Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 2Sep 04, 2010 11:55 am _______________________________________________________________ We're a knockdown | rebuild ~ Melb SE burbs Building modified version of the Fairhaven Glenaire Homeone thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28429 _______________________________________________________________ Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 7Sep 29, 2010 10:58 pm Things are moving along for us this week. We have had the gas meter and electricity disconnected and we have signed up the Demolition Depot to knock down the original house. The only issue we have with the block so far is the power and phone lines to our neighbour. We have been nagging the power companies since the line does not meet current standards. We will continue nagging since the demo company said they cannot proceed and Fairhaven have added a provision for $6000 if everything has to be carried onto site. We had our tender meeting today which went really well, all over in 3 hours. Only a couple of mistakes on the plan, we made one or two very minor changes, went across the road for some lunch and came back to sign the final tender with the updated pricing. Andrew was very patient and carefully explained everything. If we can get the power line fixed and the $6000 cost removed, then we will have kept to our budget, just! They liked my electrical plan so much they are using it rather than redrawing it themselves, so it was worth spending some time working it out. Once we get the final drawings I'll post them here. It is very close to the standard plan, the main changes are to the kitchen bench (added another meter to be 3.6m long, not sure that is long enough), some sliding doors and we moved the study door into the dinning area. So far its going well with Fairhaven. Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 8Sep 29, 2010 11:31 pm Hi chatz, pleased to see things moving smoothly for you ~ hooray! chatz The only issue we have with the block so far is the power and phone lines to our neighbour. We have been nagging the power companies since the line does not meet current standards. We will continue nagging since the demo company said they cannot proceed and Fairhaven have added a provision for $6000 if everything has to be carried onto site. I'm glad the colour selections went so well for you ~ it is really hard to do! I think you've done really well. We are currently doing some flooring research (in the background) ~ as we are doing our flooring separately ~ and the choosing colours thing is starting all over again!! Good work chatz! ~ cheers, J _______________________________________________________________ We're a knockdown | rebuild ~ Melb SE burbs Building modified version of the Fairhaven Glenaire Homeone thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28429 _______________________________________________________________ Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 9Sep 30, 2010 10:50 pm chatz Once we get the final drawings I'll post them here. It is very close to the standard plan, the main changes are to the kitchen bench (added another meter to be 3.6m long, not sure that is long enough), some sliding doors and we moved the study door into the dining area. Our bench is roughly 3.8mtrs long and it fits in perfectly! If you want a job done properly... Do it yourself! Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 10Oct 01, 2010 12:23 pm Hi Chatz, we also did a knock down/re build. We also had low power and phone lines to contend with. Our builder's OH&S manager reviewed the issue with power and telcos. Fortunately it was resolved by removing one low hanging (obsolete) telco line. The power company decided that we had just sufficient clearance to avoid having to move the lines. The important thing is your issue is not uncommon. The telcos and power company know exactly what needs to be done to correct the problem. They should be able to take action in a short period of time. Best wishes. Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 11Nov 28, 2010 10:48 am Here is a long overdue update.
Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Chatz Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 12Nov 28, 2010 6:02 pm Hey chatz ~ congratulations on your progress so far! Well done on getting through all those milestones. Gee, that demo machine looks v e r y familiar to me! That "shed" of yours looks supercute (ok, small too! ) and how lucky you are to be so close to family while you're going through the build. Will you be able to have your tender meeting before Christmas ~ how does your timing go from here? Keep us posted... _______________________________________________________________ We're a knockdown | rebuild ~ Melb SE burbs Building modified version of the Fairhaven Glenaire Homeone thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28429 _______________________________________________________________ Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 13Nov 29, 2010 8:08 am Hi Vanilla tree, We have been following your saga, our dramas with power lines pale in comparison. If they are going to dig 8m down you ask them to put in a basement! Sounds like Fairhaven are trying to do the right thing, lets hope the rest of your build goes smoothly. We should find out this week if we will get to contract before Christmas, everything hinges around that second soil test. Chatz Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 14Dec 11, 2010 2:28 pm Disappointing news yesterday with confirmation that work onsite is unlikely to start until February. So after excessive nagging to get the power line issue resolved, paying an electrician ($2K) to do it a month before the power company would (for free) etc, hassling the demo company etc, we still end up too close to the xmas break and nothing material is likely to happen for 2 months. Between now and then we get to sign contracts but it doesn't feel like progress until they are doing work on the house. In hindsight we should have had the power line moved underground for our neighbour to avoid the builder's spotters fee since at 4.6m its still too low for some of their equipment. The extra delay in doing this would have made little or no difference to the overall build. Chatz Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 15Jan 14, 2011 5:41 pm This week Fairhaven have got back to us with the engineering report. Disappointing news on several fronts: - the survey that was provided to the engineers had two mistakes; the big tree was still on the plan (but has been removed) and they located the pool only 1.5m from the house when it will be more than 3. Both were know to Fairhaven. - the engineers finished their report on Dec 10 but Fairhaven were not able to get their pricing to us until this week - the report requires a p class slab (which we insisted on provisioning for) but half of it needs to suspended (which we made no provisions for) - the report requires tree root barriers around nearly 90% of the slab even though we removed all plants from the block As it stands this pushes us way over budget to the point that we have started looking again at smaller house plans to try to get the costs under control. We have invested many months in Fairhaven which we would have to repeat elsewhere but we may not have a choice. At Fairhaven's suggestion we are engaging an arborist (at our cost) to do a survey the relatively small neighboring trees to get remove the need for hopefully most of the root barriers. Effectively making up for what appears to have been a poor survey and paranoid engineers. Fairhaven seemed confident that this would save money overall. We just wish they had told us before Christmas, we could have organized this last week. Two to choose from 16Feb 16, 2011 10:39 pm We are rapidly approaching having to make a really tough decision. We hired an arborist who found that no tree roots would affect the slab; a far cry from putting root barriers around nearly the whole house. We are still waiting for the updated engineers report, and then new costings, more than 2 months after the original engineers report was made. With our budget well and truly blown with the upgraded slab and root barriers, we went back to Henley to have another look at the Talise Q2 as a fall back. Right now Henley are advertising heavily that they have cut their base price. In reality the price had increased $10,000 to get a similar set of upgrades that used to be standard. So that was frustrating since we had claimed back the $1000 deposit. If we had left that there, the original price would have been valid for 6 months. The reason we didn't select the Talise in the first place was it is not on display anywhere, and that is still the case. Regardless we have decided to get to Tender with Henley and see how the two stack up. After selections it seems we don't have to skimp on the flooring or a fireplace and we will still come in well under the Barwon before the slab upgrades. Henley have not been real quick either, it seems things suddenly happen immediately after I call. That said I had a very constructive talk to them today about putting in a pool just prior to the slab, so that was encouraging. The next few weeks will be interesting as we try to decide which house to go with. The Barwon has a better kitchen and laundry, the Talise better zones and fittings, the Barwon has.... Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 17Mar 09, 2011 5:20 pm Hey Chatz, Just been following whats been happening and it sounds like such a rollercoaster. Thought I would add my 2 cents since DH and I are building the Talise Q2 we signed the contract yesterday and construction should start in 5 weeks (apparently). If I were you, I wouldnt be too worried about having to make a choice on Talise.... you may think I am biased BUT I too had the same issues with not seeing a display, but after looking at hundreds of displays I realised I could imagine the flow of the home in my head without walking through it. I found that the Talise really had everything I was looking for - excellent open plan living, LARGE kitchen with separate butlers pantry, MASSIVE wardrobe, theatre room (which was converted from the living room in original plan), large study/home office and great alfresco too. Anyway, if you wanted to ask any q's about the talise, I'd be more than happy to help. We shopped around with so many builders before signing and found that we got so much more bang for our buck with henley so decided to go with them. Good luck! Trudy Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 18Mar 09, 2011 7:58 pm Hi Trudy, Congratulations on getting your contract signed. I look forward to following your thread if you have one. I agree that after so many display homes we should be able to picture every room and detail. We have our tender meeting Friday. At last we will know what it's going to cost and can compare the two options. We are still torn but we need to make a decision if we are going to have a new house by Christmas. Chatz Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 19Mar 29, 2011 11:51 am Hey Chatz, How did you tender appointment go? We are still waiting for site start as there have been a hold up with he bank ... surprise surprise. We are really hoping that we will be in by Christmas.... did they give you any type of timeline at your tender appointment? Can't wait till the build starts.... everything has been dragging along! Trudy Re: Knockdown and building Fairhaven's Barwon 352 20Mar 29, 2011 8:51 pm Trudy, I'll have to start a new thread! We signed the contract with Henley yesterday, submitted everything to the bank etc. Henley are now applying for permits. Chatz multiple occ properties are always billed by trades at a premium, rarely per sqm for the lot. You either have trades you know whoe will do by sqm or youre going to get… 1 2703 if the original house is in good condition most of what you listed could be added in stages without the need for KDR and costs and disruption of having to live elsewhere… 1 14055 We are looking to do a KDR with fairhaven homes, Have seen plenty of good reviews about them pre construction and plenty of negative reviews about them during contruction… 0 18293 |