Owner building my own home was the most thrilling and exciting project I have tackled to date so far. Creating something of your own can be a very satisfying experience. Although very exciting, it was also very daunting too! There were things I wish I knew then that I know now. Either from learning from my own mistakes through to my own learnings whilst on site or researching online.
Below we have compiled OUR TOP 10 TIPS OF OWNER BUILDING.
10) Know What Owner Building Might Entail
Owner Building can be a tough gig, but very rewarding. This first tip is general and will be quick but is still very important! Do your research before you decide to take the plundge and make sure you are comfortable with what owner building is all about.
Try this post from the Home Design Directory – Owner Builder A beginners Guide. It is a great well thought out article with loads of information. If you are new to Owner Building add this article to your reading pile.
9) Get Support & Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Questions
Always look to seek support and advice whenever you need it. Whether its from your own tradies, friends, family or when you are out and about at hardware stores and building retailers shops. Remember too, if you have a question just ask it! Even if you think it sounds silly, you will never know the answer unless you ask.
8) Look For Ways To Save
There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, similarly there are plenty of ways to save some cash when owner building too! A good architect or draftsman can play a critical role in adopting a beautiful yet cost saving design. However a cost effective design is just the first step you can take in saving some money.
An easy solution to save money owner building is for you to take on a bit more of the hard yakka work yourselves. Generally this is the main reason people decide to take on owner building in the first place. But remember, only tackle tasks that are within you particular skill set or capabilities. Also remember some tasks need licenced trades to do the work like plumbing and electrical works.
Shop around when searching for fixtures and finishes. There are a million and one supplies out there begging to supply your project, so shop around for the best prices. Look for auction houses in the building category. We stumbled across a few when we were owner building and there are some gems out there that offer big discounts. Our favourite auction house was Renovator Auctions Warehouse in NSW.
7) Create Mood Boards
I sat this particular one out, however my wife thouroughly enjoyed searching through thousands of room ideas looking for inspiration and quite frankly day dreaming! This is a great tip to help you get started in creating your dream home, it especially helped us get on the same page with what each of us were envisioning for our home. As an added bonus, it greatly benefited myself and our contractors to work from these ideas as we progressed through the build.
Our favourite platforms were:
- Houzz Photos: With millions of user uploaded photos you can browse through. You can also filter your search by room, price and styles just to name a few.
- Pinterest: Pinterest was also another great platform where businesses and clients would upload photos of their completed work too. You can also use it to create your own mood boards and browse other peoples mood boards. My wife used Pinterest to create a mood board for each room for our build.
6) Complete Our FREE Owner Builder Checklist Tool
We have created a dynamic form where you can create your own checklist for your build. Because each build is different to the next one, we have a set of dynamic questions at the start that will build you your own checklist unique to your build. The best thing about it is it’s completely FREE and printable!
Go here to visit our ‘most comprehensive owner builder checklist’.
5) Check Your Trade Licenses
This one will be a short and quick one. For the ease and time it takes, using the below tool from the NSW government to check a trades license before using them can save a massive headache down the track.
Go here to check a trade persons licence and click the button that says ‘check online’ and search your trades name or licence number. This tool will also show you if there has been any issues your trade person has been involved in the past as well.
4) Communication Is Key
Look, you probably knew communication was going to be an inclusion in this top 10 list. But nonetheless, I had to include it because communication is actually key to a successful project! Like everything these days, good communication is greatly beneficial to all stakeholders.
When communication breaks down on site, all hell breaks loose. And, when this happens everyone loses. Ensure you are on top of your communication with your sub contractors and you are clear and concise with what you are saying to them.
Myself when I am communicating important aspects of a project verbally on site or on a phone call I would always follow up the conversation with an email detailing our conversation. This is an awesome technique to ensure everyone is on the same page and if not the email will at least restart the conversation until everyone is back on the same page.
3) Create Proper Agreements
Unfortunately there are a lot of conflicts that arise between contractors and clients in regards to a contractors scope of works. And if there are no proper agreements inplace like a contract, most of the time the contractor can do what they want or just walk away.
So how can you combat this? Easy, use contracts to ensure there are no misconceptions between yourself and your contractors. You can find online different types of contract templates you can use to create a proper agreement between you and your subbies. For example, the NSW government have free construction contract templates availble online for you to download. Just visit the link above and scroll down to the heading ‘Use Construction Contract Templates’.
When creating a contract, ensure it is relevant to your project and everything you need from that particular contractor is included within. Write up a detailed Scope Of Works for them so everyone starts off on the same page!
2) Planning & Organisation
Planning, coordinating and just being organised in construction can be classified as an art form these days. Sites can sometimes be mayhem! However, with careful and thoughtful planning your site can and will run smoothly.
There are a lot of tools and processes you can use to plan and coordinate your site and here are my faves:
- Create a construction programme. Now this programme doesn’t have to be as detailed and in depth like they are for large multi-residential and commercial sites. But simply writing down a time line of tasks (in order of events), with dates and rough timeframes can help you keep on top of everything and plan ahead.
- 4 weekly look aheads. Draw up a grid with boxes to represent each day for the next 4 weeks. Then fill out each day with expected tasks that should be ocurring on that given day. You should include specific trade tasks (Like electrical rough in or kitchen install), expected deliveries (like fix out materials or tiles) and expected visitors (like stage inspections or site meetings).
- Site diary. I highly recommend a site diary where you keep track each day of who that was on site, what was achieved, if any visitors attended and if any deliveries arrived. By doing this you will find you will have a better grip on whats happening on site and will be better positioned to make adjustments to stay on track.
1) Budget, budget, budget!
I am going to be straight down the line when it comes to budgets. I believe budgeting is one of the most important obstacles for an owner builder to tackle and overcome. Your budget and how you maintain it throughout your build will make or break your project.
A couple of things to remember with your budget:
- Your budget needs to be realistic. You need to ensure your budgets and allowances reflect a realistic cost to complete the build. When designing your build, architects/draftsman should assist in designing plans to suit your budget. Try breaking down the build into specific stages to help detail out budgets for each milestone. If your budget isn’t realistic you will find you will run out of money before you can even finish the build.
- Get quotes from your trades. Don’t be afraid to get more then one quote, they are FREE! Yes it will take more time, but it will be very beneficial for a successful project. Remember, ensure you go through each trades quote and make sure you understand exactly what is included and what isn’t included.
- Maintain and track your budget throughout the construction process. You need to know how your budget is tracking as you progress through each phase of your build. This will ensure you aren’t overspending through each of the stages. Remember, you need to treat owner building exactly the same as running a business.
Here is a rough estimate of what different types of home builds might cost per square meter for a builder to complete:
- Basic project home: $1,000 per/sqm
- Premium project home: $1,500-$2,500 per/sqm
- Custom built homes: $2,000-$4,000 per/sqm
- Premium custom built homes $3,500-$8,000 per/sqm
If you found this little write up useful please let us know below in the comments. Further if you have a tip we haven’t covered above that is worth mentioning please let the community below in the comment section too!