future we aim to get a system with battery but hope as the technology improves that battery storage capacity increases and costs don't increase too much. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 229May 17, 2018 3:46 pm Zen Is that where you paid $10k for them to draw up the hydraulics plan? Yes, I'll be very interested to hear how your stormwater plans are - I don't think they will need your full provisional allowance if you can drain into the natural waterway behind your house. We have $25K PA for stormwater on our build...fingers crossed they won't need the full $25K - we found out the previous owner of our house connected up to the stormwater pipe on our property (we're fortunate our neighbour has lived in his property for 50 years and knows a lot of history and came over to tell us). What solar requirements did you end up needing to get the BASIX certificate? Did you have to budget for that too? We are getting so antsy with how all the costs keep adding up. To get the certificate we ended up getting the 1.68kW solar photovoltaic system which added 3K to the build, but it wouldn't matter who we were building with we would have needed to get the certificate and would have had those costs. How do HH site costs compare to the other tender (I'm gathering you have that by now)? I hope you are right about the stormwater I'm sweating on that cost... Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 230May 17, 2018 3:49 pm tand I am thinking of including solar panels as part of our build with Hall & Hart. Does anyone have any experience of having solar panels i.e is it worth it? Do you think it is better to get a third party to install it after the build? I was given the following rough estimates for solar panels 1.68 KW $3885 2.24 KW $4000 11.8 KW $22000 - without battery $38000 - with Battery Start talking to solar installers on the side. The rates quoted above are high. There is no one size fits all for solar - quite a lot depends upon your house (single or double), direction orientation for sunlight, feed-in tariffs in your area, your family size and hence don't lock in yourself early on. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 231May 17, 2018 3:59 pm kjane Zen Is that where you paid $10k for them to draw up the hydraulics plan? Yes, I'll be very interested to hear how your stormwater plans are - I don't think they will need your full provisional allowance if you can drain into the natural waterway behind your house. We have $25K PA for stormwater on our build...fingers crossed they won't need the full $25K - we found out the previous owner of our house connected up to the stormwater pipe on our property (we're fortunate our neighbour has lived in his property for 50 years and knows a lot of history and came over to tell us). What solar requirements did you end up needing to get the BASIX certificate? Did you have to budget for that too? We are getting so antsy with how all the costs keep adding up. To get the certificate we ended up getting the 1.68kW solar photovoltaic system which added 3K to the build, but it wouldn't matter who we were building with we would have needed to get the certificate and would have had those costs. How do HH site costs compare to the other tender (I'm gathering you have that by now)? I hope you are right about the stormwater I'm sweating on that cost... The 3k for solar to get the certificate sounds reasonable. Had a giggle when you said your husband did an Oprah - upgrades for everyone! That sounds like it will be me I literally just got off the phone with the other builder. They are raising issues about flood controls adding complexity and costs to the build. When I queried why they couldn't do a cut and fill (which is what HH is proposing), they said there's no way HH will be able to get their current plans through council and they will probably hit us with extra costs later. Sure enough, I checked HH tender and it says if there are additional costs due to flood controls, it will be added later to the tender. Going back to HH now to get more clarity... still no firm numbers from other builder yet, just a lot of fear and uncertainty. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 232May 17, 2018 5:24 pm Zen kjane Zen Is that where you paid $10k for them to draw up the hydraulics plan? Yes, I'll be very interested to hear how your stormwater plans are - I don't think they will need your full provisional allowance if you can drain into the natural waterway behind your house. We have $25K PA for stormwater on our build...fingers crossed they won't need the full $25K - we found out the previous owner of our house connected up to the stormwater pipe on our property (we're fortunate our neighbour has lived in his property for 50 years and knows a lot of history and came over to tell us). What solar requirements did you end up needing to get the BASIX certificate? Did you have to budget for that too? We are getting so antsy with how all the costs keep adding up. To get the certificate we ended up getting the 1.68kW solar photovoltaic system which added 3K to the build, but it wouldn't matter who we were building with we would have needed to get the certificate and would have had those costs. How do HH site costs compare to the other tender (I'm gathering you have that by now)? I hope you are right about the stormwater I'm sweating on that cost... The 3k for solar to get the certificate sounds reasonable. Had a giggle when you said your husband did an Oprah - upgrades for everyone! That sounds like it will be me I literally just got off the phone with the other builder. They are raising issues about flood controls adding complexity and costs to the build. When I queried why they couldn't do a cut and fill (which is what HH is proposing), they said there's no way HH will be able to get their current plans through council and they will probably hit us with extra costs later. Sure enough, I checked HH tender and it says if there are additional costs due to flood controls, it will be added later to the tender. Going back to HH now to get more clarity... still no firm numbers from other builder yet, just a lot of fear and uncertainty. That doesn't sound great. I have just had a quick look at my tender to see if it says something like that. Where in the tender does it say it? Is your block particularly tricky or in a flood zone? Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 233May 17, 2018 5:47 pm Our section 149 certificate says our land is subject to possible flood controls, the council wording is quite vague. We've never had any flooding issues before and when we saw the council engineer last week, she showed us the flood control map and didn't raise any concerns. In our HH tender, there's a Flood Requirements section under the 'Authority Conditions' - if there is no mention in your s149 then I'm sure you're fine and there was no need to call it out in your tender. The other builder got back to us...the costs are much higher, they have obviously gone the more conservative route with their estimates. Have a lot to talk about with my husband tonight! Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 234May 17, 2018 5:55 pm No sleep for you guys tonight. We don't have that in our tender, under authority conditions we have Ryde area loading, CDC Building Requirements, arborist and authority building requirments which includes $12,375 for drop edge beam to retain fill. I've heard our neighbourhood can be a tough one to build in due to council regulation but never realised it could add so much to a build. Hope the discussions go well tonight. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 237May 18, 2018 4:24 pm IamSAM tand I am thinking of including solar panels as part of our build with Hall & Hart. Does anyone have any experience of having solar panels i.e is it worth it? Do you think it is better to get a third party to install it after the build? I was given the following rough estimates for solar panels 1.68 KW $3885 2.24 KW $4000 11.8 KW $22000 - without battery $38000 - with Battery Start talking to solar installers on the side. The rates quoted above are high. There is no one size fits all for solar - quite a lot depends upon your house (single or double), direction orientation for sunlight, feed-in tariffs in your area, your family size and hence don't lock in yourself early on. Hi IamSAM, Thanks for the tip. I will hold off on the solar installation unless I am force to install it for BASIX. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 239May 18, 2018 8:43 pm tand IamSAM tand I am thinking of including solar panels as part of our build with Hall & Hart. Does anyone have any experience of having solar panels i.e is it worth it? Do you think it is better to get a third party to install it after the build? I was given the following rough estimates for solar panels 1.68 KW $3885 2.24 KW $4000 11.8 KW $22000 - without battery $38000 - with Battery Start talking to solar installers on the side. The rates quoted above are high. There is no one size fits all for solar - quite a lot depends upon your house (single or double), direction orientation for sunlight, feed-in tariffs in your area, your family size and hence don't lock in yourself early on. Hi IamSAM, Thanks for the tip. I will hold off on the solar installation unless I am force to install it for BASIX. Yeah solar is getting better, but unless you're using lots of power between 10am and 2pm, you won't be getting the most from your panels. Adding a battery adds a lot of cost that will take longer then the warranty period to pay off, so again depends if you are using it to it's maximum every day. Shopping around is a good choice. Even issues like shading or dirt on the panels will reduce all of the panels output to the same as the effected panel, unless they each have their own inverter, which adds more cost again. Definitely an issue that should be researched by each house hold individually. Re: Building with Hall & Hart Homes 240May 19, 2018 1:29 am Seren1ty Hey Zen, as kjane said, our CSDs were more when there was no door there originally, and less when it was just an upgrade to an existing swinging door. Glad to hear you're almost ready to send your tender selections back, well done for getting through it all! In response to your very good flooring question kjane, you should check with H&H what they are including as standard. We did have to pay an extra 1k to have the floor boards go under the skirting. This was due to extra trips and work required by tradesmen. We are very happy with the result though so it was worth it to us. Best to check with them if you're unsure. Thanks a bunch, I'll check with them. 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 8822 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74717 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 105609 |