1.  To find out if there are any restrictions on your property Victorian Owner Builders can visit www.land.vic.gov.au ,(for other states contact your local council), go to the titles/property certificates section, enter your postal address and it will give a full list of the documents registered against that property that they have on record. Request a copy of the title which costs $13.90 and have it sent to you by email in PDF format. From this you can see details regarding services to your property.

 

It could be that the mains water or Optus fibre link between Sydney and Hong Kong is running through your back garden in which case you will have to consider your options. In some circumstances you may be able to build over an easement but you may have to agree to pay all costs if the utility provider has to access his infrastructure. A quick call to your council asking them if permission is likely will save you a lot of planning costs. Also some covenants may not allow upward extensions but a quick look out the window at the height of the surrounding properties may answer this for you. 

Nationally you can contact  www.dialbeforeyoudig.com.au  which is a free service and if you give them the land location they will post out you all assets in your area. You can log onto there site , register your details, give the location of where you are going to dig and they will give you a list of the utilities that you  should receive information from in the mail. If in a few days you have not heard from all on the list you can contact them.

We had an easement on our property which ran two meters parallel with the back fence so we had to make sure the extension stopped short of this. It was the main sewage line for our estate at a depth of 6 metres. I thought “sh#@, I don’t want to dig that up”. The general rule is your footings must be lower than the 45 degree angle of repose. In our case we had to keep 6 metres away from the pipe or if 5 metres the concrete beam had to be deeper in the ground at that end, the closer you get the deeper the concrete beam. This extra concrete may only add a couple of hundred dollars to the overall costs, there is usually a solution to the problems you may encounter.

 

 

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2. Click here to be directed to the Finance page,  Owner Builders Finance   Hopefully we will have some answers for you.

 

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3&4.  Now you know if you can build on your land, try to draw up a rough plan and send to a quantity surveyor along with a couple of photos of your existing property so they can get a feel for the finished product. Ring first and get them to send out a short questionnaire for you to complete and they can advise  you what other info they may need to complete your estimation. Alternatively you can visit  www.archicentre.com.au , enter your email address in the brightly coloured yellow box in the lower part of the home page and they will email you a copy of Renovations and Extension Costs. 

Now for around $500 you know if you can build and roughly how much your dream will cost. If you find the quantity surveyors amount is too much you can go back with your budget and he can make suggestions where you might be able to make the necessary savings. Also with a detailed costing you can go along to the money lenders and you can also compare quotes against the quantity surveyors costings. Tip. When organising your finance check that they are happy to use your surveyors estimation, no need to pay for this twice.

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5. Time now to engage the services of a draftsman/architect who will use your original sketch to provide working drawings that can be submitted to council and for your sub-contractors to supply quotes from. If extending your local council should have a copy of the original house plans archived.  This stage may take some time as the drawings may go back and forth until you agree on a final design. Our plans took about 12 months to finalise. You may also need a structural engineer’s report and a soil report but your draftsman should advise you of this. We submitted our original soil report which was over ten years old only to be told to get a new one, I didn’t know soil conditions could change.

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6. In Victoria the Owner Builder’s Permit will take about 2 weeks to arrive in your letterbox. They cost $75.00 and as long as you haven’t had a permit issued to you in the last three years and you are the owner of the property you won’t have much problem getting one. They are valid for two years so don’t get your permit until you are ready to submit to your RBP.

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7. You do not have to use your council to issue you with the permit or to carry out the required inspections. You can use a registered building practitioner (RBP) or you can even use another council. They charge about the same but you can shop around. The only advantage here is the time it takes to process. Some councils are busier than others. You won’t get it right first time (85 % have to resubmit for a variety of reasons). There might be items missing or incorrect on your drawing’s. This again will take time; ask if in this situation your application would go back to the bottom of the pile and how long corrections will take.

In our case the carport that we built was going to be 300mm closer to the curb. Because of this the council had to write to our neighbours to see if they had any objections. This would take approx two weeks after they sent out the letters I was told, they didn’t tell me it would take eight weeks to send the letters. Check with your draftsman/architect if they charge for resubmits, you may be able to make minor changes to drawings yourself when plans need to be altered.

You may also need a structural engineer’s report and a soil report but your draftsman should advise you of this. We submitted our original soil report which was over ten years old only to be told it was out of date and we needed to get a new one. Your RBP will advise you of any new standards such as in Victoria where all new homes, and from the 1/5/08 alterations or relocations of existing homes, must reach a 5 star energy rating. See links section for more information on this.

Make copies of your drawings and send out to subcontractors while you are waiting for building approval. All registered members will receive a list of suppliers who are happy to provide owner builders with quotes on their buildings. I spent many hours ringing around trying to get quotes, some said they were interested but would I would never see the promised quote. Others didn’t want to work for Owner Builders. Hopefully we have supplied enough contacts within your area to save you time. You could use companies from other states if you want to, but the extra freight costs may offset any savings. We tried to use as many local contractors as we could, giving them the opportunity to match quotes from others outside of the area. When you get your prices it will become obvious if someone miss quoted. Ask them if they would like to revise the quote or if the quote is under priced can they can carry out the works for that price. This will save problems down the track. In order to make a fair comparison, make sure all are quotes are for exactly the same work, apples for apples, ensure they have included every thing that is required of them.

There are by law three trades that must be licensed to carry out works. They are electricians, plumbers and roof tillers. Try to get as many references as you can. Ask to see there licenses before they start work, and they must provide you with certificates on completion of the works. If you are dealing with an unlicensed trade such as bricklayers, endeavor to view existing examples of their work including work in progress if possible. This will give you a good indication of the quality of their work.

The biggest problem we had with our project was the window supplier. They operated out of two factories in different areas but had a nice showroom and were local, so we chose them as they were happy to match a slightly cheaper quote at around $7000. The delivery was delayed for about six weeks, unable to deliver, kept changing the date, which in turn delayed the bricklayer.  Originally the windows were to arrive on a Thursday, I had arranged a couple of friends to help install in the frame on the Saturday and the bricklayer was to start on the following Monday/Tuesday. During a phone call by me to the window company on the Wednesday (even though I had spoken to them only a week previous and I was not told of any problems) I was told the windows would not be ready until the following week due to the powder coating not having been done. I had to cancel the friends for the weekend and also the bricklayer which lost him all together as they have tight schedules and were fitting us in between large jobs. We finally got a new bricklayer booked in only to get another call on the following Wednesday telling me the powder coater’s factory had burnt down and that I wouldn’t get the windows for at least another three weeks. After a couple of apologetic calls we lost another bricklayer. It was fast approaching Christmas and I started to realise that we wouldn’t get another bricklayer to start the work until at least the end of January due to the holiday period. I didn’t bother to book another bricklayer until the windows were in which was about nine weeks from the original arrival date and two days prior to Christmas.

The moral of the story is that no matter how much you plan and schedule your project – you are still at the mercy of the supplier, who in turn will be at the mercy of his supplier. This is where you really need to hunt out previous employers so you can see the quality and check their reliability. Remember some trades will use your job to fill time as they have regular building companies they work for. Yours is a one off for them, however could be a good reference to other Owner Builders if they have done a good job.

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