Knockdown Rebuild Adelaide

JordanB27 · Feb 24, 2022 3:08 pm

Hi all

I am new to this website but have been reading everyones comments and questions.

My partner and I are looking at doing a knockdown rebuild with fairmont homes. Just wondering if anyone has had any issues with them or their own review.
Is there anyone else you would recommend as a builder? is it better to go for a smaller builder or a larger known company? did you dinf any variances in price for the same house?

This is the custom design we are looking at
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Thanks everyone

arfshesaid · Feb 24, 2022 9:21 pm

Hi Jordan, I don't have any tales to tell about building with Fairmont, although I expect that on the whole big joints like Fairmont and very small builders will weather any looming catastrophes better than medium-size builders. Have you walked through their Angle Vale display homes? To be honest I wasn't impressed with the build quality on the whole (although I liked the Canterbury's WIR to take photos for my ideas folder!). For instance the sliding doors on the robe and ensuite in the Hayman were narrow and obtrusive. I felt like if I built with them triple-checking every detail still might not be enough.

Personally we are doing a custom build with a smaller but more expensive eco builder. Money is always the tradeoff but there are some good custom home builders around Adelaide - I am very impressed with what I have heard about Kookaburra. I also thought, having visited a bunch of display homes now, that Weeks had some really smart and airy designs at extremely persuasive prices, but I never sat down with one of their salespeople. They build with steel though and I hear that steel has gone way up.

Hopefully others here can help with Fairmont-specific advice. Let us know how you go!

JordanB27 · Feb 25, 2022 6:39 pm

Hi arfshesaid

Thank you for the reply. I have been to the angle vale homes and werent too impressed either. Not exactly the design or style I like, but I have been to the Seaford Heights display as I live closer south and was liking the rosemore style. I have sent a few emails to different builders, big and small and just waiting for replies. Statesman seems to have some more cheaper prices but i guess it all depends on whats included or missing as well as what the final price of a ready to move in home is.

Do you mind if I ask who you have built with?

Money is not too much of an issue, but obviously cheaper is better. The quote for this house was given at 280k, few different things included here and there but nothing to drastic. Ive noticed footings are at different prices from different companies, but do those prices stay the same or can they go up and down?

Again, thank you for replying.

Bender · Feb 25, 2022 8:54 pm

I cant speak for Fairmont Homes, but we’re currently building with a higher end ‘boutique’ (cough, cough) builder in Adelaide and despite all their talk of high quality trades, the best this and that, low volumes, blah blah blah I am deeply disappointed. That’s not to say they’re necessarily bad, they’re just not great or at the level I was led to believe they would. To be fair the house is still under construction, but much of what I am picking up as a non building person is simply not acceptable for the money we’re forking out and its not like I can see a high end material or building process used either. (A couple of inexcusable f&%k ups!! on a >$1M build)

So it got me wondering, do builders like Metricon have better quality up front. The reason I think they may is because they have a well established network of contractors that if they screw up will lose a major customer like Metricon and Metricon’s supervisor do nothing else but cruise from site to site (albeit many sites) to inspect work, versus being involved in estimates and talking crap to potential customers.

arfshesaid · Feb 25, 2022 9:18 pm

Hi Jordan, we knew we wanted to go eco/custom build if we could afford it so I haven't spent a lot of time talking to volume builders about price and have no good advice there, sorry, although I think you can expect $30k on top of base price for externals. We have decided to go with TS4 and all great so far in these very initial stages. Seeing consistent pricing of $2600-$2900/m2 for builders in this range. If we had opted for cheaper I definitely would have reached out to Kookaburra, seem like decent folk with good build quality and good basic inclusions.

It is really hard to compare across companies though and as Bender says even if you go boutique maybe you still don't get the results you expect. On the other hand there's a Fairmont site around the corner from us that had a slab waiting for framing since before Xmas; frame went up a week ago. Chippies obviously weren't provided a skip so there's just been a huge pile of offcuts at the front of the block for a week now. Even the expected efficiencies and benefits of scale that you are supposed to get with the majors don't happen. It's a hard decision. Personally I think it is worth it if affordable to get a true custom builder that will specifically design for your needs now, in the future, and the orientation of your block (if it is a house you are investing in for your future).

JordanB27 · Feb 26, 2022 6:16 pm

Thanks for the reply Bender and arfshesaid

I guess for now we just wait to hear back from the companies I've emailed and see what their quotes are and if they are competitive or all the same. I always had the idea of a bigger builder being cheaper as they have more customers so they get turnover more quickly and easily, whilst smaller or custom builders charge more as they have less sources to work with.

Also is it cheaper to build a floorplan a builder already has or to do a custom home?

Is there anything you can suggest in terms of ways to save money in the building process? My partner works for a carpet company so that is one aspect we are able to save money on, but more thinking anything else like interior or exterior features? Is it better/cheaper to hire someone private to do certain jobs like cabinet makers or someone to install timber lamitnate floors? Are there any jobs that a simple average joe like myself can do. As we will have to rent if we do a knockdown rebuild, it will be difficult to pay rent, the rest of our mortgage and for a build at the same time as well. I know construction loans are the way to go and the interest only option sounds great, but anyway to save would be great.

arfshesaid · Feb 28, 2022 9:10 pm

Hi Jordan, sorry for delayed reply. Hopefully you have had some useful quotes and information from the builders you contacted.

If the first priority for you with the build is money, ie get a nice, livable house as cheaply as possible, then you will for sure be wanting to find a floorplan you like with a builder like Fairmont and talk to their sales team. Thousands of perfectly fine houses are built like this every year (although these boards are a scary testament to how quickly things can go wrong). Of course it generally true that you get what you pay for. Volume builders can still make a profit on a cheap house not just by sheer number of builds but by using cheaper materials and subcontractors, limiting your options, separating sales and build, and distributing the cost of design across hundreds of builds (to name just a few). You can really penny pinch by doing jobs after the fact but tbh I'd rather just move in. Let the professionals do it at the right time for it to be done. There are additional warranty and insurance considerations to doing work post-handover too.

If you're not thinking "as cheap as humanly possible" then you can obviously go for more expensive volume builders, get nicer inclusions, and so on.

If money is a factor but you are also thinking things like "I want to reduce my energy bills to nothing" or "this house will need to grow with my family for the next forty years" or "my block is difficult and I can't imagine how these floor plans can work with my width/slope/solar access" or "I need/want an unconventional thing" or "architectural design is really important to me" or "I want someone trustworthy and invested to hold my hand the whole way through" then I would start looking at proper custom builders and seeing what you can afford there.

Most volume builders will say that they can customise a design for free but significant changes to a design might impact eg engineering and build costs so you might need to pay extra for that? Unsure, never asked.

Just my view, others on the board may have a different one, poke around, and good luck!

JordanB27 · Feb 28, 2022 10:27 pm

Hi arfshesaid

No problem at all, appreciate the advice you have given so far, really settles me about a few different things. A couple of the bigger builders have gotten back to me and said that the quote fairmont gave for the custom home is close to what they would quote, so I dont see much point going with another build at this time.

We have added robes to each room, a bigger than standard ensuite and solar package as the main differences. I spoke to the builder who drew up the floorplan and did the quote and he ran through some answers to my questions. Do you suggest anything that is a non negotiable like 2.7 ceilings? stone benchtops? tiles or laminate flooring? something that you would regret or other people have told you to get if you didnt do it when the house was complete?

arfshesaid · Mar 01, 2022 3:21 pm

no worries mate, happy to share my thoughts such as they are.

Of what you mention the only one I would say is absolutely necessary is 2700 ceilings. Aside from improving the ~vibe of the house, a ceiling fan on 2400 might get uncomfortably close. Otherwise it all depends on your priorities and all the things you have or will have and you and your family's needs. If you have a big SUV you might need a higher garage door....if you have mobility concerns you might need a more textured floor surface but if you have kids spilling water everywhere, you might want to avoid timber laminate. Etc. Will you have a big backyard and need extra taps? Is your current TV huge and would need to be set on a wall that is far enough away from your couch? Do you /really need/ a butler's pantry or is that a fad? There is so much to think of!

Clicking around this thread might be overwhelming (and some of it's outdated now) but it's full of a lot of things people think are essentials that you might agree or disagree with to start building your own list of essentials: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5823&start=620

soletraveller · Apr 13, 2022 1:54 am

Hi,
We are going through the knockdown and rebuild with Fairmont. Just finished the finance approval process and waiting on them to start footings and so on.

Our house is roughly 375sqm all up (living 275 sqm + garage 58 sqm+ alfresco 54sqm + porch 5sqm) on a land of 720sqm. Our fixed price contract is 367K including 27K upgrades to kitchen, 2.5 bathrooms etc, however this price doesn't include floor coverings and concreting in Alfresco area which we have calculated to be roughly 33K.

Hope this helps......

Intripidlol · Apr 15, 2022 10:57 am

Bender

I cant speak for Fairmont Homes, but we’re currently building with a higher end ‘boutique’ (cough, cough) builder in Adelaide and despite all their talk of high quality trades, the best this and that, low volumes, blah blah blah I am deeply disappointed. That’s not to say they’re necessarily bad, they’re just not great or at the level I was led to believe they would. To be fair the house is still under construction, but much of what I am picking up as a non building person is simply not acceptable for the money we’re forking out and its not like I can see a high end material or building process used either. (A couple of inexcusable f&%k ups!! on a >$1M build)

So it got me wondering, do builders like Metricon have better quality up front. The reason I think they may is because they have a well established network of contractors that if they screw up will lose a major customer like Metricon and Metricon’s supervisor do nothing else but cruise from site to site (albeit many sites) to inspect work, versus being involved in estimates and talking crap to potential customers.

Can I ask which builder you've gone with?
We screened sooooooo many 'High end boutique' builders, and closely inspected their display homes, which are supposed to showcase their best work right? But for display homes being 800k plus pre pandemic we were finding so many issues - angles/lines not flush/straight - especially in cornices; wardrobe doors not perfectly flush etc.

I wasn't sure if I was being overly anal and particular, my partner seemed okay with some things, and not okay with others; and I'm a very OCD/anal person; but alot of these things we didn't expect in such a relatively expensive build.

We found that when going uber high end (I know sqm isn't a good metric but generally around 4k per sqm) they didn't actually have display homes; a few showed us through previous clients houses which didn't have those issues; whereas others were just like take our word for it. However, we also found that a select few of these high end builders had no idea about performance, it was just all aesthetic. Unfortunately that wasn't something we wanted, and in general most of those uber high end builders were out of our budget.

We actually ended up finding a builder that suited us after so much research, so I'm just wondering who you went with and what made you decide to go with them.

JordanB27 · Apr 15, 2022 6:24 pm

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all replies, it's good to see what everyone is doing. We have decided to go with Fairmont as we had liked their designs and everything seemed to lineup as to what we are wanting. Our quote has come in at 260k for 4 bed, 2 bath, 2 living, double garage House is 180m2, garage is 40m2, alfresco is 12m2 so all in all about 250m2 total house. We are looking at another 5k for selections (black tapware, fitted robes to all rooms), is there anything else you suggest to add at selections stage? We are getting our own flooring and carpet but have included ducted reverse cycle A/C in the quote as its only and extra 6k.

I have received a few quotes for the demolition and they are all around the 15k - 20k mark factoring in a few different things. Who has everyone else gone with for the knockdown and how did you go about getting council approval for demoltion and if you had to get a tree removed, how was that done?

We have been given a time frame of about 10 months from slab to complete build, is this a good estimate?

soletraveller · Oct 26, 2022 10:39 am

JordanB27

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all replies, it's good to see what everyone is doing. We have decided to go with Fairmont as we had liked their designs and everything seemed to lineup as to what we are wanting. Our quote has come in at 260k for 4 bed, 2 bath, 2 living, double garage House is 180m2, garage is 40m2, alfresco is 12m2 so all in all about 250m2 total house. We are looking at another 5k for selections (black tapware, fitted robes to all rooms), is there anything else you suggest to add at selections stage? We are getting our own flooring and carpet but have included ducted reverse cycle A/C in the quote as its only and extra 6k.

I have received a few quotes for the demolition and they are all around the 15k - 20k mark factoring in a few different things. Who has everyone else gone with for the knockdown and how did you go about getting council approval for demoltion and if you had to get a tree removed, how was that done?

We have been given a time frame of about 10 months from slab to complete build, is this a good estimate?

Hi,

Just wondering, if you are building with Fairmont or some other builder?

Thanks

JordanB27 · Oct 26, 2022 11:04 am

We are not going through with this but have sold our property and building new, worked out to be much cheaper for us.

soletraveller · Oct 26, 2022 11:06 am

JordanB27

We are not going through with this but have sold our property and building new, worked out to be much cheaper for us.

Thank you.

Which builder are you going with if I may ask? or are you building it yourself?

JordanB27 · Oct 26, 2022 11:30 am

soletraveller

JordanB27

We are not going through with this but have sold our property and building new, worked out to be much cheaper for us.

Thank you.

Which builder are you going with if I may ask? or are you building it yourself?

We are building with weeks homes, Wakefield floorplan with choice facade.

soletraveller · Oct 26, 2022 11:32 am

Thank you