About to Embark on Owner Builder Reno

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  ihbh on 28/03/2024 - 07:41

  Extension - is the land flat?

  Friends just around the corner are doing an extension and floor addition. This is a hard one due to slope of land to back and heritage conservation order at the front. They are using a specialist builder and have been going on for 3 years. There was huge increase in trade cost and supplies, delays for both, asbestos removal, they hit rock and required additional engineering work.

  They didn't want to pay $m for what premium builders charge in these suburbs initially, but it's dragged on and will probably cost more. They are both very senior managers and can afford the cost increase and the family has been staying with a relative all this time, but 10kms away.

  The husband is reasonably handy, but just having a look each week

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  Velt on 28/03/2024 - 08:08

  Scott Brown fan?

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  May4th on 28/03/2024 - 09:01

  Would suggest going through the relevant episodes on Undercover Architect whichever way you go

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  shap08 on 28/03/2024 - 09:37

  Recently built a granny flat, I will echo what others have said about relevant permits and approvals. Building codes and regulations are complex, particularly around wet area, bathrooms and laundries.

  Get a building surveyor from the start. They will likely charge a fee for owner build as its a risk for them. ($1k fee)

  I don't think you need to double your time, as long as you keep on top of your tradies.

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  Trying2SaveABuck on 28/03/2024 - 13:06

  +1

  This read like one of those blokes who over heard someone made a killing off reno'ing an old house and had a light bulb moment i can do that too

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    Hangryuman on 29/03/2024 - 18:05

    'Poll to see how batsh-t crazy I am'

    when someone tells you upfront they are crazy - it's best to believe them …

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  Look Up on 28/03/2024 - 20:17

  +2

  @vietbargain

  No offence, but your story sounds like a 2nd generation Vietnamese Australian with a touch of DIY in his blood undergoing an (early?) mid-life crisis fantasising about moving from extreme white-collar to extreme blue-collar work

  Your confidence and optimism is admirable but the whole setup is fraught with disaster

  All the successful OB builds that I know of were father/son or elder/younger brother teams with at least one from the building industry because you can't be on the tools, reading plans and talking on the phone at the same time

  Lastly, check a few of the videos on Site Inspections to get a feel for current standards and pitfalls in the Oz building industry

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    vietbargain on 29/03/2024 - 19:04

    +1

    No offence, but your story sounds like a 2nd generation Vietnamese Australian with a touch of DIY in his blood undergoing an (early?) mid-life crisis fantasising about moving from extreme white-collar to extreme blue-collar work

    Lol none taken! Mrs Vietbargain loves this comment haha

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  quikchip on 28/03/2024 - 21:15

  +2

  I'm a builder and will highly advise against it. If it was a renovation, extension or even a new build, it can be done. But an addition will be much harder for you since it requires stripping the roof, installing beams and joists for the new level, ground floor structural work if neccesary and all whilst the roof/floor is tarped and watertight and you may even be living below. It needs to be done fast to avoid delays and bad weather. Not all carpenters or trades are experienced in additions, so it won't be easy finding them and they will charge a premium.

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  foolsgold on 29/03/2024 - 07:51

  +5

  OP I’m an architect, maybe I can talk some sense in to you.

  In my experience Owner builder works for 3 people well,
  1) tradies who are aren’t registered builders.
  2) Clients who want to take on some of the risk pay an unregistered builder to run their project. And
  3) clients who are building something limited to 1, 2 trades a shed, a pergola, a mezzanine etc.

  The typical person I come across that starts thinking owner builder, has some big dreams for their addition. They start asking around, they speak to a reputable builder, who gives them a ball park figure without drawings without any info of something that sounds high to you 700-800k. You in shock, go speak to your friends who have done a Reno or a new build 4-5 years ago or more and say they did the whole thing for 1/3 of the price, or their owner builder and they did it for X and the builder wants to make 30-40%.
  Or they go on a volume builder website and see you get a whole house built for X about your only building half so it should only cost you half of that.

  And then off these owner builders go, on their journey of confirmation bias listening to everybody except professionals because they’re all in on this great rip off of making 20-30%.

  Part of my job is often having the hard conversation of telling clients they just can’t afford what they want to do, or ask them to objectively prove if the extension is feasible from a resell point of view or buying something bigger in the same area etc. Plenty of people don’t have these conversations with their craftsperson’s or architects because it means the project doesn’t go ahead and they don’t get a job.

  Firstly, go get your house drawn up by somebody. Get something preliminary done. I’d suggest to use an architect if you can’t afford one get them at least to do partial services get them to look and draw a floor plan with the agreement to get a drafts person to finish it off. Engage a structural engineer to just do a preliminary design. You could probably get away with the whole exercise for under 4-5k. You can a cost plan done by an estimator. Then you have an objective preliminary cost of what it’s going to cost before you add in your time, and emotional damages.

  If you still want to go ahead finish all of it off and get it re estimated. There’s two reasons I’m gathering you want to do this, to save money and to play tradie for a little bit.

  Now to your design. Upstairs and out. So basically it’s a new house with longer time frames and consequently probably more cost and a more compromised finish and less resale.

  From a design point of view. Let’s say you start with 110 sq m 3 bedroom house you want to add a storey. You end up damaging a lot of down stairs, ceilings electrical etc. You add say 60 sq m upstairs. But you need circulation (about 6-10 sq metres both upstairs and downstairs) for a stair case and some space around it. So you’re really only netting 40 sq metres but paying for about 80 sq metres of modifications and changes.

  If you follow my suggestions and get an estimator you start to see that builders margins are no where what you think. Start adding all the costs your mates never added up and you start to see the true cost of your addition.

  All the stuff your mates forget about or likely never added up, from temporary fencing, electrical pole, council bonds, permits, insurances. Whenever I sign up a job to a builders there’s a race to get everything sequenced correctly, assigning plumbers, booking undergrounds I always learn new things there’s a real skill to do this. Builders are always looking ahead and into problems. The biggest thing inexperienced owner builders can’t see is what are the typical problems on whatever stage you are up to because you lack experience. Trades need to be prepared for, set up, have their work inspected. Don’t expect to just throw the plans at some one and comeback at 3pm and it be done.

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    Euphemistic on 29/03/2024 - 08:47

    I agree with the sentiment that going owner builder to save moeny is a false premise. If you go in that mindset youll get a shock at the final price.

    For my reno, it was more the challenge of extending my skillset, but it was not a roof off job and not major structural changes.

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    vietbargain on 29/03/2024 - 10:24

    Not gonna lie, these last few comments are starting to talk me off the ledge.

    Perhaps the dream is too big after all =(

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      foolsgold on 29/03/2024 - 11:11

      +4

      get a young chippy whose trying to go for their licence to manage it for you, and be as involved as you like.
      If I'm listing stuff you haven't even priced just think how far off you be, and I'm not a builder imagine how much I'm not considering.

      Just in preliminaries you have
      - dillapidation reports if your building next to a neighbour, cost to serve protection work notices, traffic management plans, safety signs, warranty insurance, asset protection permits

      if your disconnecting power, you have power pole higher, footpath crossing damage waivers/bonds, temporary toilet hire

      look at your hire expenses
      double storey add protection guard rail hires, add building hires, temp fence hire, any intruder detection systems, do you need labourers to help, or you going to do everything your self?

      then start working you way from ground up
      - site cut, bin hire, soil removal costs, contaminated soil/asbestos removal costs, then drainage costs, is your existing house drainage working okay you might need to add that replace watergoods / gutters

      start doing underground plumbing, are all your fittingsand fixtures drawn exactly right, selected, in stock etc. I'm guessing you get a drafty to draw so they just mark out a shower a bath, no details will be drawn so it be up to you to work out exactly where waste points are and confirm that the plumber has done his job correctly.

      termite protections, then go to footings, concreter, do you know how to read an engineers plan? do you know how to check the site cut, or you going to rely on mr concretor to box it all up correctly. Do you know how thick your floors are, did you check all your set downs, for showers, are all your penetrations prepped right

      then framing, are you going to to do the take off an order the timber, or ask the chippy to do it for you, are they going to get the best price, are they going to over order for their next job etc. you DONT have to do it, but then your probably losing here and there, have you checked the architect/drafty/engineer has done everything right

      once you start to see how hard it to scope a reno vs a new build you can understand a builder is placing contingency at every point hence why "they are making 30%" and a record number of them are going broke.

      you need to also know how to get your ducks in a row. get your electricity company and plumbing assigned asap, steel shop drawn and checked asap, chalked out, set up before you start etc.

      and as you can assume your not going to get it right theres too many variables and steps that builders mess up stuff on jobs all the time. so trades who are experienced run a mile or charge extra for owner builders. have any friends who are "good" plumbers/chippys/sparkies not a first year, ask them how they price an owner builder job. They know its not going to be prepped for them, organised, or sequenced, so they want payments up front, charge extra etc, because it could be 18months between rough in and when they finally get paid for fit off / commissioning, and if you start doing that in an environment where there is high price volatility and lots of work about, you be begging for them to get back to site.

      also the above might show you now why there is value is spending the extra on better design, better consultants as ideally a lot of clashes and issues are resolved before you start on site

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        vietbargain on 29/03/2024 - 12:49

        Thank you internet stranger! Appreciate your guidance and the practical advice.

        There really is so much to plan and think about, it's been a huge reality check

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          Hangryuman on 29/03/2024 - 18:11

          @vietbargain: here's another thought - I sold an inner-city terrace house to a young couple who promptly started digging a hole in the backyard planning to extend the garage on the lower slope.

          Guess they were surprised when a neighbour reported the unnotified work to the council who turned up and issued an on-the-spot Stop Work Order for illegal work - so down tools.

          I haven't heard since - but guess that kinda put a cork into their owner-builder dreams.

          Maybe they can use the hole in the backyard as a dipping pond … ;-)

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  Prosp24 on 29/03/2024 - 11:42

  +4

  You've heard the saying before

  Cost, timeliness, quality.

  Its said you can choose 2, but honestly i reckon its only one or none.

  As an owner builder you wont have the on-going work to offer to the tradies necessary to secure a good price, and will get marked up significantly.
  As a one off job, you just dont have the leveridge, and many wont even want to touch it (especially if you try to micro manage, have high expectations of quality or are trying to skimp on costs). What is personal to you, would simply be business as usual BAU to a builder.

  What you think will be fast, cheap and of good quality is probably idealistic and unrealistic and you could easily end up in a dead end with project not moving, especially if you are trying to skimp on costs. If quality is not there, then you could end up in a bit of a nightmare situation having to redo things later on (especially anything moisture related, e.g. roof, bathrooms).

  Also from my experience, no one will care about your place as much as you. In order to appropriately scope and cost what needs to be done, often you need to know yourself (e.g. crawling into the subfloor, roof, on top of roof) and be highly technically knowledgeable (e.g. aware of where to find standards), not afraid to confront others and practical. Sometimes where there are 'gaps' in work, thats where you can smoothen the process by taking things on yourself (e.g. touch ups). It can be a very lonely and exhausting process.

  Personally i think you are in way over your head. I finished a much more minor renovation over 2 years (mostly myself, nothing affecting structural load bearing walls) and found it overwhelming enough. Trades dont like when something is half done or demo'd (my case) and most won't touch something below a certain price regardless of remaining work (i.e. put their name on it).

  You dont sound very handy, and should probably start by taking on a much smaller DIY projects if thats your hobby (e.g. try something non-structural that doesnt require as many (if any) permits, maybe freshen up a room (plaster, paint, floor) or replace a bathroom), assuming that your hobby is to get more into DIY.

  Many people doing trades and physical work aren't highly paid compared to the level of hard work they actually do, skill they have, and the physical injuries they sustain. You should stick to what you do for work.

  The fact that you are referencing the block and interior design are major red flags, that suggest you are giving too much weight to the destination and not the 'journey'.
  They hire like 20 experienced trades on that show to do anything, that is called recklessly splashing cash, and not project management or DIY.

  Right now you seem a bit delusional mixing hobby with interest with work. I will pour some objective cold water on you and just say it, no one will share your interest, hobby or care (to them its just work), and in the end all you'll be left with is large amounts of work and costs that keep piling up.

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    Hangryuman on 29/03/2024 - 18:14

    yep - I used to teach project management

    good, cheap, fast - choose any two (you say one)

    "Good and Cheap ? - it won't be Fast !"
    "Good and Fast ? - it won't be Cheap !"
    "Cheap and Fast ? - it won't be Good !"

    We exchange money for time.

    If we want to save money, we can spend endless amounts of time looking for ways to save money, get stuff cheap, learn DIY skills, and acquire tools before often doing a not-so-great job which could create new problems.

    If we want to save time, we can pay a professional to do it tomorrow, then bemoan how much money we could have saved if we'd spent a bit more time or tried to DIY … or if they didn't give us the result we wanted, regret both the money and the choice.

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  rickdwp on 29/03/2024 - 13:20

  Check out uncle knackered series on YouTube if you haven't already.

  I gotta say I think you're insane doing a half million dollar+ extension as your first owner builder though lol. I would be taking a full year off work to attempt that

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  Hangryuman on 29/03/2024 - 18:01

  hoping to save 20-30% ?

  how about when you still haven't finished 3 years down the track - wanna calculate the value of lost accommodation and inconvenience to others ?

  if you have loved ones living with you, I've seen couples divorce from the stress and arguments of renovation decisions - and I've seen a half-renovated house on the market due to divorce - very difficult to sell, and would get WAY LESS than the unrenovated house before dismantling the walls, because even tradies don't want to throw good money after bad workmanship if they don't know what has been done behind those walls.

  or when you finish the job and someone reports a failure to comply with building code

  pro builders can organise all the different trades to come at the right time, in the right sequence, so the job is completed in the minimum time

  owner-builders not experienced in this without tradies handy will typically take at least 3 times if not 10 times as long as a professional.

  so consider the time-cost of money - do you have a loan you'd want to pay back when settled in, or is this a vanity project to show off your DIY skills (or not), etc.

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