Excited by Recycled Red Bricks

The last post here provided an update of where we are at with the first time subdivision. It included some of the challenges we went through with the finance process and outlined where the building is up to.

Since then it has all been relatively smooth sailing. It seems that the more complex tasks of financing, subdividing and registering all the paperwork have now made way for the fun part and the builders are hard at work doing what they do best, building!

Our vision for the dwelling was drawn from the inspiration of old recycled red bricks, the natural environment, and the size, shape and orientation of the allotment. That initial vision and sketch drawing has enabled us to continue to work towards a final product and home for someone (we’ll compare that sketch to the final product in a future post).

So the bricklayers are currently finishing off their part of the project (which has only taken two days!), where they are laying around 8000 recycled reds. The bricks have come from Ecobricks and are a fantastic rustic red colour. They absolutely ooze their former life which we love! The initial conversation with the bricklayers was interesting. They thought we would want to flip any painted or more rugged edges inside so that only the most clean and neat face of the brick was on display on the final wall. We quickly dismissed that assumption and outlined that in fact quite the opposite was the case! We want to embrace the eclectic aspect of recycled bricks and asked that the bricklayer lay them as they came. The interim results are below:

 

Front of house - bricks

Looking across front of house - bricks

The bricklayers are pretty impressed themselves with the finish and are looking forward to seeing the final product. We literally couldn’t be happier with how it’s looking. Cost wise - there is no real different to new and lighter bricks. The more affordable purchase price is offset by the little bit extra laying price.

The next phase in the construction is to finish the plastering, skirting and architrave within the house, followed by the laying of the tiles. Look out for those!

Within the next week or two we will also be getting a start on the landscaping, which we intend to complete ourselves. The landscape design, use of recycled materials, choice of plants and way we will carry out the works warrant a blog post in its own right – so for now we’ll leave it there. Please comment if you have any ideas for the landscaping! We’re putting it all together and throwing around lots of options.

The Building!!!

Another long spell since last blogging, and again a lot has happened.

Subdivision is all through and Title documents have been issued...not like we get to see them but the bank is keeping them safe for us. We had a really good conveyancer doing this for us. You can do your own conveyancing, that is transferring ownership of land, but it may not be worth the time or the risk (in Victoria see- http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing-and-accommodation/buying-and-selling-property/selling-property/conveyancing-and-contracts-for-sellers). We were really waiting for these titles so that the bank could do another valuation of the property (two lots now and not just one) and we could get our loan approved, finally.

We are starting off on a construction loan where each of us is paying the same amount for repayments, which increases incrementally as money is released by the bank. For those not familiar with this process; your builder will require payments at different stages of the build (slab, frame, etc) and will bill you after each stage is complete. This invoice is then signed by one of us and goes to the bank who pays the builder. Not a dime of cash goes into our account, only debt. This is good in that you don't pay interest on the whole amount from the outset but it goes up in increments as loan money is actually used.

After the build is done we will roll this construction loan over into another loan, like a normal home loan.

Now that that boring finance stuff is over, to the exciting part....THE HOUSE!!!!

Our builders were pretty keen to get into it and wasted no time in scraping the site and digging footings. Before we knew it there was a slab, frame and a roof on the thing and we were doing a final decision on where lighting was going. Below are some pics, which is obviously much better than me writing about it. The dates give you a good indication of how quick it went up. We had a bit of a hold-up for a week or so recently but everything is back on track now. And since the house is so compact, most of the trades are getting in and out in a flash. We are hoping it will be the same for the second fit and finishing.

Site scrape and footing holes- Pretty boring looking but this was done on April 11

Slab up on April 18

Frame up, wrapped, roof on, windows and doors fitted and first fit electrical done-  May 25

View from the outdoor area

And something to keep warm

So the plasterboard has just arrived today and our recycled bricks are getting delivered next week, so more changes soon (I am excited about the bricks).

Subdivision and Development Costs

How many times do you hear "it was on time and on budget". Politicians love it...when it goes right that is. But so often it rarely goes that smoothly. This post identifies some of the costs involved in a small time subdivision.

One of the challenges before we started the first small time subdivision was forecasting the total costs of the project and the likely timeframes. We both have a little experience in understanding things like the approx sixty days to get a planning permit and a few grand here and there but it's so often the little things that spring up and become the big blow out. Fair to say the sewer caught us off guard a little.

Below is the costings for the two lot subdivision and contruction of the dwelling. Some minor extras will spring up, we are sure of that, but there shouldn't be anything 'substantial' *touches wooden desk*.

The interesting thing is that a few people have said, including the Council, that a two lot subdivision will cost around about $25,000 if it has road access and $35,000 if you have to contruct a road. It was hard to picture where all the money would go - we thought we might do it for closer to $15,000. As it has happended with a few grand here, a few grand there, the figure of 25 was almost spot on. All up the subdivision will cost around $26,000.

The subdivision process is now almost complete. In fact we are very close to obtaining our final compliance and lodging to get new titles for the two blocks. That will mean we can go back to the bank and say "show me the money....show me the money!". We have been informed by the bank that once the subdivision is complete funding will be a breeze! *again touches wooden desk*. Our next few posts will transition through that stage of the process and into the actual physical house construction! Exciting times.

For now... want to see what 9 grand worth of sewer and drainage looks like? See below and thanks for reading.



Entrace to new lot - the lot boundary is marked with pink flag



Street frontage - that's the drainage pit in the foreground




The sewer trench - those smaller ones are telecomm and gas (i think)
Apologies for making you turn your head :)

 

And that there is a sewer pit and inspection cap!

Long time no Blog

We have both been a little busy with stuff so haven't really had a chance to do posts on what has been going on with our first small time development. Time-wise things are going pretty well for a couple of first timers, a couple of months over but only because of one sticking point. And of course we we have run into a couple more costs. Here is a run down of what's gone on.

Planning Permit

Since the last post we have made it through planning and received our permit without any modifications to the proposal. The draftsman who drew up our plans said if we got our proposal through with the reduced front setback (the standard is 3m but we had a 2m setback), he wanted to know how we did it. The answer...we gave the planner who was assessing the application as many reasons to grant our permit as possible.

Planners make decisions based on policy, and in Victoria this is in the Planning Scheme. A planner cannot read our minds so we had to tell them how our proposal met all the relevant objectives in the planning scheme. We thought that the small setback would be the main sticking point in our application, so instead of trying to hide it, we emphasised it and showed how we were addressing it. Although we didn't meet the standard  we demonstrated how it met the objective, see the clause I am talking about- http://planningschemes.dpcd.vic.gov.au/aavpp/55_03.pdf

Finance

This is the sticking point. Once we had our planning permit, we could go ahead and apply for finance. We wanted to borrow enough for both the subdivision and the build, roughly $170k. The trick, as we eventually found out, is that the bank wouldn't lend until the subdivision was completed.

What we were told by the people with the money (ie the bank), is that they will not value the property as two separate houses on two separate lots until the subdivision is complete, that is until we have two separate titles in our hot little hands. Essentially, two houses on one lot is not worth as much as two houses on two lots. The result of this is that our loan to value ratio was too high which equals....no loan! :(

Sucks right. So we are having to finance the subdivision ourselves, but after that is finished we will be able to get the loan for the build from the bank and start seeing some spades in the ground.

SMALLTIME LESSON- Not enough equity in the property? You need the cash to do the subdivision.

Sewer extension

Fortunately our subdivision is relatively cheap (I think so anyway and something that will be gone into in more detail next post). We are subdividing a corner allotment and are lucky that most services are right out the front of our new lot; all except sewer.

The authority responsible for sewer and water in our area is Coliban Water. We needed to engage an engineering firm (Coliban had a list you had to choose from) who would chat with Coliban and draw up plans as to how they would get the poo pipe to our lot. After that was agreed, they tendered out the work to about 5 different companies. The prices that came back were enormously different, the cheapest being a bit less than $10k and the most expensive being almost 25K! Now we already know we should get a few quotes but I think this shows why it is important. Even the cheapest one is a bit more than we accounted for, however it was the design of the system, mainly additional manholes, which added the cost.

Summing up

There is a little more going on at the moment but I have probably written enough for one sitting. Next post might be about project items and costs. It is always interesting reading about costs right?

Recycled Materials: The Return

So last weekend we did a bit of a clean-up of the backyard; ie a site clearance. The yard had some work done to it over the years, however as happens with many backyards when people become busy, it was a little bit unloved.

Before (looking north)

Of course once the development is finished, a big part of the finished product will be landscaping. We wanted to keep a number of things from the yard to use again, this included plants, rocks, timber, pavers and even the smashed up pieces of two concrete garden beds.

After (looking north)

The Plants:
The grasses should be fine to transplant (hoping they survive the build period). The eucalyptus will be another story. Apparently they don't transplant well if the trees are above a certain size; around 1 metre is the max I think. Even if only the grasses survive they will provide a good number of low maintenance plants, especially for a small yard.

The Rocks:

Really exciting right. Not that exciting while in a pile, but there are a number of decent sized granite rocks and some lengths of timber which we will reuse in the landscaping.

The Concrete:

This took the form of some pavers and the old garden beds. The pavers will be given their third life in our new development, probably used in the small patio area. We were wondering what to do with the concrete garden beds. When we established that they were too large to move...we smashed them. These pieces won't get thrown out, but we will use them to build small walls for garden beds. (I found this video which has a short bit about reusing concrete)

The garden beds having felt the wrath

Example garden bed wall from broken concrete 

Although this is clearly a minuscule amount of concrete, we feel it is good to reuse the stuff we already have. Concrete has a relatively small amount of embodied energy (see- http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/pubs/fs52.pdf) however the production of cement is a large contributor of emissions. Concrete is the most commonly used building material on the planet and apparently produces about 4-5% of world carbon emissions primarily because we use so much of the stuff.

Before (looking south)

So all in all it isn't much material, but every little bit helps when you are small time.

After (looking south)

First Small Time Lesson

Small lot? Get it surveyed early.

A few weeks ago we had the plans for the house properly drafted and positioned on a site plan, but there were issues with it fitting on the lot as we planned and now the draftsperson wants a proper survey so they can be sure everything is hunky dory. 

We were initially going to get our surveyor in to establish site boundaries, features and levels for the services etc, but were told by our building company that it wouldn't be necessary at this stage as they could do a basic measure and do the preliminary Plan of Subdivision. However due to our small site and tight fit for the house there are now problems with fitting the house on the site with the required setbacks. Also, as happens with many lots, the fences don't line up with the boundaries.

This isn't a huge issue and will be sorted out with a few tweaks of the layout (bringing in the carport a fraction or making a room slightly smaller) however just to make sure we are now getting the survey done. This has put our schedule out by two weeks so far and will probably be another week at least before we get the surveyors plans. It might throw our schedule out by about three weeks to a month and can get our planning permit lodged.

Fortunately this doesn't have a financial impact on us. But if we were in a different situation and were having to make loan repayments, such as having just purchased a vacant lot or maybe having a similar time delay later in the construction phase, it would not be so nice.

A nice little lesson for a larger project later.

Love Thy Neighbour

Let's face it. Happy neighbours, happy life.

It doesn't really matter what you want to do, if you get on well with the folks over the fence then generally things are smooth sailing. Keep a few chickens, enjoy a celebration or two, let the lawn and weeds get away or even have a neighbour with weed of a different variety - if the relationship is strong factors which could otherwise become civil disputes (and sometimes legal enforcement) can easily be overlooked. The same applies for development.

Almost ten percent of all development applications end up at the state administrative tribunal in Victoria (Aus). That is massive! - it's resource intensive, time and cost consuming and a general headache for all parties. Too often you see development applications recieve objections or even action groups form purely on the basis of an underlying tension. Often on the back of a prior dispute, be it minor or major.

For our development we have decided to be as transparent and upfront as possible with the neighbours.

It's all about face-to-face conversation

Through the statutory process of applying to the local Council for a planning permit to subdivide and develop the land the surrounding owners and occupiers will each get notice of the application and be given the opportunity to view the plans and make a submission - objecting, supporting, making general comments for consideration or nothing at all. Most just run through the process of advertising the application and dealing with submissions as they occur. We are trying a different method.

The Council can follow due planning process but there's nothing stopping us from doing our own engagement upfront. So last weekend we literally took a drafted plan, some basic material ideas and went door knocking! Three neighbours were home and this is what they said:

House #1
Us: introduction and proposal    
Neighbour: Go your hardest! Cheers for letting us know

House #2
Us: "                                  "      
Neighbour: Looks good - thank your for keeping me informed

House #3
Us: "                                  "      
Neighbour: It's your property but thank you for coming over

Moral of the story - People are happy just to know what's happening  - If there are issues you can just talk them through. The simple undertaking of face to face communication is truly valued and people can now expect a formal advertising notice in their letterbox and (hopefully) understand what it is, and the proposed outcome. People only fear the unknown - so be clear, honest and friendly.

For larger projects here's a link to developing a comprehensive plan for communication Preparing an Engagement Strategy

So anyway - so far so good in relation to the proposed plan and how it's digested within the direct neighbourhood. Once the formal advertising period commences (which will be in a a month or so as per the project plan) we will also laminate a copy of the plan and attach it on the fence along with contact details for anyone to have a chat. There still could be issues, we certainly haven't extinguished objections, but by genuinely respecting the neighbours and their right be informed and lodge comments, we think we have a good chance of avoiding problems and moving through to contruction phase, as planned.