Our RAL home

What we've learnt

 

As Owner Builders of a RAL house we learnt a great deal and there are a few things we'll do differently in future to save money, time or difficulty.

 

Expect little from the local council

 

While they were pleasant and helpful to work with, the council wasnt' a great source of advice. Here are some examples:

 

• We were advised by council to install a septic soakaway that didn't have state government approval;

• The time required for a planning permit response was many times the advised time;

• We received little advice about building to minimise bushfire risks, we weren't in a wildfire overlay and had to do all the research on fire risk ourselves. Our neighbours, who went through the same planning process two years later, did receive some advice, including an inaccurate description of requirements applied for our permit;

• We were told that we'd need to enter into an Agreement to protect native vegetation as part of the permit process and told we'd need a solicitior to prepare such an Agreement. We drew up the Agreement ourselves based on an example and avoided the cost of a solicitor.

 

In future we'll allow much more time to obtaini a planning permit and rely only on our own research rather than the council's advice.

 

Make sure the contractor is suited to the project

 

Our plumbing contractor was more used to and more suited to small commercial projects rather than residential jobs. This meant that the plumbers working on the job were all the contractor's employees and they didn't have a vested interest in the project. They didn't add value and were less flexible than the other contractors we used. Examples of the problems this caused include:

 

• The plumbers installed the rainwater downpipes along the length of the carport and we had to re-route these at a later date;

• Fit out of the bathroom and laundry fittings could only happen after we'd water-proofed and tiled the areas. We really needed the plumbers to be flexible about timing to allow us to tackle our part of the job. Unfortunately they couldn't offer this flexibility. Our workaround was simple - they installed everything and then about a month later we took everything out, finished waterproofing and tiling and then re-installed everything.

 

Trade rates for supply of materials won't save money

 

There are many supplies that the contractors needed to arrange such as wiring, basic electrical fittings and basic plumbing materials. We included supply of all plumbing fittings in our plumbing contractors scope; supply of sinks, taps, toilets, showers etc.. This gave the plumber access to trade rates but also gave him work to do such as specifying, ordering and collecting the fittings. We found that the mark-up from the plumber meant that his access to trade rates wasn't beneficial to us. In future we'll simply go to a large plumbing supplier and order fittings directly, using the size of the order and competitiveness of the industry to drive a bargin. This will also give us more control specifying supplies.

 

We installed the wrong type of water tanks

 

We installed eight plastic water tanks under the north deck of the house. This kept the tanks out of the way and made use of space that would otherwise be wasted. We realised too late that it would have been more cost effective to have one large in-ground concrete tank built.

 

There are too many doors!

 

Our house includes six external doors, four of which lead onto the back deck. This added to the cost and complexity (during building and maintenance). They also limit how we can use space in some of the rooms. We needed no more than four and could have managed with three.

 

Heating

 

In 2006 I made my first every eBay purchase - a second hand Jindara wood heater. Given it cost just $600 this has worked well and is still going strong. Unfortunately it is a little undersized and should probably be half again as bit to heat the space. We should have compared the manufacturers specification with our application.

 

Trees

 

As part of our project we were keen to minimise the number of re-growth trees that we'd have to remove. We removed the minimum number and have been regretting it and paying for it ever since. As the photos show, we've had to remove addition trees on four or five ocassions since we first cleared the block. To start with there were trees too close to the house (within about 5 m) that had to go for safety reasons. Most of our trees are Messmate and the root systems are relatively small meaning that they can fall in storms.

 

We now need to arrange for an Arborist to visit periodically to inspect and trim trees to reduce the risk that they fall or drop limbs on our buildings. The cost for Arborists to clear trees is relatively high, particularly if they need to remove an entire tree. Clearing before construction is much more cost effective. We found that clearing can be easily, cheaply and safely be off-set by planting new trees in appropriate areas.

 

In 2012, after about 18 months of above average rainfall, the ground in our area was very wet. In September of 2012, after several days of heavy rain, high winds brought down several trees on our block, including a huge Messmate that crushed our chook house and nearly hit the house. As it fell the tree struck several others, one of which had to be cleared immediately. The cost, mess and inconvenience of this could have been avoided with better planning. A lesson we won't forget.