I was discussing a knockdown rebuild project in Pascoe Vale over the weekend and what a lengthy nightmare it has become.
The project started 5 years ago with some advice to firstly engage a drafting person to design their new home. Unfortunately the draftsman employed had very little experience in drafting single dwellings and specialized in multi-unit developments.
The next move was to engage a building company capable of doing drafting and building from start to finish.
A building company was appointed and drafting began with reasonable results producing a well designed custom home.
Problems then started with the clients losing confidence with the builders systems.
To elaborate further the clients had been attended to by several sales consultants with varied knowledge of building and of their requirements.
Frustration set in when the first sales person left then the second needed to be filled in on all the details again.
The manager of the company was then asked about several small details of the build and when he couldn’t answer these simply questions the clients lost confidence and decided to stop the preliminary works with the company.
The above time lapse was 4+ years, the clients then started finalization of the pre-works with Berstan Homes and have now signed building contracts and building will be starting shortly.
The above story is a common one with most people knowing little about the processes involved in doing a knock down rebuild and even building in general, also showing that with just a couple of average decisions leads to a lot of wasted time and terrible frustration.
My advice is to always talk to the actual building practitioner and if you’re not completely happy with them don’t build with them!
You must be happy because you will not only be spending a large amount of money, you will be dealing with the builder for the next couple of years!