Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Quality of Package Homes 2May 22, 2018 5:57 pm Its depends on builder, speak to their tradesman and local suppliers, I use to discount builders whom placed outside stud walls 600mm apart, has in my experience better builders used, 450 mm stud wall gaps, as its something no body sees, but was important to me, I picked builder tradesman on whats under the wall and their attention to detail, I questioned and found out who cared about quality by learning about the building industry, the more you learn, the better, knowledge is power to a better build. Quality of Package Homes 3May 23, 2018 12:27 pm It’s mostly a function of cost. Mass builders have smaller margins (cheaper) so they cut corners to save time and money on things you don’t see. Waffle slabs, chipboard wall bracing, minimum frames, cheap 1st floor joists, paper square set cornice, starting interior fixing with just wall wrap, even cheap scaffolding that requires holes to be punched through wall brace. The subbies they use are based on availability not quality so the overall quality can have a large variance. Their supervisors are usually building 15-20 houses at the same time and just don’t have the time to pay any attention. Custom luxury builders are a lot more expensive, the good ones do take care with the build, they are slower as they tend to stick to the same subcontractors, the good ones will use plywood wall brace, thick support grade frames for internal doors, engage structural engineers to design raft slabs or custom foundation, actually use surveyors that criticises their work, do the house in the correct order (i.e. lockup with mansory before fixing), posistrut joists, metal internal angle for square set cornices, scaffolding that doesn’t damage wall brace etc. Their supervisor are usually on 4-5 jobs tops and can spend a lot of time at each job. You get what you pay for basically (most of the time). Building your own, well unless you are in the industry, it’s going to be mega stress and you may find trouble finding sub contractors that will deal with one offs. You can engage a PM which may be a better way to go. Re: Quality of Package Homes 5May 23, 2018 7:22 pm The only thing I'd disagree with kirashogun about is the use of only cheap materials by the volume builders. I think it's by "production line" design/build that they save money; most of the cost of building a house is in labour, and I think it's in labour-costs where volume builders attempt to save most of their money. Our volume-builder house has metal square-set (non-)cornices & metal door-frames to match, for example. If it takes their plasterers less time to use metal than paper (didn't know there was such a thing!), then that makes metal cheaper for them. In answer to the original question ... few volume builders will be as bad as the worst private/custom builders. But no volume builder will be as good as the best private/custom builders. At the lowest end of the price-scale I think you're better off with a volume builder; at the top end you're better off with a custom. It also depends on what you're after vs how much money you can afford, we were quoted double for a custom builder to build our house, the only single extra thing we would've had was under-floor solar hydronic heating & that's a comfort thing ... but we're very comfy in our project build, the quality issues have mostly been purely cosmetic & if we'd spent the extra ~$600k on the house we'd have well-and-truly overcapitalised (if I take the long-term view) while being barely any more comfortable. Quality of Package Homes 6May 23, 2018 7:49 pm Volume builders will save every penny especially for things you don’t see. Nobody specifies posistrut floor joists as part of the spec or know what it even is. However that is not to say all volume builder’s house is crap. Some of the quality can be as good as custom but it’s just not consistent. That’s the key. If you are lucky you will get quality, if not you might get slab heave instead. Custom builder also allow wild designs and features that no volume builder will touch. Basement car parks, home lifts, curved walls, glass bricks, anything you can imagine. Again it all come down to budget. Quality wise. You will get between 50-95% quality for 2/3rd of the cost of custom with a volume builder where as you will get 85-100% quality for 40% more cost of a volume builder. My biggest concern at the moment is the extensive use of waffle slabs. A lot of volume builders don’t give you the choice of another slab design even if you are willing to pay. It’s waffle or too hard bucket, go somewhere else. Re: Quality of Package Homes 7May 23, 2018 8:15 pm Great posts from everyone. I have said this before "quality is a function of price" with a proviso that you can pay for quality and still get crap. No one has ever found a way to deliver Mercedes Benz quality at the price of Tata and that is universally true for all economy. What project builders have worked out is that building cost per sq metre diminishes with size and building volume even more so. So they packaged biggest bang for your buck and once reached serious volume then made a killing on market volume and market power. Foremost Building Expert in Australia,assisting with building problems/disputes, building stage inspections,pre-contract review advice for peace of mind 200 blogs http://www.buildingexpert.net.au/blog Re: Quality of Package Homes 9May 25, 2018 6:56 am Joker Its depends on builder, speak to their tradesman and local suppliers, I use to discount builders whom placed outside stud walls 600mm apart, has in my experience better builders used, 450 mm stud wall gaps, as its something no body sees, but was important to me, I picked builder tradesman on whats under the wall and their attention to detail, I questioned and found out who cared about quality by learning about the building industry, the more you learn, the better, knowledge is power to a better build. Does anyone knows if Rawson Homes uses 450 or 600mm stud walls? Thanks Re: Quality of Package Homes 12May 25, 2018 3:01 pm Steeden I couldn't work out for ages why the top one looked funny Re: Quality of Package Homes 14May 25, 2018 6:25 pm kirashogun Volume builders will save every penny especially for things you don’t see. Nobody specifies posistrut floor joists as part of the spec or know what it even is. However that is not to say all volume builder’s house is crap. Some of the quality can be as good as custom but it’s just not consistent. That’s the key. If you are lucky you will get quality, if not you might get slab heave instead. Custom builder also allow wild designs and features that no volume builder will touch. Basement car parks, home lifts, curved walls, glass bricks, anything you can imagine. Again it all come down to budget. Quality wise. You will get between 50-95% quality for 2/3rd of the cost of custom with a volume builder where as you will get 85-100% quality for 40% more cost of a volume builder. My biggest concern at the moment is the extensive use of waffle slabs. A lot of volume builders don’t give you the choice of another slab design even if you are willing to pay. It’s waffle or too hard bucket, go somewhere else. Using 450m centres, posi-strut, over-engineered/specified everything because why take a risk? I ended up using 412mm Posi's to run ductwork and because it's stronger too. My question is, what cheaper option to posi-strut is there? It never occurred to me there was one. Re: Quality of Package Homes 15May 25, 2018 7:11 pm JB1 kirashogun Volume builders will save every penny especially for things you don’t see. Nobody specifies posistrut floor joists as part of the spec or know what it even is. However that is not to say all volume builder’s house is crap. Some of the quality can be as good as custom but it’s just not consistent. That’s the key. If you are lucky you will get quality, if not you might get slab heave instead. Custom builder also allow wild designs and features that no volume builder will touch. Basement car parks, home lifts, curved walls, glass bricks, anything you can imagine. Again it all come down to budget. Quality wise. You will get between 50-95% quality for 2/3rd of the cost of custom with a volume builder where as you will get 85-100% quality for 40% more cost of a volume builder. My biggest concern at the moment is the extensive use of waffle slabs. A lot of volume builders don’t give you the choice of another slab design even if you are willing to pay. It’s waffle or too hard bucket, go somewhere else. Using 450m centres, posi-strut, over-engineered/specified everything because why take a risk? I ended up using 412mm Posi's to run ductwork and because it's stronger too. My question is, what cheaper option to posi-strut is there? It never occurred to me there was one. HY Joist is typically what project builders use. Pryda Longreach is the other one but they are dearer as it uses a lot more wood. Lots of other options. Re: Quality of Package Homes 17May 26, 2018 11:01 am I totally forgot about the hy-joist. Very impractical. I bet a lot of them have massive holes in them to run sewerage and air ducting. I only remembered the old style hardwood beams. I suppose everything is built to a price. Better to build a 10% smaller place but higher quality than spend the same amount on a larger but lower quality IMO. Re: Quality of Package Homes 18May 26, 2018 2:33 pm Steeden Not termite treated? This is in Victoria not NSW so environment and regulation is different. Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 76145 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 106804 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 24692 |