Well after months of thought, discussion with builders and draftsman, the construction on my granny flat has finally begun!!
(http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58749)
The idea first started off as building a 2 storey house, which would have been ideal, but then a couple phone calls to the council put this idea in the bin for me - due to the fact the council had a minimum subdivision of 550sqm if the dwellings were detached, so the alternative was to knock down the existing property and build a duplex.
So I decided to go down the granny flat path given the recent changes in legislation.
Started off with a few drawings to work out how to maximise the floor space of 60sqm (and several weeks of posting different designs on Somersoft), i finally had what i thought was decent design.
With this in mind I approached Cid and Wally from Granny Flats Australia (http://www.grannyflatsaustralia.com.au) with my design and had them come out to do a site inspection.
The general consensus was that I shouldnt rush in with the first builder that gave me a quote, so i shopped around.
It was at that point I realised that builders cant give much of a quote without proper plans being drawn up. So i contacted Serge (member of this forum) and he helped me draw up the plans and gave pointers to what made a good design and took into account aspects i completely forgot about such as lighting from windows and general aesthetics as well as making sure the plans itself complied with the Complying development (ie private space, setbacks, etc)
The plans differed from what I had first drawn up at the beginning, but I couldnt be happier with the design. With this in mind I got in contact with more builders.
I had the option of going Owner Builder and attempt to coordinate trades, but if my employment has taught me one thing, its stick to what you do best, and coordinating tradies and acting like a foreman was not one of my skills.
So the options in front of me were
- Source the supplies from one group
- Have a builder then build it (and act as foreman and coordinate all trades)
- Make sure the granny flat was built as per Serge's specifications.
Although Serge did offer to help me through all this at no cost, at the end of the day I knew my inexperience would only burden Serge more than he could imagine (and you cant expect someone to work for free... its just not right!)
So i thought, if I went down the path where the builder, supplier, draftsman were unrelated, the possibility of having something go wrong, but no one willing to take responsibility increased substantially.
Given the costs from Granny Flats Australia were pretty much on par with using a supplier who would get me all the materials, then having someone else build it I decided to go back to Granny Flats Australia as they were a one stop shop - ie Drawing -> building approval -> Construction. And if anything went wrong, I only had to deal with one person who would be able to fix it.
So for someone who's property development skills went as far as dreaming but being unable to do any actual hands on work (because I have no idea what im doing), this suited me best.
Fast forward to now, I'd have to say, everything has progressed very smoothly.
After the first payment was made, plans were redrawn up within a few days, then submitted to a Private Certifier for approval. The only delay here was Australia Post who some how failed to deliver an expressed post envelope (which had the original forms signed) to a PO box. You'd think the postman would have got that one right seeing it didnt have to go from its distribution centre.
Anyway, work started on the 28 June and today the concrete was poured.
Carpenter is due to come out at the end of the week, so hopefully by the weekend the frame is up
I'll post some pictures up a little later and keep updating this thread as things progress.
(http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58749)
The idea first started off as building a 2 storey house, which would have been ideal, but then a couple phone calls to the council put this idea in the bin for me - due to the fact the council had a minimum subdivision of 550sqm if the dwellings were detached, so the alternative was to knock down the existing property and build a duplex.
So I decided to go down the granny flat path given the recent changes in legislation.
Started off with a few drawings to work out how to maximise the floor space of 60sqm (and several weeks of posting different designs on Somersoft), i finally had what i thought was decent design.
With this in mind I approached Cid and Wally from Granny Flats Australia (http://www.grannyflatsaustralia.com.au) with my design and had them come out to do a site inspection.
The general consensus was that I shouldnt rush in with the first builder that gave me a quote, so i shopped around.
It was at that point I realised that builders cant give much of a quote without proper plans being drawn up. So i contacted Serge (member of this forum) and he helped me draw up the plans and gave pointers to what made a good design and took into account aspects i completely forgot about such as lighting from windows and general aesthetics as well as making sure the plans itself complied with the Complying development (ie private space, setbacks, etc)
The plans differed from what I had first drawn up at the beginning, but I couldnt be happier with the design. With this in mind I got in contact with more builders.
I had the option of going Owner Builder and attempt to coordinate trades, but if my employment has taught me one thing, its stick to what you do best, and coordinating tradies and acting like a foreman was not one of my skills.
So the options in front of me were
- Source the supplies from one group
- Have a builder then build it (and act as foreman and coordinate all trades)
- Make sure the granny flat was built as per Serge's specifications.
Although Serge did offer to help me through all this at no cost, at the end of the day I knew my inexperience would only burden Serge more than he could imagine (and you cant expect someone to work for free... its just not right!)
So i thought, if I went down the path where the builder, supplier, draftsman were unrelated, the possibility of having something go wrong, but no one willing to take responsibility increased substantially.
Given the costs from Granny Flats Australia were pretty much on par with using a supplier who would get me all the materials, then having someone else build it I decided to go back to Granny Flats Australia as they were a one stop shop - ie Drawing -> building approval -> Construction. And if anything went wrong, I only had to deal with one person who would be able to fix it.
So for someone who's property development skills went as far as dreaming but being unable to do any actual hands on work (because I have no idea what im doing), this suited me best.
Fast forward to now, I'd have to say, everything has progressed very smoothly.
After the first payment was made, plans were redrawn up within a few days, then submitted to a Private Certifier for approval. The only delay here was Australia Post who some how failed to deliver an expressed post envelope (which had the original forms signed) to a PO box. You'd think the postman would have got that one right seeing it didnt have to go from its distribution centre.
Anyway, work started on the 28 June and today the concrete was poured.
Carpenter is due to come out at the end of the week, so hopefully by the weekend the frame is up
I'll post some pictures up a little later and keep updating this thread as things progress.
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