New Home Build Tips and QAs

• 

  Gunther on 29/03/2021 - 00:51

  +3

  Pay trades based on delivery milestones or progress, not time on the job. Otherwise it's incentive for them to work slower.

  Yes put a contract in place.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 29/03/2021 - 08:14

    Would you know if there is a contract template anywhere as I couldn't find any? If I don't find anything I'll make one. Thanks!

• 

  Hybroid on 29/03/2021 - 01:36

  Haven't really given us much to work off. Are you a certified Electrician to do it yourself? Where did you get the house design plans? Is it building code approved? Do you have planning permission? So on…

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 29/03/2021 - 08:12

    Yea sorry bout that. Didn't really know what to mention. I had designed a draft plan and got an architect to draw to it the council specifications, tweaked a few stuff on the way, getting ideas and help from the builder. Pretty much a custom design. I'm a certified Electrician and the plans were approved a few months ago but there were still some problems that's why it took long to start.

• 

  Richardc on 29/03/2021 - 06:10

  +1

  Isn’t the builder organizing for you?

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 29/03/2021 - 08:13

    Yes, but because its a private builder, I can look for anyone cheaper and if I find someone cheaper, he will be happy to proceed with them as his normal brickies are unavailable at this time.

    • 

      Richardc on 29/03/2021 - 08:50

      But this might be headache if something goes wrong, usually builder know his guys quality of work.

• 

  87percent on 29/03/2021 - 08:21

  My tip is when you get install electrical outlets, get the ones that have a decent space between the 2. Nowadays, so many plugs have those huge plugs that they take 1.5 spots

  • 

    Richardc on 29/03/2021 - 08:50

    +4

    And make sure there's one next to the toilet.

    • 

      brokenglish on 29/03/2021 - 11:11

      For bidet?

      • 

        Richardc on 29/03/2021 - 11:56

        +1

        And phone charger.😂

• 

  Banana on 29/03/2021 - 08:51

  +1

  Draft up a contract and defined if there are any inclusions you have discussed with the builder, preferably with pictures of the actual items. Get a lawyer to look over it and be sure to put a term in for going over time so the builder wouldn't take their sweet damn time to hand over the keys.

  We went with a private builder too because we wanted to do some work ourselves, we got burned bad.

  • 

    TheBilly on 29/03/2021 - 16:03

    We got burned bad

    How so?

    • 

      Banana on 29/03/2021 - 16:06

      The story is in my post history - But we didn't draft anything up about the delay in project and the builder bullied us into overpaying and paying in advance, and blackmailing us about not giving us the keys. We paid extra without them completing the job just so we could get rid of them.

• 

  Headless on 29/03/2021 - 09:15

  Search MOU template on google

  • 

    Gunther on 29/03/2021 - 13:19

    Bad advice….

    "Generally, MOU's are non-legally binding agreements between multiple parties. "

    • 

      Headless on 30/03/2021 - 09:01

      Depends how its written

• 

  JIMB0 on 29/03/2021 - 09:17

  Wouldn't you need a contractors licence to do the electrical work?

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 29/03/2021 - 15:21

    I'm an electrical contractor.

• 

  slow on 29/03/2021 - 09:34

  +1

  Have you checked out https://forum.homeone.com.au/ ??

  I spent days reading everything on here before I built my house and learnt so much and as result saved a lot of potential heartache
  And there are lots people to answer questions

• 

  timthetoolman on 29/03/2021 - 11:59

  Surely as a sparky you'd know this information /would know a lot of trades you could get in?

• 

  StickMan on 29/03/2021 - 14:00

  +4

  Since you're doing custom build, here's a bunch of often overlooked things I see:

  1. GPOs, a lot of em. A bedroom should have minimum 4x GPO. Think about where a bed would be (a double on each side) and where a study desk may be. Kitchen bench should be 4x GPO in each single unit on the bench top.

  2. Since you're sparky, run some cat6A cables all over the house. At very minimum, a single connection to each room, and some coiled up in the ceiling. Run these from a good central point (more below) to everywhere. Ideally you have 2x cables to all bedrooms, 1x to each other 'room', 2x to each side of the house, and a couple more coiled up over the place. Remember, LAN is very versatile. With PoE you can run: cameras, doorbells, lights, etc.

  3. A good place for your NBN. If you are running the above cables at minimum, you're gonna have a whole bunch of wall ports terminating somewhere. You're gonna have modem/router, NBN box, etc… find a good spot for this.

  4. Make your front door wide. The base minimum is too narrow, spec up. Ensure you don't put some ridiculous pylon supporting a lil roof section out the front, blocking it off. Make sure you have a huge door available somewhere to bring in large furniture.

  5. Kitchen: ensure fridge alcove isn't too small. Ideally leave it open on one side for this exact reason. Put in a tap for the water/ice dispenser fridges. Make sure the layout of the kitchen makes good sense, and you're not running huge distances between the stove/sink.

  6. Lights. Modern trend is to move to slightly smaller downlights, but in majority of cases this is poorly implemented. Find the light model and check out the beam angle. Draw it out if you need to - a huge living area with sparsely spaced small downlights will mean the light beam at the floor level barely intersects. When you're walking around, at your eye height, you'll be walking in/out of a light beam. This will lead to a strobing effect, headaches, possible to be dizzy, etc. Really pay attention to lights - put in more than you think. The actual-small downlights really need to be placed quite densely, like 1m distance at most. Add in dimmers for bedrooms and other living areas. Warm-white is best for 'chilling', cool-white is best for 'working'.

  7. Garage. Add in a space for shelving, shoes, golf sticks, bikes. A default garage is too damn small for even 2x medium cars - can't have stuff around very much, and need to take care of doors etc. Increase this space if you have the means. Think about the orientation of the car, and if you can easy get out of driver and access boot, to get to the internal door.

  8. Driveway. Default is to skimp out on driveway and not have it double-wide to the kerb. Careful with decisions here - often it's worth it to make it wider so you can manoeuvre cars easily.

  9. Hallways. Default hallway width is way too narrow. You'll feel claustrophobic , and large furniture items will be a pain. For your main well-used hallways, increase the width.

  10. Toilets. Ensure the toilet room is deep enough - you can open the door, walk in, and shut the door with ease. A ton of toilet rooms require you to shuffle around the bowl to get the door shut, and you're screwed if you're not a twig. 30cm can be difference.

  11. Wasted space. This one is hard to explain. Most standard floor plans are designed by idiot architects. They waste a lot of space needlessly. E.g. the door frame of a room is placed such that the room is smaller - however if it were moved half a metre, there is zero difference to any other attached room/hallway, the engineering of the structure, or anything. It's just an oddly placed wall, that takes away usable space from a room, and adds a weird random void. You're gonna need to find these yourself on the plan, and adjust.

  12. Contemplate double-glazed and soundproofing in specific areas. Bedroom facing the street? Probably worth it.

  13. Can never be enough outdoor taps.

  14. Have somewhere you dump your junk. You walk in, take off your shoes/hat, dump your keys… but where? Have a nook or something where you can put a buffet or shoe rack and have it out of the way and out of sight. You don't wanna open the front door and be staring at the couch directly in front of you.