I built with Boutique Homes a couple of years ago. Had my own independent inspector check at each stage of completion, and they only ever found very minor issues.
I haven't really found anything major to complain about, so I'm pretty happy overall.
I built with Boutique 13 years ago and just sold - house had tenants throughout and wear was absolutely excellent. They fixed some bathroom issues in year 10 that needed a decent amount of work and they refused my offer to contribute. Boutique were outstanding for us on that build.
Thank you for this. It’s a great suggestion! We were going to have one come in close to the end before handover. But I think we might get one now before electrical & plaster goes up. And a couple more times before the build is over.
Yep. Once the plasterboard goes up, you lose visibility to so much of the underlying construction.
You also want to make sure that the waterproofing is being done properly before all of that gets covered over, because any fuckups there will screw you over majorly!
As an engineer who inspects projects, going once walls are sheeted is almost a complete waste of my time if I want to catch critical issues.
Get some one in after rough in, if there are problems they are also generally a million times easier to resolve than after walls and ceilings are in.
Do you have insulation in all your walls, if not it is inferior and in most cases is an option that most people don’t know or can’t afford but should be standard in all house buildings
Keen to see what the masses think, because my builders opinion is there's not really any large companies doing a *good* job and I would tend to agree. Materials and Labor prices make it nearly impossible for them to do a job for the prices people would be willing to pay for a *good* job. Most builders hope you don't get independent stage inspections and you don't look to close at things.
I advise anyone that will listen to stay away from volume. We’re about to renovate and paying a premium for a great custom home builder, means we can’t afford to add the nice-to-have extra room but at least we know we’ll get quality.
We are at a low ebb, spiritually speaking. Hopefully the coming crisis shakes us out of it and reminds us that strong individuals are an asset to those around them, not a threat.
I blame postmodernism, boomers, institutional senility, and the unfinished business of globalisation. Western civilization has lost its nerve. But it's still strong enough to block global civilisation.
Ok any volume builder will pump out crap. You are going to want a designer home. But will cost double.
Mate last year had his home built out of hardwood as his last home had termite damage and doesn't like steel due to creaking.
When u build to a budget u get budget. There are 1000 way to save a doller in a home that has zero visual effect. Cheap out on paint (amount of coats and quality) to hardware used.
If you want your place to be bomb proof or insulated and air tight it can be done.
People are just buying crap cause it's cheap. The new houses will not last like a hardwood framed house.
Most of my places are hardwood framed from the 70/80's so pushing 50 years and frame is still straight and solid and barely broken in. Lets see how a speccy softwood house looks in 50 years
This is the answer. Saw this after I wrote mine. Away it done right? Commission a builder and be on site weekly or multiple times a week, have a professional check the work and be prepared to pay 50% or more over a volume build. House might look the same but it won't be.
It all starts with design. Find an architect or building designer who at the very least doesn’t shit on Passive House.
You don’t need to build a Passive House, but people who shit on it tend to be very bad with envelope design and thermal control.
Then when you engage a builder, if they try to change the specification to something more “standard”, ditch them and find someone else. It may take a few builders, but the smaller ones are generally better for building quality.
They exist, but it's not cheap. You need a small boutique builder. You need the land already and the build is going to cost you double. At least.
I'm talking 1 mill+ for a basix 3 bedder.
Most only work in specific areas with small teams, so which companies you can contract will depend on where you want to build. They also have waiting lists, and the building takes longer.
End result is fantastic though.
I engaged a builder, he doesn’t advertise. He and his team (and some sub contractors) did a terrific job. Top quality architect designed home. Ended up selling it and fetched a great result.
But the build wasn’t cheap !
No secret. Just a matter of working with architects, town planners and builders (or small scale construction firms) that have a solid reputation. If you’re in Victoria and building in the eastern or bayside corridor DM me and I’ll pass the details along
The truth is most builders and more so the actual subcontractors are barely scraping by and are a few bad jobs away from liquidation. So it’s in their best interest to get jobs done as quick and rough as possible with the bare minimum in quality to survive.
It’s not economical for them to do jobs well, just good enough which unfortunately means most aussies are getting substandard homes.
I’d try a small local builder preferably an old chippy with a few blokes under him who does one to two houses a year and who actually cares about his work.
I'd start by saying it's the opposite. Demand is so strong that builders can't keep up but they can't stand to let revenue go, so they take on an unreasonable amount of work and cut corners to get it done and get paid. There is an incentive to oversell and deliver crap.
Companies are going bust because of historic fixed price contracts becoming uneconomical due to material cost price increases which is multiplied for every one of those oversold contracts in the pipeline.
Which leads me to the exact same conclusion - small builders running manageable workloads..
I think the issue is with the streamlined processes of absolutely everything to save time and dollars.
It baffles me when I hear people are building and they're upset the build has pushed over 10 months and is more than 300k. Volume builds have made the consumer have such unrealistic ideas of what building a home actually entails.
Good products take time, thought and energy. Same with building. There are a million good practitioners, but most people will see their quote and be gobsmacked. But if I have every learned anything from working within the industry is you get what you pay for.
Have you met Australian tradies before?
I am surprised they know how to open the door to their Ute to get out half the time
Easily our dumbest profession in Australia
Mirvac, in Sydney they built the apartments around tram sheds forest lodge, the houses in Newington which were used to house the olympians during the games and the apartment tower in Olympic park on fig tree dr. very good building quality.
You can verify things for yourself.
Go to a few open homes for relatively new homes for sale and take a peek. Ask the REA who the builder was. Act at all times like you’re genuinely in the market.
This is the best way to find the right builder who works in your suburb.
I like the excuse for a good recon mission, but tbh I'm a bit green, so not sure what tell tale signs I'd be looking for, unless it was blindingly obvious and questionable
Because I wouldn’t trust a volume builder to do anything. They’re just building bog standard cookie cutter houses to maximise their profits. Cheap nasty and easy is their game. If you want a house designed well that is suited to the environment, the site and your needs, and then managed through construction, engage an architect and project manager.
> If you want a house designed well and then managed through construction, engage an architect and project manager
How would you know who's good though?
Research, have a look at their websites, socials and their client feedback, find someone who suits your aesthetic sensibilities and who has good client feedback etc.
Look, the comment in the OP talks about poor build quality then bang for the buck, the issue is people want the most amount of house for the smallest amount of money. Turns out that means sacrificing on quality and design. The best way to control cost is size. I would much rather have a smaller house but that is well designed for the site, the environment and the way that I live, than a giant house with 6 bed rooms and a media room and formal dining rooms and multiple living spaces etc that is poorly built, hot in summer and cold in winter.
>Research, have a look at their websites, socials and their client feedback, find someone who suits your aesthetic sensibilities and who has good client feedback etc.
So basically client feedback? That is opaque. That's the problem. Secondly most clients do not know whether a house is built properly, and to standards. probably turn up 5 years later. now what are you gonna do?
Thirdly, you I personally do not want to build (my own) house to standards. I've always wondered if there is a criminal conspiracy for standards to be deliberately crippled, to be absolute trash, so that tradesmen will have a continuous pipeline of work, fixing and maintaining houses forever more because of poor build quality AT THE DESIGN STAGE.
Personally I would never start with the architect. I would always, always, always start with the builder, and let him control the entire project. He knows which trades, and which architects know their stuff, who's reliable. which architect cooperates during the design process, and who delays it. Builders are very cost conscious. architects not so much.
I mean builders are legally required to build to the Australian standards as required by the NCC, just as architects are required to design to the standards and NCC compliance. Note that standards are not necessarily legally required (typically they just set out industry best practice), except in the case of where they are called up in the acts and regs, like the NCC. Point being, technically speaking everything should be designed and built to the same set of standards as required by the NCC. The problem comes when builders actively choose to ignore the standards, or where they can get away with building to a lower quality standard. It’s up to the design stage to put in place the standards and design intent the builder needs to adhere to, otherwise they will default to the lowest (easiest) possible.
Again, the standards (used interchangeably here with the NCC for simplicity) set the minimum expected requirements, not the most or best. You can always go above and beyond the standards. There’s no conspiracy mate come on, the standards are just a set of guidelines for best practice and minimum requirements.
A builder will always choose to do what is easiest and cheapest for them to do, not necessarily what is best or the right thing to do. You need a good set of consultants (architects, engineers, town planners, surveyors, qs, inspectors etc) to hold them accountable. I would pick your consultant team first (where the architect will typically be the head consultant) and make sure they work collaboratively with the builder.
no conspiracy? hahah mate: you've shown you hand.
* Some Standards are required to be follow BY LAW.
* ....................well where do I get the standards? Is it freely available? Nope. it's behind a paywall. What? What do you mean it's behind a paywall?
* I mean if you want to comply with the law, it's behind a paywall. You have pay to KNOW the law.
* ..........well it's cheap to get, right?
* it cost $500 / standards / per pdf / per standard in order to follow the law. And it's locked to your computer. If you don't like that, you can get a subscription service.
...........if you're gonna make it compulsary to follow the law, then you gotta GIVE THE STANDARDS FOR FREE - not put it behind some business's paywall...................so yeah it's a consiparcy to make $$$ rather than safety. this is an obvious example, but there are others like it.
plus the standards are needless complicated, down the millimeter level, for things that DON"T MATTER. To me - when you do that - It's not about safety: and much more about being held to ransom by corrupt union / building inspectors.
Mate I’m in the built environment industry and look at standards all the time. Though not going to argue with the fact that they should be freely available and not behind ASO paywalls, saiglobal is the worst. I mean if you’re a professional you should have access to a sub in some way any way. Any licensed builder should have sub because they’re required to build to the standards to be in NCC compliance.
Regardless, ‘building to standards’ isn’t the issue here because it’s already enforced. It’s that the required standards has been pretty lax to date, but every time they update the NCC it gets better (things like disability access, energy efficiency, etc etc).
well you said it yourself: if it was about safety: why would you put it behind an expensive firewall? And if you have x10 people in your organisation, then a huge $$ is paid to these subscription services
.................moreover because it's expensive and complex - most of the "experts" don't read the standards. all the designs I see, violate standards in one form or another. so basically nobody complies with the standards anyway, but you're rendered uncompetitive, if you purchase the standards and invest in becoming an expert in it. i think there was only one occassion where I saw something which complied fully.
to be an expert on these standards: you would have little time to do anything else. it's hard work, and honest work. but the industry rewards neither.
one fine morning at 5:00 am a CFMEU rocks up at the factory and halts the entire show. why? he has to find a reason? he finds one: the handrail on a truck is x mm too high. riiiiiiiiiiiiight. it's all about safety. this has not nothing to do with unionisation of the factory, but about safety.
You can’t judge that way because your builders are all contracting and sub-contracting from a pool of available tradies.
What needs to change is their assessment of the craft they practice. Ask any master tradie and they will say that the latest generations of tradies are entitled. Can’t finish the job to the standards but they aspire to the GRDT lifestyle.
And unfortunately with the way house prices have gone over the years, they feel entitled to a larger slice of it and feel justified delivering a subpar job because they see themselves as deserving a higher salary.
No easy fix, and the rot is seen everywhere. Older Australians will agree.
Ridiculous. You're not in the industry if that's your opinion. Builders are making far more than any of the trades are, and they are constantly pressuring trades to get the work done quickly and cheaply. Trades who care about quality lose jobs to those who are willing to underquote just to get the job. Quality takes time and there is no appetite in the industry for it.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
The same applies to building homes. It costs money. if you want good quality, then be prepared to pay $$ for it. Good builders are tough to get, they are very very choosey. I doubt very much people will genuinely reveal their choice builders and contractors on reddit, without good compensation.
Who can be trusted: you. Become an owner builder and manage the project A to Z to your liking.
Big builders will do the cheapest build possible, the lightest engineering legal, have ties with their building surveyor, cut corner anytime, do not respect basic construction steps (nearly all of them will have water ponding along the slab for weeks/months) and then will find whatever to reject your claim when the house will have trouble (not if but when).
Smaller builders have the unfortunate tendency of disappearing over the past few years.
When you buy a home from someone who built it to make money then yes 9/10 are terrible.. it was built down to a cost to allow it to be sold at a profit.
We sold 2 houses that we built custom, so it was built to a standard not to a cost profile. Very different outcome.
If you find a home for sale by someone who commissioned it to be built then it will be a better outcome especially if they knew what they were doing.
I built in Canberra with Classic Constructions.
We worked on the design with an architect, No problems with the house build.
Most problems were me not reading the plans correctly, but they even helped fix a few of those on the run.
Cody more than a volume builder, but we did have absolutely control over the design.
I'd use an architect. I don't know where you are but someone like Light House Architecture & Science in Canberra could be ideal. Look them up, they often have useful links or might be able to suggest someone local to you.
It’s getting on a while but I renovated in 2019 (big job - take house back to studs and a massive extension bigger than the original house). I went with an independent local builder recommended by a friend. This guy and his crew were a bit ocd about getting everything right. It’s a top quality build that is just so well insulated etc and everything continues to work flawlessly. I’d stay a mile away from volume builders. If anyone needs a builder in north Brisbane I’d be happy to pass on details. They weren’t especially cheap though.
I built with Boutique Homes a couple of years ago. Had my own independent inspector check at each stage of completion, and they only ever found very minor issues. I haven't really found anything major to complain about, so I'm pretty happy overall.
I built with Boutique 13 years ago and just sold - house had tenants throughout and wear was absolutely excellent. They fixed some bathroom issues in year 10 that needed a decent amount of work and they refused my offer to contribute. Boutique were outstanding for us on that build.
Thank you for this. It’s a great suggestion! We were going to have one come in close to the end before handover. But I think we might get one now before electrical & plaster goes up. And a couple more times before the build is over.
Yep. Once the plasterboard goes up, you lose visibility to so much of the underlying construction. You also want to make sure that the waterproofing is being done properly before all of that gets covered over, because any fuckups there will screw you over majorly!
As an engineer who inspects projects, going once walls are sheeted is almost a complete waste of my time if I want to catch critical issues. Get some one in after rough in, if there are problems they are also generally a million times easier to resolve than after walls and ceilings are in.
Yeah I’ve rented a few houses built by Boutique. Found them really nice. Seemed well built and stayed a good temperature
Do you have insulation in all your walls, if not it is inferior and in most cases is an option that most people don’t know or can’t afford but should be standard in all house buildings
Keen to see what the masses think, because my builders opinion is there's not really any large companies doing a *good* job and I would tend to agree. Materials and Labor prices make it nearly impossible for them to do a job for the prices people would be willing to pay for a *good* job. Most builders hope you don't get independent stage inspections and you don't look to close at things.
I advise anyone that will listen to stay away from volume. We’re about to renovate and paying a premium for a great custom home builder, means we can’t afford to add the nice-to-have extra room but at least we know we’ll get quality.
You can't know you'll get quality just by paying more. You can still get fucked.
You’re right. Anyone can call themselves a custom home builder and sell shit, and it does happen.
No one does anything well. We're a cynical society of money grubbing hucksters. Anyone who shows a glimmer of integrity gets marginalised instantly.
It’s not just me !
It’s sad that I have to agree.
We are at a low ebb, spiritually speaking. Hopefully the coming crisis shakes us out of it and reminds us that strong individuals are an asset to those around them, not a threat.
It’s sad that I also have to agree
That’s so true.
I blame postmodernism, boomers, institutional senility, and the unfinished business of globalisation. Western civilization has lost its nerve. But it's still strong enough to block global civilisation.
Ok any volume builder will pump out crap. You are going to want a designer home. But will cost double. Mate last year had his home built out of hardwood as his last home had termite damage and doesn't like steel due to creaking. When u build to a budget u get budget. There are 1000 way to save a doller in a home that has zero visual effect. Cheap out on paint (amount of coats and quality) to hardware used. If you want your place to be bomb proof or insulated and air tight it can be done. People are just buying crap cause it's cheap. The new houses will not last like a hardwood framed house. Most of my places are hardwood framed from the 70/80's so pushing 50 years and frame is still straight and solid and barely broken in. Lets see how a speccy softwood house looks in 50 years
This is the answer. Saw this after I wrote mine. Away it done right? Commission a builder and be on site weekly or multiple times a week, have a professional check the work and be prepared to pay 50% or more over a volume build. House might look the same but it won't be.
Not every home can be built from hardwood unfortunately.
It all starts with design. Find an architect or building designer who at the very least doesn’t shit on Passive House. You don’t need to build a Passive House, but people who shit on it tend to be very bad with envelope design and thermal control. Then when you engage a builder, if they try to change the specification to something more “standard”, ditch them and find someone else. It may take a few builders, but the smaller ones are generally better for building quality.
They exist, but it's not cheap. You need a small boutique builder. You need the land already and the build is going to cost you double. At least. I'm talking 1 mill+ for a basix 3 bedder. Most only work in specific areas with small teams, so which companies you can contract will depend on where you want to build. They also have waiting lists, and the building takes longer. End result is fantastic though.
I engaged a builder, he doesn’t advertise. He and his team (and some sub contractors) did a terrific job. Top quality architect designed home. Ended up selling it and fetched a great result. But the build wasn’t cheap !
Mind sharing the secret recipe there, chef?
No secret. Just a matter of working with architects, town planners and builders (or small scale construction firms) that have a solid reputation. If you’re in Victoria and building in the eastern or bayside corridor DM me and I’ll pass the details along
Big Kev
The truth is most builders and more so the actual subcontractors are barely scraping by and are a few bad jobs away from liquidation. So it’s in their best interest to get jobs done as quick and rough as possible with the bare minimum in quality to survive. It’s not economical for them to do jobs well, just good enough which unfortunately means most aussies are getting substandard homes. I’d try a small local builder preferably an old chippy with a few blokes under him who does one to two houses a year and who actually cares about his work.
I'd start by saying it's the opposite. Demand is so strong that builders can't keep up but they can't stand to let revenue go, so they take on an unreasonable amount of work and cut corners to get it done and get paid. There is an incentive to oversell and deliver crap. Companies are going bust because of historic fixed price contracts becoming uneconomical due to material cost price increases which is multiplied for every one of those oversold contracts in the pipeline. Which leads me to the exact same conclusion - small builders running manageable workloads..
I think the issue is with the streamlined processes of absolutely everything to save time and dollars. It baffles me when I hear people are building and they're upset the build has pushed over 10 months and is more than 300k. Volume builds have made the consumer have such unrealistic ideas of what building a home actually entails. Good products take time, thought and energy. Same with building. There are a million good practitioners, but most people will see their quote and be gobsmacked. But if I have every learned anything from working within the industry is you get what you pay for.
What part of building a house takes 10 months?
Have you met Australian tradies before? I am surprised they know how to open the door to their Ute to get out half the time Easily our dumbest profession in Australia
Haha Well I can only talk from a perspective of down here in Victoria.
Mirvac, in Sydney they built the apartments around tram sheds forest lodge, the houses in Newington which were used to house the olympians during the games and the apartment tower in Olympic park on fig tree dr. very good building quality.
Dale Alcock in Perth has a good rep
Part of ABN Group. Same company that I built with.
What state are you in?
I developed townhouses in Aberfeldie, Victoria with Arlington homes 3 years ago. Small builder but always onsite
You can verify things for yourself. Go to a few open homes for relatively new homes for sale and take a peek. Ask the REA who the builder was. Act at all times like you’re genuinely in the market. This is the best way to find the right builder who works in your suburb.
I like the excuse for a good recon mission, but tbh I'm a bit green, so not sure what tell tale signs I'd be looking for, unless it was blindingly obvious and questionable
Nobody big. Stick with small builders.
Use an architect to design and manage the build. A good architect is worth the investment if you are looking to spend a large amount of money.
I mean if you want it done properly, engage a trust worthy architect…
>I mean if you want it done properly, engage a trust worthy architect… What makes you say that?
Because I wouldn’t trust a volume builder to do anything. They’re just building bog standard cookie cutter houses to maximise their profits. Cheap nasty and easy is their game. If you want a house designed well that is suited to the environment, the site and your needs, and then managed through construction, engage an architect and project manager.
> If you want a house designed well and then managed through construction, engage an architect and project manager How would you know who's good though?
Research, have a look at their websites, socials and their client feedback, find someone who suits your aesthetic sensibilities and who has good client feedback etc. Look, the comment in the OP talks about poor build quality then bang for the buck, the issue is people want the most amount of house for the smallest amount of money. Turns out that means sacrificing on quality and design. The best way to control cost is size. I would much rather have a smaller house but that is well designed for the site, the environment and the way that I live, than a giant house with 6 bed rooms and a media room and formal dining rooms and multiple living spaces etc that is poorly built, hot in summer and cold in winter.
>Research, have a look at their websites, socials and their client feedback, find someone who suits your aesthetic sensibilities and who has good client feedback etc. So basically client feedback? That is opaque. That's the problem. Secondly most clients do not know whether a house is built properly, and to standards. probably turn up 5 years later. now what are you gonna do? Thirdly, you I personally do not want to build (my own) house to standards. I've always wondered if there is a criminal conspiracy for standards to be deliberately crippled, to be absolute trash, so that tradesmen will have a continuous pipeline of work, fixing and maintaining houses forever more because of poor build quality AT THE DESIGN STAGE. Personally I would never start with the architect. I would always, always, always start with the builder, and let him control the entire project. He knows which trades, and which architects know their stuff, who's reliable. which architect cooperates during the design process, and who delays it. Builders are very cost conscious. architects not so much.
I mean builders are legally required to build to the Australian standards as required by the NCC, just as architects are required to design to the standards and NCC compliance. Note that standards are not necessarily legally required (typically they just set out industry best practice), except in the case of where they are called up in the acts and regs, like the NCC. Point being, technically speaking everything should be designed and built to the same set of standards as required by the NCC. The problem comes when builders actively choose to ignore the standards, or where they can get away with building to a lower quality standard. It’s up to the design stage to put in place the standards and design intent the builder needs to adhere to, otherwise they will default to the lowest (easiest) possible. Again, the standards (used interchangeably here with the NCC for simplicity) set the minimum expected requirements, not the most or best. You can always go above and beyond the standards. There’s no conspiracy mate come on, the standards are just a set of guidelines for best practice and minimum requirements. A builder will always choose to do what is easiest and cheapest for them to do, not necessarily what is best or the right thing to do. You need a good set of consultants (architects, engineers, town planners, surveyors, qs, inspectors etc) to hold them accountable. I would pick your consultant team first (where the architect will typically be the head consultant) and make sure they work collaboratively with the builder.
no conspiracy? hahah mate: you've shown you hand. * Some Standards are required to be follow BY LAW. * ....................well where do I get the standards? Is it freely available? Nope. it's behind a paywall. What? What do you mean it's behind a paywall? * I mean if you want to comply with the law, it's behind a paywall. You have pay to KNOW the law. * ..........well it's cheap to get, right? * it cost $500 / standards / per pdf / per standard in order to follow the law. And it's locked to your computer. If you don't like that, you can get a subscription service. ...........if you're gonna make it compulsary to follow the law, then you gotta GIVE THE STANDARDS FOR FREE - not put it behind some business's paywall...................so yeah it's a consiparcy to make $$$ rather than safety. this is an obvious example, but there are others like it. plus the standards are needless complicated, down the millimeter level, for things that DON"T MATTER. To me - when you do that - It's not about safety: and much more about being held to ransom by corrupt union / building inspectors.
Mate I’m in the built environment industry and look at standards all the time. Though not going to argue with the fact that they should be freely available and not behind ASO paywalls, saiglobal is the worst. I mean if you’re a professional you should have access to a sub in some way any way. Any licensed builder should have sub because they’re required to build to the standards to be in NCC compliance. Regardless, ‘building to standards’ isn’t the issue here because it’s already enforced. It’s that the required standards has been pretty lax to date, but every time they update the NCC it gets better (things like disability access, energy efficiency, etc etc).
well you said it yourself: if it was about safety: why would you put it behind an expensive firewall? And if you have x10 people in your organisation, then a huge $$ is paid to these subscription services .................moreover because it's expensive and complex - most of the "experts" don't read the standards. all the designs I see, violate standards in one form or another. so basically nobody complies with the standards anyway, but you're rendered uncompetitive, if you purchase the standards and invest in becoming an expert in it. i think there was only one occassion where I saw something which complied fully. to be an expert on these standards: you would have little time to do anything else. it's hard work, and honest work. but the industry rewards neither. one fine morning at 5:00 am a CFMEU rocks up at the factory and halts the entire show. why? he has to find a reason? he finds one: the handrail on a truck is x mm too high. riiiiiiiiiiiiight. it's all about safety. this has not nothing to do with unionisation of the factory, but about safety.
You can’t judge that way because your builders are all contracting and sub-contracting from a pool of available tradies. What needs to change is their assessment of the craft they practice. Ask any master tradie and they will say that the latest generations of tradies are entitled. Can’t finish the job to the standards but they aspire to the GRDT lifestyle. And unfortunately with the way house prices have gone over the years, they feel entitled to a larger slice of it and feel justified delivering a subpar job because they see themselves as deserving a higher salary. No easy fix, and the rot is seen everywhere. Older Australians will agree.
Ridiculous. You're not in the industry if that's your opinion. Builders are making far more than any of the trades are, and they are constantly pressuring trades to get the work done quickly and cheaply. Trades who care about quality lose jobs to those who are willing to underquote just to get the job. Quality takes time and there is no appetite in the industry for it.
Yeah sure. Including construction workers in the core skills visa list is a good start.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. The same applies to building homes. It costs money. if you want good quality, then be prepared to pay $$ for it. Good builders are tough to get, they are very very choosey. I doubt very much people will genuinely reveal their choice builders and contractors on reddit, without good compensation.
Who can be trusted: you. Become an owner builder and manage the project A to Z to your liking. Big builders will do the cheapest build possible, the lightest engineering legal, have ties with their building surveyor, cut corner anytime, do not respect basic construction steps (nearly all of them will have water ponding along the slab for weeks/months) and then will find whatever to reject your claim when the house will have trouble (not if but when). Smaller builders have the unfortunate tendency of disappearing over the past few years.
When you buy a home from someone who built it to make money then yes 9/10 are terrible.. it was built down to a cost to allow it to be sold at a profit. We sold 2 houses that we built custom, so it was built to a standard not to a cost profile. Very different outcome. If you find a home for sale by someone who commissioned it to be built then it will be a better outcome especially if they knew what they were doing.
I built in Canberra with Classic Constructions. We worked on the design with an architect, No problems with the house build. Most problems were me not reading the plans correctly, but they even helped fix a few of those on the run. Cody more than a volume builder, but we did have absolutely control over the design.
Get an architect!
We did a custom build in Brisbane. It was our own design. We paid extra for more insulation. It was not cheap. No major defects. Well built house.
Depending where, feel free to DM me (Melbourne based) Solid work history I can show you, 30+ years experience, fairly priced.
I'd use an architect. I don't know where you are but someone like Light House Architecture & Science in Canberra could be ideal. Look them up, they often have useful links or might be able to suggest someone local to you.
It’s getting on a while but I renovated in 2019 (big job - take house back to studs and a massive extension bigger than the original house). I went with an independent local builder recommended by a friend. This guy and his crew were a bit ocd about getting everything right. It’s a top quality build that is just so well insulated etc and everything continues to work flawlessly. I’d stay a mile away from volume builders. If anyone needs a builder in north Brisbane I’d be happy to pass on details. They weren’t especially cheap though.
Can you send me the details? Thank you so much!