Anyone building their house???

[Tamz]

hiya

we are building atm and i was wondering if anyone has built their home or is building and has some tips.

our plans are at the council getting approved. i found out they were waiting for a deposit from the builder which was never sent to them!!! thats made it 2-3weeks behind.

so many delays and we havent even got the slab down yet.

any tips or suggestions on things will be appreciated

Thanks girls

Tamz

[Vespera]

We havent built our own house but we do build houses so I know that building your own would be A LOT more stressful.

Best advice I can give is stay on top off them. Call them every week, who cares if they think you are annoying - they are more likely to get things done so they dont have to talk to you anymore!

If you didnt get one to start with make an appointment and go in and ask for a timeline of what they are doing and when so you know what stage you are up to.

Oh and make sure you do regular inspections (once things start happening) and DONT sign off on your progress payments til anything wrong was fixed otherwise they will put off fixing them.

Any questions just PM me

[Notchalk]

We built our first home, and moved in almost 2 years ago.

What exactly do you want to know?

Mostly I'd say put LOTS of powerpoints in, and make them all doubles.
2-3 weeks delay is NOTHING I'm sorry - we signed up for our block one Feb and slab went down a YEAR later. Took that amount of time for title on the property, prestart, etc.

Where are you building? Things might be different where you are, but here in Perth you have to put in soak wells as there is no storm water from houses. My advice is to NOT do it yourself... get it done professionally.

Keep on top of things at the house as it is getting built, if you see a mistake, the earlier you tell them about it, the quicker it will get fixed. Email your site supervisor often for updates if you can't go and look a few times a week. We would go up to ours (30 min walk) every night

It's a very exciting time, so take lots of photos.

Good luck!

Jo

[aardvark]

Mostly I'd say put LOTS of powerpoints in, and make them all doubles.

Keep on top of things at the house as it is getting built, if you see a mistake, the earlier you tell them about it, the quicker it will get fixed.

Powerpoints - where the computer will go, get HEAPS. We have 8 behind the desk, and DH still has stuff running off a powerboard.

Keeping on top of things? I recommend a sharp implement to attack the supervisor, or at least threaten! We are extending, and I can't find one nice thing to say about the supervisor. He's a moron, and has dragged the process out by weeks. They now look like they will be demolishing my study about the time I have exams. And it has taken 12 weeks to get something I noticed in week 1 fixed. They tried to put the sub-floor access where the back steps are supposed to be, and it had to be relocated. Not a happy camper.

[sugar n spice]

We are currently building and things are going pretty good though we had to call them yesterday as the roof hasnt gone on making it two wks with nothing done . I mean yes the weather is bad so that is why but right the first wk no roof on as they have that break while next progress payment is made which our bank did the same day i gave and recieved the paper work, second week it was raining i understand that but now this wk which is the third there have been sunny days and at the very least sunny mornings even if they only worked half a day it should have been done by now. I dont expect them up on the roof when its wet but hey no exuse when you have a perfectly fine morning . Other than that everything before hand went up quick the whole house was bricked in a wk. We are building in albany where are u building?

[elissas]

Get it all in writing. Do all your communication via email or letter. And if you do happen to make a phone call, keep good notes (date, time, person, what they said). And if they tell you something ask them to send you an email, or letter on company letterhead, confirming the details.

The other recommendation is that, if it is possible for you, don't get a house and land deal. Instead, buy the land, and then do the building separately. It does mean you have to make progress payments and it can get expensive (especially as the mortgage repayments increase while you're still renting, ouch ), but it gives you a lot more leverage. I think builders perceive you differently if you do it that way (they think you have more money or something). But it also meant that if they finished a stage and we weren't happy with something, we could threaten to withhold payment till it was rectified.

Also, if you're not happy with something, discuss it with your bank manager. They have a vested interested in this, and can maybe offer advice on how to handle it.

[Tamz]

thanks heaps for your replies

we are building in Maida Vale/Forrestfield, its about 25/30mins from perth but semi rural.

we have left our powerpoints as singles coz we have a friend whos a leckie and hes gonna do them as quads for us. it dropped about 1500 from prestart getting him to do it!!!!!!!!

one thing that p*ssd me off is that they told us the site costs would be 6500 and then at pre start told us that it would actually be 15600!!!!!!!! my mate is building in the same estate, about 5house up and hers was only 9k and i met our next door neighbours neighbours and their sitecosts were 11k??!!! so whats with that.

my dads next door neighbour, the company he works for is doing alot of work down at the estate and he said its clay but there is sand aswell and 15k is too much to be charging (unfortunatly my dad spoke to him after prestart, before prestart we could have nominated him to do our site works)

because of this blowout of over 9k, we had to get a bigger loan, wont be getting our air con for a long time. on sat im gonna see if i can put klikboards on layby so i have them paid off before we move in..

i have been taking photos

very exciting

Tamz

[SammyD]

Hi Tamz

It is really exciting, but really stressful, too! We finished building for the first time about 18 months ago, and you do learn a lot!

My advice (much like everyone else):

1. expect delays. Ours was being built in the middle of a building boom and took 18 months from when the plans were first submitted to council until handover.
2. don't be afraid to have a hissy fit at your supervisor and his supervisor! I found that was the only way to ever get anything done. You might catch more flies with honey than vinegar but builders seem to like vinegar!
3. keep a close eye on things and make sure everything is what you asked for
4. You can never have too much drainage! You must be building on a slopey block to have such high site costs. We did. A few days after we moved in we had 8inches of rain overnight & nearly got flooded! Scary stuff but good because we found out how much water we needed to deal with. We have drainage everywhere in our yard but the best drainage I have ever seen
5. Landscaping is a pain in the a*** and a really big job. Bobcats are your best friend if you don't want to live in a moonscape for the rest of your life!

Have fun

[Skyelee]

Are you choosing your own fit outs (eg tapwear, kitchen sink, toilets etc)? If so I would recommend geting a copy if you haven't one already of your plans with these things sketched in. I work for a kitchen and bathroom retailer and so many peole come in without the slightest idea of what they can fit into these rooms. A lot of the new style taps etc have to be fitted before plastering etc, so get as much info as you can of what you choose, so when it comes time for the plumbing to be done, your plumber knows exactly what is going in and make sure they know how to fit it!!
We have tons of plumbers ring us up cos they don't know how to fit the newer style products on the market. Good luck - it's a big job