Council Approval

We were a little nervous about this one as the council normally requires a 5m setback, and we had designed the house with only a 4m setback.

The reason for this was the shape of the lot made it difficult to fit a the house we wanted on it, and after playing about with a number of designs decided we would make efforts to minimize the encroachments and prepare a strong argument for the rest.

Initially we had a 4.5m setback, but this meant we were encroaching on the 1.5m easements to the rear of the lot, so during the Covenant approval stage (which has the same setbacks and easements) we put together an argument that justified us moving the house forward to the 4m line.

The crux of our argument was the fact that we are a single lot sandwiched between two corner lots, each of which had a frontage on a side street, with their property side being on our street.

Now, the key point here is that such properties have a 3m side easement from the secondary frontage line, which is effectively the same line as our frontage which has a 5m setback...since they both can build to 3m we felt that it made our request to build to 4m pretty easy.... and evidently it was.

So, all together, we are pretty happy, we get the house we want and a little extra room in the rear garden

Colour Selection Done

Again, that was easy

Since the start of this project the colour selection has always been a point of trepidation, and stories about how we may need to allow two 3 hour sessions have not been encouraging... so today we went to Robina to do the colour selection, and 2 hours later it was done!

All credit should go to our consultant (I generally avoid mentioning names), she really knew the options and had prepared beforehand... unfortunately she did have an old drawing, but the changes were minor.

It certainly pays however to prepare beforehand, if you turn up to this place with no idea of what you intend then prepare for the long haul, I can strongly recommend spending some time going through builders show homes and getting a good idea of what you like and what you don't

Due to the site covenants we had actually done most of the exterior specification beforehand, and again we spent a good deal of time looking at the finishes of other houses on the estate that were built to the same covenants, Coral will supply you with a list of standard options beforehand, so coming to the selection meeting with a basic exterior design should be pretty easy.

We did raise a variation of the door and the wooden porch pillar, these were originally specified as painted and we much prefer stained, and changed the door glass to opaque.

The kitchen was probably the biggest challenge, our selection of a bright red splash back tile, and an otherwise grey colour pallet, left very few suitable options for cupboards, had we gone with a beige pallet then the number of options would have been much larger, but as it stood with the choices we have already made then white ended up as the best choice, not necessarily a bad choice, just when your faced with a wall of several hundred colour options then picking basic white seams er......unimaginative, however when you look at it alongside the splash back and the Ceaserstone top we think it works well.

Most of the other colour selections were fairly uneventful, Jill decided she wanted a red worktop in the laundry, (I envisaged something whiteish), but red it is.

Corals justification for stupid electrical installation charges

I've mentioned the light installation issue before, but having raised the question with Coral and received their answer, I'm going to comment on this again, and then get shot of the issue, its just not worth the time it will waste fighting it!

The background is this, when initially quoted the electrical system was pretty basic and there was an understanding that during the Clipsal meeting we would detail it and select the actual fittings etc that we wanted to use. between the quotation and Clipspec meeting I actually did some research and found some energy efficient lighting.

At the clipspec meeting it was found that the specified lighting was basic baton fittings supplied and installed at $52 each, however, if I supply lighting it would cost $68 per fitting for their electrician to install....

So, I've questioned how can it cost more to install a light I supply than for them to supply and install a light.

Basically the answer boiled down to these three points...

• Electricians know what they are doing with baton fittings, and customer supplied fittings are an unknown quantity.
• they have to locate the fittings.
• they have to drill holes for recessed fittings.

Now, I can sympathize a little with the fact that as a customer I could select any stupidly fiddly light fitting and it could be strange and the electrician would need to take a little time to work out what to do with it, I could also select a completely different fitting with a completely different set of complications for each and every fitting... but I didn't every light fitting I'm supplying is the same make and model from a reputable local supplier with simple connections, and frankly a domestic electrician working today probably installs many more recessed ceiling lights than they do baton light fittings.

As for the rest of the justification then I call BS, the charges are independent of number or style of fitting, and surely an electrician would have to locate a baton light fitting, and is using a hole saw really that hard?, when it comes to hole sawing a hole in a ceiling or screw fitting a baton fitting and then making a hole for wires I know what Id prefer to do!

So there you go, BS reasons for BS charges, the only good thing I can say about the process is the light fittings I'm using cost $42 each and including their $68 charge that comes to $110 per light, which is cheaper than the $160 odd that they would have charged if I used their fittings!

I strongly recommend that anyone reading this give consideration to using their own electricians from the outset, for my wife and myself this project is very much a learning exercise, and we have already made some considerable savings by deciding from the outset to have work done by third parties, but next time (if there is one) I'm sure we will be using a lot more third party contractors!

Electrical issues

I did the Clipsal electrical design yesterday, and now feel a little like I've had my pocket picked!, and on reflection I find it a little disappointing.

When we were initially quoting the house there was an understanding that the electrical specification was going to be something done in detail later, there was $1,000 added to the price as a variation allowance, I've got to say that our understanding of the electrical specification has always been very sketchy, whenever anything electrical was raised it was always palmed off as something that would get sorted out during the Clipsal spec.

At the time did put in extra allowance for additional sockets and fans, but as far as the actual light fittings the quotation included 24 'batton' light fittings at $52 each.... but we never had any intention of using these, and I had every intention of supplying out own fittings, understanding that we could get a credit for the unused baton fittings and would have to pay an installation charge... all sounded simple and fair!

HOWEVER!
It turns out that yes, they have credited the $52 per light fitting (and remember this price was for them to supply and fit each fitting), yet are charging us $68 to install each light fitting that we supply!

Also it turns out that the electrical installation now has nothing to do with AV or IT installation, so on leaving the all important clipspec meeting I find that all the AV and IT equipment I want installed are effectively unresolved!.

The work I wanted to do is as follows

• Mount flat screen TV to wall on a pivot-able mount
• Mount surround speakers to wall and ceiling, route cables through walls
• Put two additional speakers in patio ceiling connected to TV AV system
• Route HDMI and power cables through wall
• Add 4 Ethernet points to main TV area
• Add 2 Ethernet points to each other TV area (3 off) and study
• install 16 port 10/100/1000 switch in study.
• CAT6 cabling throughout

So, Ill do it myself, fortunately data cabling doesn't require an electrical licence (unlike everything else in Australia!), and a quick Google later I find selby.com.au who can supply me with the mounting brackets, speakers, Ethernet wall plates and speaker cable I need for about $400, the switch is probably another $150 and Ill need some CAT6 cable

One thing I'm deliberately doing is routing cables through the walls and directly connecting source and device without intermediate wall plates or connection points.
Not only is this cheaper, but without extra connections its more reliable, yes I guess when you remove the equipment then having wires poking out of walls may appear unsightly, but with the equipment in place all this is invisible, and by eliminating all the cable breaks that wall plates represent I'm making the connection more reliable.... at the end of the day what I'm trying to build a system that once installed is functional and reliable, not one that looks cool when its dismantled.

Tile selection done

Well, that was easy

When faced with the tile selection paperwork its easy to feel a little overwhelmed by the apparent number of tile selections there are, I guess if we wanted to go to the limits and individualize each room separately then we could be looking at over 20 separate tile selections.

Show homes don't really help with this respect, its quite common to enter these places and see they have a separate colour and tile scheme for each and every room, and forget that the builder deliberately did this to show off different options, not because it was a smart idea.

There is also the argument for making the tiling a feature of the house, but here's the problem with features.... they go out of fashion, and if the feature is a fundamental part of the building construction (like floor tiles) then what could now be a huge value adding feature today, in say 15 years time when you want to resell, could just be a dated eyesore that turns buyers away or goes on top of the list of things they need to rip out and factor the cost into their offer price, need I mention 1980s coloured bathroom suites or 1970s wood paneling to make this point?

The other factor we needed to consider was that the tiles included in the builder quotation were a standard package supplied via Beaumont Tiles, and whilst there are plenty of opportunities to upgrade neither Jill or I felt we wanted to go over the top...

So, we go off to Beumont tiles and prepare for a stressful afternoon of tile selection, and I must say that I was very please that any attempts at up-selling us was limited to asking if we wanted to stick with the standard package and we walk away with this tile selection...

....6 tiles, well arguably its 8, but technically its only three as the mid sized tiles are dark/light/plain/patterned variants of the same tile, the large floor tile comes in outdoor, textured versions (patio), and smaller sizes (wet areas) so its a simple package but versatile enough to use everywhere, the plain light tile will get used for wet area skirtings and splash-backs, and the other tiles used for bath, and showers

Observant readers may notice there is an odd tile out here, the bright red tile is for kitchen splashbacks and is our one concession to features, Jill and I had decided to do this beforehand and it was unfortunate that the choice of colours for this kind of tile once you eliminated the greys and browns was limited to red or orange

The reason for this tile is that our pallet is deliberately monochrome, colour and feature will be mostly be added by soft furnishings, but we felt that since its fairly hard to hide a kitchen in an open plan design we may as well featurise it... besides, if it really doesn't work or we get tired of it then replacing them with something different is a lot easier than replacing the floors or bathrooms.

Repeat Custom

The other day our financial adviser raised an interesting topic of conversation, and that is very few people building ever use the same builder twice.

I'm sure if you spoke to builders then they would tell you about loads of repeat customers, and I'm sure they do have them, but they probably have very no way of being aware of the repeat customers they have effectively lost vs the number of customers who never built again.

However from a financial advisers POV this is probably quite a valid observation, they tend to work with customers through a number of projects and can see the relationship people have with their builders from a distance.

I'm guessing that what this unofficial statistic suggests is that anybody building a house is doomed to be disappointed by their builder, and conversely builders are very practiced with dealing with disappointed customers.

So, what are we talking about here? Are the vast majority of builders really that crap, or do their customers have unrealistic expectations that the builder is doomed to disappoint.

The other thing this suggests is that builders are very practiced with dealing with disappointed customers, and and are very aware that despite a large number of disappointed customers behind them, they are still very much in business... so getting pissed off at your builder is probably not going to achieve much, if they are well practiced with upsetting customers then they wont care, and if not then its probably counterproductive anyway.... these words are liable to haunt me later!.

Another point is the validity of reviews on the internet, at face value the internet appears to be a great place to get reviews on contractors, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that most review sites are a waste of time.

Firstly most people just don't bother posing reviews, yet people who are severely pissed off are always going to negative reviews.

Secondly, whilst I appreciate there are many very satisfied customers that post glowing reviews, I'm also aware that there are many unscrupulous organisations who will post fake glowing reviews.

So, being aware of these factors makes it very hard to make good use of internet reviews, there is a lack of context, a company with 10 bad reviews may appear really bad, but if they had 1000 customers and 990 of them were satisfied yet never posted a review then the 10 bad reviews may not looks so bad after all.

Progress update

Talking with people and reading the blogs of other people who have built with coral, one of the biggest concerns Ive identified is the apparent blowout in the handover dates.

Handover date is a sensitive issues, bottom line is ever day this project takes costs me $75-$100, and I can think of many things that my wife would prefer to spend that money on (food for example).

When we signed our contracts we were given some very rough figures on start and completion dates,, i.e. we were looking at a mid May start date and 13 weeks until completion, in all honesty I wasnt expecting these dates to be cast in stone but they are the figures by which Ive based my families budget on for the next 5-6 months.

Since signing the contracts however things have kinda lost focus, it took three weeks to get some variations to drawings resolved which delayed the covenant approval process and subsequently everything else, and we have colour selection appointments tabled for mid may....

All this made me realise that there was a certain lack of focus, which could possibly lead to things just coasting along, maybe it was just my personal perception, but the bottom line is that for whatever reason we were going to miss the mid may start date, and I had no idea of what the new timeline actually was.

So I raised this issue with coral and was very pleased when yesterday I received a call from our customer service manager explaining the revised timeline and the tasks that need to be met to achieve this.

The biggest controlling factor is of course Council approval, and that's unfortunately not in the hands of anyone accountable, however we anticipate approval for end of May and by that time we need to get everything else sorted out.... so, that's the plan and I'm happy.... Ill be even happier if we manage to stick to it!