Hello All,
Our landscaper installed some upright pine sleepers in the ground about 3 months ago as per the landscaping plans. They had a protective undercoat and were whatever grade they…

Hello all: after brick cleaning of the top floor, our PGH Sand Dune bricks had some seriously ugly acid burn (iron stain). The brick cleaner was there again…

I'll just mention that Genneral Staircase, mentioned by the previous poster, have just installed our stairs. We're very pleased with them, it is a very nice looking job, with…

I would advise going with gas heating, because it is a lot cheaper than electric heating if you are on natural gas, and an electric oven, because apparently they do…

Hello All: we've decided that the little swatches aren't enough to get an idea of what the colour will look like in real life, so before we commit, would anyone…

Hi HobartKalina,
We are currently in the middle of building (brickwork is almost done) a heavily modified Montana 15 (the top floor is actually the Manhattan) with Bellmarch. We don't…

You ask about trees: let me tell you a tree story. At the beginning of our approval process, we had a large native tree about 3m from the rear…

Just to answer my previous post, I've spoken to the construction manager again and:
1) There is no minimum cut size on a brick, they can be cut to any size
2)…

Dear Bricklaying experts: While our plans called for 225mm of brickwork on either side of our entry door, which is recessed relative to the front facade, the first row of…

Regarding Sutherland council giving anybody grief: if your block is covered by the new statewide housing code, they can't give you much grief or happiness. The only approval I…

The air-conditioner contractor for our builder advised that he only starts planning the aircon system about 3 days before roof tiling is due to finish, and that is all the…

You don't mention at what stage you signed the contract. We signed ours pre DA approval, and ended up with about $30,000 extra arising from the approval process due…

A hidden cost that I have not seen mentioned often is the cost of delay. If the builder wants to stay in business they will pass on increases due…

If it makes you feel any better, our builder asked for $11k due to a 1 year time span between the price at time of tender and the price when…

If that's all you've ended up paying then that's great for you! Anyway, you'll get a much more detailed answer by searching in the Building a New Home forum.…

Hello. Today the builder has increased our building price by $11,000 due to the delay between when the tender (not the contract) and the building will start (next month).…

OK, quick update: the broker got us to get an updated HOW insurance certificate, and a carefully-worded letter from the builder once again explaining how to calculate the progress payments.…

Thanks for the replies. To clarify a few things, (i) this is the first loan application, we are not trying to get an existing loan increased based on the…

We've run into an interesting situation. Like (it would seem) many builders, ours fairly recently started requesting that we sign the contract before the building approval, soil test. etc.…

The sales rep of one of the builders we talked to explained that the building firms most under pressure are those that do house and land deals, as they will…