Month: April 2013

Sound Insulation Batts

Imagine the standard internal stud wall in your new house.

  • A sheet of fairly thin material (plasterboard).
  • An air space retained by timber walls.
  • Another thin sheet of material.

Sounds a bit like a Drum doesn’t it?……………It’s no wonder sound transmits easily from room to room.

If you are having a 2 storey house that drum effect will be the same between the floors with the added problem of someone walking on the top of the “drum”.

To make things quieter one solution is to fill the air space with something that can absorb the noise.

You can use standard wall  insulation batts, but for the best performance it is better to go for an Accoustic Batt.

The Accoustic Batts are  more expensive (typically 60-70% more) but being much denser absorb a lot more sound.

If you decide to go for sound insulation batts a key issue in the effectiveness will be the quality of the installation. Every gap must be fully filled with insulation, any missing areas and noise will get through.

An added advantage of putting sound insulation in internal walls  is that it increases the effect of Buffer Zones in keeping heating and cooling costs down.

A disadvantage is that if you were used to shouting to get the attention of someone in another room that won’t work with good sound insulation.

In high end houses it’s not unusual to wrap the toilet waste pipes in accoustic insulation so people downstairs can’t hear an upstairs toilet flush!
 

Also see Reducing External Noise

 

Lighting

Post inspired by comments from ‘Johnson’ on the Homeone forum website.

Light is one of the most important thing in a house.

During the day its nice to get as much natural light into the house as possible while avoiding glare.

When the sun goes down its a different matter. An overall light level for the whole room is pretty boring.

There’s two keys to successful lighting:

Layering

This involves various lights in the room that illuminate areas for their specific use for example.

    • A lamp on a side table.
    • A standard lamp that provides light over your shoulder when you are reading.
    • Spotlights to illuminate a picture.
    • Wall or floor uplights to brighten the room without any harsh glare (if you can ever see a bare bulb or filament with the naked eye, you’ve done something wrong).

Having multiple light sources allows you to change the mood as you see fit.

Shadows

Shadowing is a forgotten element of a good lighting plan. While the multiple downlight brigade likes to light every single corner of the room, they forget that the human eye is drawn to bright areas — and you can only get those with contrasting shadowed areas.

There’s nothing wrong with a dim backwall that can only be illuminated by a single lamp, or a comfy chair secreted in a shadowed alcove. Shadows can provide drama, texture, or even comfort.

It’s possible to create wonderful spaces with the simplest lighting setups. Very few situations call for bright, overhead downlights – but that doesn’t stop people from using rows of the things across their lounge room ceiling, like some sort of inverted airport runway!

So forget the downlights. There’s plenty of shops with beautiful lights. Get creative! You might even save some money.

Photograph comes from www.iseecubed.com

See Why I Won’t have Downlights Again

 

More about selecting finishes including 24 pages of Check Lists in the‘Selection / Pre-Start Guide’

 

Gates for Sloping Driveways

If you have a sloping drive it can be difficult to install a gate.

One option is to install a sliding gate which rolls to one side. These although expensive can work quite well if the whole of the front is level and you have plenty of room between the driveway and the path to the front door.

As you can see with the above installation the roller gate will block the pedestrian gate.

Not enough room, or want a lower cost solution, then you can use conventional gates with offset hinges which allow the gates to swing up as they open (See below)

These hinges will need to be made to suit the slope of the driveway so you may need to buy the gates from a specialist gate company rather than from your local DIY store.
 

For more about Boundary Treatments see Fences

 

Garden Statue – Win

I have occasionally put a statue in the garden,

Normally one of those slightly abstract figures, or a Budda, from Bunnings……..but nothing like this:

Life sized statues of;  an Aboriginal man , a Kangaroo, and an Emu together with a map of Australia and the words “Fair Dinkum Aussies”

It might not be to everyone’s taste but I’m sure the owner loves it, and it made me to notice it, so its done its job!

It is in a garden in Queen Street, Sebastopol, near Ballarat, Victoria.

 

For more Unusual Houses and Fails see What the……………?

 

Using Your Own Tradies

When you look at some of the prices that builders charge for things it makes you wonder if you can get things cheaper by employing your own tradies during the build.

Examples are things like:

  • Refrigerated air conditioning.
  • Extra lighting.
  • High end bathroom fixtures.

Unfortunately its not always that simple. Some builder will allow you to bring in your tradies, many refuse point blank, some will allow it if you pay an Admin/Supervision Fee.

Reasons for Refusal.

  1. Safety and Security  The builder is responsible for safety and security of the whole site. Through long contact with their existing sub-contractors they have developed trust. They will have concerns about having someone on their site that they don’t know.
  2. Time delays Because the builders regular contractors depend on the builder for ongoing work he can put pressure on them if things fall behind schedule. The builder is less likely to be able to pressure  independent tradies who could take their time and delay things further.
  3. Loss of Profit Builders like any most business make higher proportion of their profit on extras. if this opportunity is lost their overall return on the job will drop.

Admin/Supervision Fee

The Administration/Supervision Fee is to provide additional supervision, and security, and have an allowance for risk.

As a fee of up to $1,000 per trade is not unusual you need to be saving a lot of money before going for separate tradies for part of your new house build.

Also you may not get the price reduction you thought by deducting items from the contract as there is a Difference between contract prices and retail prices.

Check Early

If you think you may want to go down this route you need to check whether you builder is likely to agree before you get too far along the path to signing a contract.
 

Find out about the issues of Using Friends for Building works

 

The Best House Shape

When you are looking at builders web sites the main things you can look at besides Facades are Floor Plans………But what is the best shape for the overall house?

Making good use of Winter Sun

If you have a Well Orientated site (Longest dimension runs East West) and you are not Shaded by tall trees or other properties the best shape will normally be a rectangle.

This will provide a long wall with North Facing Windows where most of the rooms can be warmed in the window. As the other dimension will be shorter the sun will penetrate well into the house. Just make sure you have proper eaves or a pergola to avoid the summer sun.

If you have got either a South or North facing site it’s probably best to go for as wide a house as you can fit on the block.

No Winter Sun

You should aim to provide the maximum amount of internal space compared to wall space. This is both economic in terms of wall materials and minimisation of heat transfer (Less heat lost in winter, less heat gain in summer)

The shape that fits provides the most internal space for minimum walls is a circle…….but not everyone wants to live in a yurt.

A couple of practical problems are:

  • Getting furniture to fit
  • Although the space is efficient the diameter is fairly large so larger round houses won’t fit into most rectangular blocks.

Don’t want a round house, then the next best thing is to make the shape as close to a square as possible.

Have you got a yurt or other type of round house?…….. What do you like about it?

 

See Bubble Diagrams if you want to design your own home plan

 

Cubby House – Fail

What do you think of this Cubby House that someone built in their garden, soon after moving in?

Well it looks pretty good…………………………. Solidly constructed building, nice colourful paint job,  and securely bolted down to a convenient concrete slab.

So why is it a Fail?

Well have a look at this close up of that convenient concrete slab.

That solid concrete slab is actually the top of a sewer manhole on the Easement.

This particular manhole has two covers (You can see the front one on the photo) which need to be accessed for cleaning about every 18 months!

How would you like to move this?

 

For more Unusual Houses and Fails see What the………………….?

To find out what you shouldn’t build on your block see Restictions

 

Can You Subdivide?

I would advise calling into the Council Planning Department and discussing your block as early as possible. I have always found them very helpful.

To be better informed here are 4 things to think about before talking to the planner:

State and Local Planning Zones, Schedules , Overlays,  Rules, and Guidelines.

What State and Local Planning Scheme Zone,  Schedules  Overlays and Rules apply to your Block?

Has the council got any Guidelines on:

    • Neighbourhood Character
    • Heritage
    • Strategic Planning

This information can usually be obtained from the Internet, as there should be links on your Council’s website.

The Block Size

Generally the minimum block size most councils like to see is around 300m2. Planners may be flexible depending on the Building Envelope.

I don’t hold too much trust in Real Estate Agents statements so I would either check the Title Plan (follow the link to see an Explanation of Title Plans) or even get a tape measure out.

Building Envelope

This the actual area within your title boundaries that it is legally, and physically possible, to build on.

This can be affected by a wide range of factors described in this post: Building Envelope

Additionally with many block subdivisions there are shared driveways  which usually becomes a separate  common area rather than being  included in the block areas.

This means that you will probably need the original block to considerably more than 600 m2 to get two acceptable blocks.

Precedent

A similar subdivisions in the area, which establishes a precedent, can improve your chances of an approval. It is therefore well worth having a walk around the area looking at what has already been built.

If you want to see what’s behind the fences I find Google Maps is a useful tool although it can be a year or two out of date. Another website is Nearmap.com, which generally have more up to date maps than Google,  but you will have to pay to view them.

Even though you may decide to use a Surveyor or Planning Consultant to prepare your application, your research will give you a better  understanding of what is likely to be successful.

 

For More information see Subdivision Process

Another useful post is Subdivision Costs

 

Restricted Site, Costs

People are astonished at how the builders costs soar when building on a restricted site!

A restricted site is generally when a the building takes up most of the block. Generally this means that there is little room to store materials and special techniques may be needed to construct the house.

Generally if you are on a new subdivision you should be able to avoid  restricted site costs but if you are looking to build in an existing suburb, particularly something like a Battle Axe block, then there is a good chance that you will be hit with the extra charge.

Here are some of the reasons why it can costs extra:

Double Handling, If all there is limited space for storage on site the builder may have to store some of the materials at his own yard. He then has the additional cost of reloading the material onto his truck and delivering to site.

Smaller Deliveries. When you buy building materials the charge is normally based on the cost of the materials and the cost of delivery. If you need 2 or more smaller deliveries rather than 1 the cost is going to go up.

Different Construction Machinery. In some cases the contractor may have to use smaller, less efficient, excavators. For really restricted sites it may need a much larger crane, parked in the road (which can mean traffic management costs) to position heavy items, like roof trusses.

Difficult Construction This can mean more hand work or dealing with building a wall on a boundary with limited access, and having to support foundations of neighbouring buildings.

Parking Fees Sound insignificant,  but if its going to cost the tradies $5/day each when they normally park for free so they are going to want be charging that to your job.

 

See Blocks for more information on buying land

 

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