Tuesday 17 July 2012

Who will build our house? – May 2012


So finally all paperwork is done and we are ready to get this thing built but who will build it? Also it appears our long ago holiday we had booked (to Bali) had just about arrived (along with my birthday party) and it goes from famine to flood.
Trevor tendered the job out of five builders, two of whom we had met (and Trevor had used before), one on a recommendation from someone I work with and two others. We had a stressful 2.5 weeks waiting for the tenders to come back and then the range was amazing from (gst incl) $378k to $600k. Of course we wanted to go with Mr 378k but after viewing his work (or should I say his trades as he was apparently very rarely on site), and hearing some of the hassles, we decided it was not worth the risk. We knew we only had one shot at this and although the thought of saving $120k was very appealing, we just didn’t believe we would end up with a quality product.
The winner was Dean from Harrisons Building Services with an initial price of $520k. We still needed to get the price down a bit so a few changes were made including ditching the concrete slab and keeping our wonky walls; which bought the price down to $481K. Now we just had to hope that these changes did not affect the integrity of the building, but the structural engineer seemed happy so we have to faith that they know what they are talking about. The total amount of the renovation is being financed by Westpac as a draw down construction loan, they have lent us the money but I don’t want to go into any more detail due to something my Mum used to tell me “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

3 comments:

  1. Hello,
    Saw a link to your blog from the homeone forums. We're doing a reno on a terrace in Annandale, and would love to hear any recommendations for builders, engineers, certifiers etc!
    Cheers, Jasmine
    207young.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi Jasmine,
    Love your blog, had lots of fun reading it - you have great taste.

    So far we are extremely happy with our builder and would not hesitate to recommend him - Dean Harrison from Harrisons Building Services 0414 432 805 (email: info@harrisonsbuildingservices.com.au)

    Other services used Structural and Hydraulic Engineer services from Serroa Smith - was a bit slow getting some of the reports in the initial stages but they seem thorough.
    Darren from D.M.Ball & Associates is our Principal Certifying Authority - we wanted to go with someone old school that really checks that everything is done right.
    Aargus - asbestos report, total waste of money - $500 to be told we had asbestos. On the plus side most companies wanted $2000 for that useless piece of information - we all know what asbestos looks like.
    Looking forward to seeing updates on your blog of progress.
    Ms J

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  3. Great, thanks! Looking forward to seeing your progress as well!

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