Our RAL home

Having bought the land in 2003, we started planning the house in 2004 and construction began in 2006. The notes below describe the process we had to follow to build in South Gippsland Shire.

Our house is built on a four acre semi-rural block of land. We bought in 2003 but didn't start planning in earnst until 2004. We spent some weekends camping on the block to help decide where to put the house and how to orientate it.

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The first stage of planning involved looking at suitable house designs. We looked into a huge range of options from conventional and contempary designs to kit homes and DIY options such as mud bricks and straw bale homes. While we wanted to do some of the work ourselves we had to balance this with full-time work and family. This ruled out some options such as mud brick and straw bale but still left a huge range of possibilities.

The process to prepare a planning permit application isn't difficult but it is a little time consuming and requires preparation of some plans. These were partly done by ourselves and partly by RAL homes. We also required a permit to install a septic tank and soakaway. There is a hefty fee for both applications.

 

Getting the necessary local council permits took a lot longer than it should have and took some patience and perserverence. Our council wasn't able to meet their obilgatory response times, were unaware of some state regulations, and provided poor and inconsistent advice on some topics. We've heard similar stories from neighbours and family friends.

 

In addition to planning permits it was also necessary to arrange for a building permit. This was easy because building permit issue is arranged through registered professional companies and not through local or state government.

After months of on / off searching for something suitable we came across a company that engineers, designs and partially prefabricates components for houses.

 

We visited RAL's workshop in Ararat Victoria to see some show homes and talked about design options. What we found were great buildings with large windows and lots of light and simple, but pleasing, internal designs. RAL homes helped us with design, drawings for planning purposes, estimates and potential builders. 

After arranging for permits we had to decide how we'd build. There were a number of options; contract everything to a single builder, build almost everything ourselves or manage a number of contractors while doing some work ourselves. We chose the latter option because we didin't have the time, inclination or skills to do everything but we did want to have control of the job and do some of the works.

 

To project manage the construction it was necessary to register as Owner Builders and take out the appropriate building insurance. We then engaged a builder who'd worked with RAL homes before and separately engaged a plumber, electrician, plasterers and other contractors.

 

Preparation of the contracts was time-consuming as we had to carefully define scope to avoid variations (and unexpected bills). The building contract was easy and we used a contract pro-forma from Master Builders Australia. The other Agreements were a little more complex.

 

As first time owner builders the most challenging task was co-ordinating the various contractors; at what stage did the electrician need to be on site, the plumbers etc.. This just required some disucssions with RAL homes and our builder.

 

The project was organised as follows:

 

Design, engineering, prefabrication of structure and supply of basic building materials was by RAL Homes.

 

Clearing some trees and vegetation, burning off the waste vegetation and other preparatory works was done by two local contractors.

 

Building was done by a builder from Maffra (now retired).

 

Electrical work was done by a local electrician.

 

Plumbing (including roofing) was done by a commercial plumber from Wonthaggi.

 

Plasterwork was done by a small company from Inverloch.

 

Concreting was done by a local concreter.

 

We did: water-proofing and refitting both bathrooms, building the balustrading and railing around the huge decks, all painting and wood finishing inside and out, installation of architraves and skirting boards, installation of the kitchen, design, construction and installation of the bush fire sprinkler system, installation of most of the water tanks, refitting of lots of the  storm water down pipes, installation of all the under-floor insulation, installation of the hardwood floating floor, tiling in the bathrooms and laundries, fit out of the shed / garage and all gardening and ground works.