16 November 2014

Building in Googong

16 November 2014 | Googong

My partner an I are looking to build in Googong. Can any one recommend a good builder or list ones I should be staying away from?

Has anyone had any experience with Classic Constructions?

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Taro3:54 pm 24 Nov 16

Hi
I know this is an old post. Our property is in a semi -rural sloppy block. Unable to find a builder who is willing to build on bedrock.
We want to used a post and beam exposed wood frame and timbercreat or brick walls with concrete floors.
But unable to find a builder who is willing to work with a kithome and our requirements.
Has anyone heard of Loft Lindbeck builders?

I am also really interested in Maya123’s house since my partner and I are looking at building solar passive design.
Would love to know know more about your builder. Would love to talk to you if you are ok with that.
Taru

dungfungus11:22 am 25 Jun 15

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

rubaiyat said :

I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone here but a salutory warning about housing bubbles:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-housing-bubbles/5696496

Particularly vulnerable are people who buy/build at extremely low interest rates, in remote or outer developments.

I am probably not alone, just in a tiny minority, questioning dropping interest rates in the midst of a mad, tax payer subsidised grab for land and houses. It seems a very odd thing to do to punish savers and reward leveraged borrowers at the same time as preaching to people about the perils of debt.

Lucky Canberra isn’t in a bubble then. Prices here haven’t moved much in real terms for 4-5 years.

Sydney would be getting up there, though.

Last time the bubble popped in Canberra was 1991.

VYBerlinaV8_is_back10:41 am 25 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone here but a salutory warning about housing bubbles:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-housing-bubbles/5696496

Particularly vulnerable are people who buy/build at extremely low interest rates, in remote or outer developments.

I am probably not alone, just in a tiny minority, questioning dropping interest rates in the midst of a mad, tax payer subsidised grab for land and houses. It seems a very odd thing to do to punish savers and reward leveraged borrowers at the same time as preaching to people about the perils of debt.

Lucky Canberra isn’t in a bubble then. Prices here haven’t moved much in real terms for 4-5 years.

Sydney would be getting up there, though.

rubaiyat10:30 am 25 Jun 15

dungfungus said :

The “bank” that the accepted the mortgage initially may have even sold on the debt to someone else.

That is one of the dirtier aspects of a very dirty industry.

After initial brushes with banks I have largely avoided them. Only taking out the bare minimum loan once and getting in and out as fast as I could. Even then the buggers kept charging me insurance for a year past my clearing off the mortgage. Luckily my wife spotted it, but it took a lot of correspondence to get them to desist.

dungfungus9:29 am 25 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone here but a salutory warning about housing bubbles:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-housing-bubbles/5696496

Particularly vulnerable are people who buy/build at extremely low interest rates, in remote or outer developments.

I am probably not alone, just in a tiny minority, questioning dropping interest rates in the midst of a mad, tax payer subsidised grab for land and houses. It seems a very odd thing to do to punish savers and reward leveraged borrowers at the same time as preaching to people about the perils of debt.

A timely reminder, albeit too late for a lot of the current first home-buyer generation who demand everything (house, SUV, kids, travel) concurrently.
It has been so long since we had a significant downturn in the housing sector that our economic commentators were not even born then.
Those who may think they could be in this category should recast their mortgage rate to 15% and see if they can service the debt then.
Also scan the mortgage document and see if you can find that clause “the bank can demand full repayment at any time for any reason whatsoever”.
The “bank” that the accepted the mortgage initially may have even sold on the debt to someone else.

Maya12310:42 pm 24 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

The house I am referring to was a Strine house on a sub-divided block in Macquarie, behind an existing house, not an OzDesign house.

What did you think of it?

I think the design probably did the best that could be done within a very tight spot. Ideally the house should be long with all the bedrooms having northern windows. In that limited space there was not room for that and so some bedrooms were at the back of the house without northern windows. Ric’s basic house plan has all the main rooms having northern windows to make the house more energy efficient. Also because of the tight spot, I wonder if some times of the day there will be shading. But still it is a much better house than most being constructed around Canberra. The fit-out of the kitchens, etc, would be the clients’ brief. I would have had larger kitchen wall cupboards that went to the ceiling. I think that opportunity was wasted there, but again that would be down to the client; what they want and their budget. The same with that too deep bath, and I heard others voice the same opinion here, but that’s a personal choice; nothing to do with the basic house design. Having the walls unpainted is another personal choice. I did like the dark floors as they would help the efficiency. The house has mass (concrete walls) to stabilise the temperature winter and summer, and so eliminate the need for cooling in summer and considerably reduce heating in winter. How much heating that house will need though would be interesting to know with not all of the rooms having northern windows. MUCH less than the average house, but it will likely still need some occasionally at least. If it does need heating the insulation will reduce the amount needed. The roof air chimneys are great for summer. I have them in my house. Also good if you need to ventilate for cooking smells.

rubaiyat5:30 pm 24 Jun 15

I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone here but a salutory warning about housing bubbles:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-housing-bubbles/5696496

Particularly vulnerable are people who buy/build at extremely low interest rates, in remote or outer developments.

I am probably not alone, just in a tiny minority, questioning dropping interest rates in the midst of a mad, tax payer subsidised grab for land and houses. It seems a very odd thing to do to punish savers and reward leveraged borrowers at the same time as preaching to people about the perils of debt.

rubaiyat5:16 pm 24 Jun 15

Maya123 said :

The house I am referring to was a Strine house on a sub-divided block in Macquarie, behind an existing house, not an OzDesign house.

What did you think of it?

rubaiyat5:09 pm 24 Jun 15

Maya123 said :

The house I am referring to was a Strine house on a sub-divided block in Macquarie, behind an existing house, not an OzDesign house.

Sorry my bad memory. Yes the one designed by Ric Butt.

Maya1233:57 pm 24 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

If I had had a double door garage I wouldn’t have been able to fit a solar house on my block either, but good design got around this. I still have parking in the garage for two cars (or one car and storage/workshop), but behind each other, with a single garage door at the front, reducing the width needed. I also visited a carefully designed solar house the other day, that was built behind another house on a subdivided block. Good design will often overcome many of the excuses less competent builders come up with. However, good design, to make the follow up good design easier, should start with well designed suburb layout. And streets that don’t wind everywhere, requiring a long drive to get to a nearby street. Recently I was out in western Belconnen (it might have been Dunlop?), and I needed to go 50 metres. To drive there it was two kms. Even if I could see the street I wanted to drive to, access’ were blocked off with barriers. Remove those barriers and one could drive there and save almost two kms. In one case the barrier was missing and I drove over the grass and cut my journey by kms. Why are these street designs allowed?

I was at the same OzDesign house, but that is not the same as the small blocks issue in Googong or Wright, or even their requirements for multiple offstreet parking. The house in question had a single unattractive and badly located car port, just without the car parked immediately outside the living room window, that wasn’t obvious.

We agree with the good planning.

My discussions with an ACT Planner on the subject at the West Lake display on Sunday got me exactly nowhere. It is always, “that was someone else”. Even with the problems with the West Lake plan, he was selling.

Planning is too often just doodling on maps. My comment on why the planners don’t actually walk the walk on site was greeted by puzzlement. It really makes you despair.

“Planning is too often just doodling on maps.”

An apt description of many of Canberra’s suburban street layouts, especially the newer ones.

Maya1233:52 pm 24 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

If I had had a double door garage I wouldn’t have been able to fit a solar house on my block either, but good design got around this. I still have parking in the garage for two cars (or one car and storage/workshop), but behind each other, with a single garage door at the front, reducing the width needed. I also visited a carefully designed solar house the other day, that was built behind another house on a subdivided block. Good design will often overcome many of the excuses less competent builders come up with. However, good design, to make the follow up good design easier, should start with well designed suburb layout. And streets that don’t wind everywhere, requiring a long drive to get to a nearby street. Recently I was out in western Belconnen (it might have been Dunlop?), and I needed to go 50 metres. To drive there it was two kms. Even if I could see the street I wanted to drive to, access’ were blocked off with barriers. Remove those barriers and one could drive there and save almost two kms. In one case the barrier was missing and I drove over the grass and cut my journey by kms. Why are these street designs allowed?

I was at the same OzDesign house, but that is not the same as the small blocks issue in Googong or Wright, or even their requirements for multiple offstreet parking. The house in question had a single unattractive and badly located car port, just without the car parked immediately outside the living room window, that wasn’t obvious.

We agree with the good planning.

My discussions with an ACT Planner on the subject at the West Lake display on Sunday got me exactly nowhere. It is always, “that was someone else”. Even with the problems with the West Lake plan, he was selling.

Planning is too often just doodling on maps. My comment on why the planners don’t actually walk the walk on site was greeted by puzzlement. It really makes you despair.

The house I am referring to was a Strine house on a sub-divided block in Macquarie, behind an existing house, not an OzDesign house.

Maya12312:01 pm 24 Jun 15

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

Googong said :

My partner and i have decided to go with Classic Constructions. Peter at the display home in Googong has been more than helpful and seems to be a little more honest and upfront than some of the others.
Again if any one has any recent experience with Classics we would very much appreciate your feed back.
How have you found the build process from start to finish?
What have the inclusions been like?
How have you found the price compared to some of the others?

What is their energy efficiency like? Do you need to heat? With good design most heating can be eliminated.

My wife and I went through all the display homes at Googong and also had a good look around the other houses already built.

Almost without exception they were all an inferior build (just compared to the same Molonglo homes) and even where they had the opportunity to take advantage of a northerly aspect they had small pokey windows towards the sun and oversize picture windows either under large overhangs to “Al-Fresco” areas or facing south or both.

I had an interesting conversation with one of the builders who recognised the problem but pointed out that when you add up all the bad site divisions, requirements for garages (usually double) facing the street and small blocks it is practically impossible to design a house with any solar aspect. Not that I saw anyone even trying or noticing how dark and cold the houses were with out expensive daytime lights and heating on full blast.

The land may be cheap but it seems to me that the long drive for all the materials and tradespeople must be a large contributor to the cutting of corners with poor workmanship and finishes.

“requirements for garages (usually double) facing the street”

If I had had a double door garage I wouldn’t have been able to fit a solar house on my block either, but good design got around this. I still have parking in the garage for two cars (or one car and storage/workshop), but behind each other, with a single garage door at the front, reducing the width needed. I also visited a carefully designed solar house the other day, that was built behind another house on a subdivided block. Good design will often overcome many of the excuses less competent builders come up with. However, good design, to make the follow up good design easier, should start with well designed suburb layout. And streets that don’t wind everywhere, requiring a long drive to get to a nearby street. Recently I was out in western Belconnen (it might have been Dunlop?), and I needed to go 50 metres. To drive there it was two kms. Even if I could see the street I wanted to drive to, access’ were blocked off with barriers. Remove those barriers and one could drive there and save almost two kms. In one case the barrier was missing and I drove over the grass and cut my journey by kms. Why are these street designs allowed?

Maya1237:18 pm 30 Nov 14

Maya123 said :

Googong said :

Hi Maya123,

My partner and I are planning on building an energy house, as we don’t like the idea of having to take out a small loan in order to pay for bills. The way prices are rising these days I don’t think it will be to long before my last comment is reality.
Was wondering who you ended building with?
No matter who we end up going with we will be pushing for an energy efficient design.

You won’t regret building an energy efficient house. My house is very cheap to run. I have full length double glazed windows on the north side and minimal windows on the other sides. Make sure the double glazed windows have thermal breaks or wooden frames for insulation, and sufficient gap between the glass. 12mm plus. Wooden frames are probably the best insulation, if you like the upkeep and that look. I prefer the lighter look of aluminium. Mine have thermal breaks, but I suspect this could have been better. Many cheaper double glazed widows don’t have thermal breaks. The quality of double glazing is not all the same. The house must have sufficient mass to keep a stable temperature inside. An (insulated) slab is not enough in Canberra. I visited a display home once and the salesman was telling me all that was needed in Canberra was a concrete slab, good insulation and north facing windows; that the internal walls didn’t need to be solid concrete, brick, stone, etc. It was a sunny day and that house was cold, and he was brazen enough in the face of contrary evidence, to tell me that mis-truth. In Canberra internal mass is needed. Every internal wall in my house in concrete. My external walls are double concrete, with sandwiched insulation between.
I have solar chimneys on the roof, which I open in summer to cool the house, and a west window and an east window to get flow through ventilation. I have security screens on these windows, so they can be left open at night. My refrigerator has a ventilation hole behind it to let the heat escape and reduce its running costs. Lights are all fluorescent, which will in time be replaced with LED. (Hopefully by then the colour temperature of LEDs will improve. To me the cool LEDs are too cool, and the warm LEDs too warm in colour. I prefer the colour of the cool fluorescent bulbs at present to the LEDs.)
My stove and oven can be turned off at the wall to save waste of any ‘trickle’ electricity, as can other electrical appliances. An example of this ‘unseen trickle’ electricity is my washing machine. Off, but still on at the wall, with no lights on, it uses 8 watts of power all the time, unless it is switched off at the wall.
Solar hot water saves a lot of power. I only need the booster about one month a year. I have a tube system and I could probably improve this by adding more tubes.
Other things to consider are orientation of the house on the block, shading from neighbouring houses and vegetation. Single storey is usually more energy efficient too.
There are several firms doing solar houses and will give advice, but do your research too. From experience, the advice given is not always suitable.
Locally, TT architecture I believe does solar design, as does Strine design. There are probably others.

I should have added that pale colours for external walls and roof are recommended, and darker colours inside.

Maya1237:16 pm 30 Nov 14

Googong said :

Hi Maya123,

My partner and I are planning on building an energy house, as we don’t like the idea of having to take out a small loan in order to pay for bills. The way prices are rising these days I don’t think it will be to long before my last comment is reality.
Was wondering who you ended building with?
No matter who we end up going with we will be pushing for an energy efficient design.

You won’t regret building an energy efficient house. My house is very cheap to run. I have full length double glazed windows on the north side and minimal windows on the other sides. Make sure the double glazed windows have thermal breaks or wooden frames for insulation, and sufficient gap between the glass. 12mm plus. Wooden frames are probably the best insulation, if you like the upkeep and that look. I prefer the lighter look of aluminium. Mine have thermal breaks, but I suspect this could have been better. Many cheaper double glazed widows don’t have thermal breaks. The quality of double glazing is not all the same. The house must have sufficient mass to keep a stable temperature inside. An (insulated) slab is not enough in Canberra. I visited a display home once and the salesman was telling me all that was needed in Canberra was a concrete slab, good insulation and north facing windows; that the internal walls didn’t need to be solid concrete, brick, stone, etc. It was a sunny day and that house was cold, and he was brazen enough in the face of contrary evidence, to tell me that mis-truth. In Canberra internal mass is needed. Every internal wall in my house in concrete. My external walls are double concrete, with sandwiched insulation between.
I have solar chimneys on the roof, which I open in summer to cool the house, and a west window and an east window to get flow through ventilation. I have security screens on these windows, so they can be left open at night. My refrigerator has a ventilation hole behind it to let the heat escape and reduce its running costs. Lights are all fluorescent, which will in time be replaced with LED. (Hopefully by then the colour temperature of LEDs will improve. To me the cool LEDs are too cool, and the warm LEDs too warm in colour. I prefer the colour of the cool fluorescent bulbs at present to the LEDs.)
My stove and oven can be turned off at the wall to save waste of any ‘trickle’ electricity, as can other electrical appliances. An example of this ‘unseen trickle’ electricity is my washing machine. Off, but still on at the wall, with no lights on, it uses 8 watts of power all the time, unless it is switched off at the wall.
Solar hot water saves a lot of power. I only need the booster about one month a year. I have a tube system and I could probably improve this by adding more tubes.
Other things to consider are orientation of the house on the block, shading from neighbouring houses and vegetation. Single storey is usually more energy efficient too.
There are several firms doing solar houses and will give advice, but do your research too. From experience, the advice given is not always suitable.
Locally, TT architecture I believe does solar design, as does Strine design. There are probably others.

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