The story so far....

15 February 2008

We are a family of 4 and this is our House building story so far....

We moved to Sydney from London in October 2006. We owned a stereotypical 3 bedroom home in Brentford, West London and always dreamed of owning something bigger and better. We thought that we would be able to find something easily in Sydney, but after some searching and many wasted Saturdays we soon began to realize this may not be the case. Having a big house with a big garden meant big money.

We viewed one property in a good location on a good size sloping block but the house was in poor condition. It was the real estate agent that suggested to us the possibility of knocking down and rebuilding. He gave us a ball park figure for how much it would cost and to our surprise it was not as much as we thought.

This is when the first of many visits to Homeworld in Kellyville began. With the property details in hand we began to look for a house we liked. We soon found that not many builders are keen to build on a sloping block. We also found that the steeper the slope the more money has to be spent on sight costs. This made us realize that this particular property was not as straight forward as we’d hoped for re-building.

After the idea being put in our heads and the type of home that could be built, we were still keen to build our dream home. So our search continued but became more focused on block size and location, without being too worried about what the existing home was like. Finally we found an old 2 bedroom house on a 775 sqm block of land in West Ryde. Once we saw the backyard, we new that this would be perfect to build on. We put in an offer which was accepted and so we began to search for a house to fit the block. It’s a slightly narrow but long block 12.7m x 61m long which reduced those options available to us. Fortunately there are many builders which have designs specifically for narrow blocks so we still had a few too choose from.

The first builder we choose was AVJennings, as we liked the layout and finishes of the ‘Axis’ design. We arranged for a site estimate which covers site cost, BASIX, provisional allowances & service connections. This was estimated to be approx $40,000. This was stretching our budget a little but thought it would still be worth it. We then paid $1000 deposit to have the engineering report done. After we had this done we chose to have a few variations inside the house like the addition of a downstairs shower. Nothing particularly drastic as AVJennings don’t like to make many changes from the original house design. We also went to select our colours and upgrades.

It was almost 2 months after this, due to various staff being off sick and poor communication, that we were given a revised cost of the house build. We had quite a shock when we found the site estimate had practically doubled in cost. This totally blew our budget and decided we could no longer proceed with AVJennings. We were very frustrated, as it had taken 4 months to get to this stage and it had all been a waste of time. We could not understand how the first estimate could be so far out. One of the reasons was we now had to have a storm water detention pit which before we were told we would not need due to the size of the block. The storm water detention pits are expensive (approx $25,000) to put in and seem like a complete waste of money. They are used to allow any over flow from your water tank to seep into the ground rather than run off the top causing silt to pollute the rivers. Our back yard is so big we cannot see how there would ever be any run off, but that’s another story.

So it was back to square 1 and trying to find another builder which was not only suitable but also affordable. At least this time we were a little wiser now as to what to expect. We ended up deciding to go with the ‘Kensington’ which is built by Allcastle homes. We had looked at this house when we first started looking but weren’t so keen on the layout. We spoke to the salesperson this time and she said that we could make as many changes as we liked. Each variation comes at a cost but if it meant we would get the house we really wanted then it would be worth it. This house is also bigger than the ‘Axis’ so we were happy to be getting more house for less money. We also asked about the possibility of having to put in a storm water pit. The sales person suggested running a storm water pipe to the back of the garden and any over flow would run into the TAFE’s storm water system which is at the rear of our block. She got an estimate for around $2ooo to do this, far cheaper than the $25000 to put in a storm water detention pit.

We had the first tender price given to us within a week, much quicker than AVJennings took. We accepted this and paid to have another survey done. Next we went for our colour selection and variations. After this we arranged for a Hydraulics engineer to compile a storm water report for us. We were given contact details by Allcastle for a couple of Hydraulics engineers. We decided not to use them though as they were adamant that we would have to put in a storm water detention pit, as Ryde council would insist on it. We phoned another Hydraulics engineer and he agreed with us that the pipe to the end of the garden was the best option. We had to get permission from the TAFE to allow us to use their storm water system. When we spoke to someone at the TAFE they verbally agreed this would be OK. Unfortunately getting someone to put this in writing was another matter. Due to the school holidays we did not get a decision until the beginning of February. After all that waiting, we were not given permission to use their storm water system. Unbelievable! So we still have to have a storm water detention pit. Our Hydraulics Engineer told us not to worry as we could probably put it in ourselves. He thinks the price builders are charging to put them in is extortionate. If we do the work ourselves we could do it for around the same cost as the original design.

Finally we had our plans ready and they were submitted to council on 14th February. Now it was just a matter of waiting and we were told it could take anything from 1 month to 6 months to get a decision.