In todays episode we discuss the 4 phases of the build process. These 4 phases are critical in setting up correctly to ensure your project is a success.
Speaker 1: Welcome to building with Bluebird, the design and renovation podcast brought to you by Christian Case and Jeremy Thomason directors of Bluebird design and build highlighting the dos and Don's of renovating or building your dream home. This podcast will give you the insider's guide to the home building journey, as well as interviewing other industry specialists, Christian and Jeremy bring their knowledge and expertise to the table for you. The people now let's get into this episode [00:00:30] and if you enjoy, please like share and subscribe.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, welcome back to episode two, building with Bluebird I'm Jeremy, and I'm here with Christian today. We're discussing the four phases of the build process. There's the preliminary stage, the design stage costing and contracts, and then finally construction. So we'll touch on all of those today. And then on the following episodes, we'll drill down into more detail on each of those. Great.
Speaker 3: So stage one is preliminary. [00:01:00] What is the goal of the project? Is it for a family home? Are you doing a development? Are you looking to flip it? Basically? What is the goal of the project and what are you hoping to achieve? This will determine a lot of things as well. This will determine your level of finish. Sometimes if you are living in this home and gonna live there for 20 years, you can over capitalize a little bit, spend a little bit more, or just to make yourself a bit comfortable and get exactly what you want.
Speaker 2: Put that pool in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's see it instead of staging it. Whereas if it's a development and you've [00:01:30] got a budget you really need to hit, then obviously that plays a big role.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. The second area of preliminary is obviously the finance. Have you spoken to your financial provider? Do you know what your total project budget is? Is the project feasible? And are you over capitalizing?
Speaker 3: This happens a lot where people don't actually go talk to their financial advisor first. It's quite odd, but that's normally what drives our process.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, if you don't know your budget, how do you [00:02:00] know what you're gonna be able to build or what you should be building on a correct specific site?
Speaker 3: The next thing in preliminary stage is site acquisition. Have you purchased the site yet? Are you looking to purchase a site? We can help you with that as well in terms of finding the correct site. And is it a Reno or a knockdown project? Can you actually knock the existing home down a lot of homes in Brisbane? You can't actually do that. It also comes into way in terms of budget as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a big one. A lot of people will buy a site with an old house on it and think that they can [00:02:30] just knock it over and build a new one. But what area are you in? What sort of code overlays do you have
Speaker 3: Restrictions on site? Yeah. So that leads us to stage two, which is designed, obviously this is one of the fun parts for most people. Cause it's such a visual, an exciting time. So engaging the right architect or designer, who do you actually need? Do you need a draftee? Do you need a building designer or do you need an architect?
Speaker 2: What's the difference between the three of those?
Speaker 3: Yes. And then next one in that is engaging a building and design [00:03:00] consultant at the same time. So this is probably a big one that everybody misses engaging your builder and whoever the design consultant at the same time. So they can work together. We've sort of eliminated that process because we're all in house with design and construction. But if you are doing your design or you build with somebody else, then find a builder, that's got somebody already in mind or find an architect or to building designer. That's already got a builder they work with.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, unless you've got an unlimited budget. Yes. Which [00:03:30] you may not a lot of people do, but that might be that a perfect client. Yeah. That might be you. So if that's the case, then maybe don't worry about it. But if you have a fixed budget, it then definitely find a builder to work alongside your designer and engage that builder as a consultant, just as you would an engineer or a certifier and pay them for their time. Because if you find the right one, they're gonna help you make sure that the set of drawings you get from your designer at the end of the process can be built within close proximity to your [00:04:00] budget. Otherwise, as we've seen so many times, you'll end up with a set of pretty drawings that you can't afford to build within your project budget. Correct?
Speaker 3: Next stage of design is how much to allow for pre-construction. A lot of people don't know, but you need quite a few consultants during the design phase, surveyor soil testing. Sometimes hydraulic survey's a big one. A lot of people don't get a survey. However, your fences might be in the wrong location. That can be a big issue in terms of how close you can go to your boundaries. [00:04:30] If your boundaries aren't the right location, you might have found that you've got an extra half a meter on your property that you haven't realized you've had for years. So making sure that your designer gets all those consultants done. Normally we say to allow for probably three or 4% of your total budget goes to your preliminary consultants. That's excluding your designers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you'll need to have that cash front too, because you can't at this stage, finance that as part of the build
Speaker 3: Yeah. Party building loan
Speaker 2: You'll [00:05:00] need some money upfront to be able to pay for all these upfront consultants that are required before your plans are finished. And before you get approval through your financial institution to build
Speaker 3: So under stage two design, another big item is know your budget. The budget drives the whole project. That should be well communicated to everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Tell your bill and your designer, your budget. Don't give them a fake number and think that they're gonna come in lower because that never happens.
Speaker 3: No, don't well, [00:05:30] not that we do it, but I don't know anybody that builds to a client's budget. They always try to obviously know that you're gonna be going out to other builders. So everyone's trying to be competitive. And so they'll cost at the cost rates they need to. Yeah. So have a wishlist as well for your design. That's a big one. A lot of people just come to us and they're like, oh, I dunno what I wanna do. We obviously have a process where we go through a checklist and try and figure out how you use your household, but knowing exactly what you want helps also under the design is your [00:06:00] functionality of the home, how it works for you, your finishes, have you looked at your finishes, have you looked at the style that you're wanting to achieve? Have you got carried away, have a chat to designers and builders and see how they gauge their pricing in your pricing and your budget to see if it's actually realistic. And how's your designer managing your expectations? Are they the designers that get all excited as well? Which is great.
Speaker 2: Are they a yes man or a yes. Woman who just say yes to everything you want without considering how that affects the budget?
Speaker 3: Yeah. [00:06:30] I think it's about being honest about everything and just being upfront, it's easy to rip the bandaid off, straight away and have that hard chat and have it down the road where you've just got excited and all compounds. And then it's just a really deflating process. And then obviously reality versus the dream, just because you want it doesn't mean you can have it. That's always a thing with us is let's get a wishlist. That's actually what you want. And then also put them in an order that's the most important to the least important because then those [00:07:00] items at the bottom of the list can be removed. If the budget's not aligning with what you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: This is probably one that bothers us the most. Is your architect or designer designing for you or for them? It's a funny one in our industry. That there's a little thing that we've always thought that builders build for the client as designers are building for the designer.
Speaker 2: So they're designing for themselves for the
Speaker 3: Next job in explaining that, that the builder's just quoting on the job. Like, yeah, we wanna build great homes, but we're building [00:07:30] what has been presented in front of us. There's no changing of that. Whereas the designer can design anything that they want, they're designing for the face of their company, their portfolio. So making sure that those items all align is a big one. So making sure that they're gonna give you what you want. There's no stupid questions. Just ask them if you don't understand what they've drawn, that's a big one as well. Actually, we probably touch on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cause most people, when they look at a set of plans, they can't visualize how it's going to, to look [00:08:00] and they shouldn't feel bad about that because
Speaker 3: No, you can look at plans if
Speaker 2: You, no, it comes with practice. It's like anything. The more you look at plans in particular, the better you get at understanding how it's gonna be actually when it's constructed. And if your architect or building designer, isn't using a 3d software that can show you actually what it's gonna look like in this day and age, I think you should be finding a new architect or designer because that sort of technology is just, oh,
Speaker 3: It's been around for
Speaker 2: Years. The standard now. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Presenting realistic or some [00:08:30] sort of render visual, showing exactly what's going on because reading a flat set of drawings, a 2d set of drawings is not in everyone's tool chest. Like they can't actually do it. And it's not your fault because it's quite hard to
Speaker 2: Do. And just two days, not really acceptable anymore.
Speaker 3: No, not in this day and age with the software we've got out there, it's quite easy to do. So that leads us to stage three costing contracts. This touches back on being honest with your budget. I think being honest from the beginning with everybody makes the job a lot easier. It's [00:09:00] quite funny how we've had in the past where clients have come up with some extra money here and there. Oh,
Speaker 2: Where they've got a bit more
Speaker 3: Money. Yeah. So they've pulled things out during the costing process. And then it's been put back in during construction, which can, it costs more, it's cheaper to make a change on drawings than it is on site. So we've always been saying an advising clients always be honest, straight from the beginning. We'll try and get you that.
Speaker 2: Just touching on what you said about cheaper, changing it on paper. This is why it's so important to not rush [00:09:30] the stage before which is design. Correct. And make sure you get it all right. Get it proper bleed drafted and designed and have a proper set of documentation. So once the construction or costing and contracts start, everyone knows what's being priced and it can all be planned out. Cuz as the builder is pricing a job, they're actually thinking about how it's gonna be built too
Speaker 3: And ordering. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Currently wearing November. The moment in 2021 ordering for us for timber is taking [00:10:00] 12 weeks plus.
Speaker 2: So yeah. So if we ordered a set of timber trusses today, we would probably see them in April.
Speaker 3: I like that. You still count with your fingers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. I do a lot of my fingers.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah. And then moves on to, we do a preliminary checklist in the costing and contracts so that we can make sure everything's covered. That's basically like taps and everything like that. Then have you allowed for the following? Have you got a contingency in your budget? Have you got the correct consultants, engaged [00:10:30] town planners, certifies hydraulic engineers, structural engineers. And do you need an interior designer? What a lot of people don't realize for box cutters. It's great to have a hydraulic engineer sign off on that. I think in some cases you actually have to under legislation moving forward. I think that depends on the building certifier and what they require. But in our office we always require a hydraulic engineer to be engaged. They're not that expensive, there only a couple hundred dollars, but it's just having that peace of mind knowing that these things are been designed correctly and by the correct professionals.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Builders [00:11:00] aren't experts in how a box cutter works in terms of catchment and size and amount of water. It holds and falls. So like any other specialized area of building, we need someone to design that for us. So we know exactly what we're building.
Speaker 3: Have you allowed for landscaping in your budget as, as well? This is a big one. A lot of people don't they always leave it for after. There's nothing worse than finishing a beautiful home. And then it's just surrounded by dirt.
Speaker 2: It's fairly depressing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's also what they don't realize is it's quite dirty. [00:11:30] Dirt will track into your house via wind and everything like that quite quickly. So just spending five grand or allowing five to 10 on landscaping, just to get some grass down will also reduce a bit of stress when you're moving in and keep the house clean until you can actually decide. But I think one of these things is landscaping's always the first to go when the budget's really tight, which I think's wrong. Cuz in Queensland and Brisbane, we spent a lot of time outdoors. So why not get those areas nice and finished?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Agreed.
Speaker 3: Also under costing [00:12:00] and contracts, what's your square meter rate as your designer allowed? Is it realistic? Does that include civil works? We normally allow for a new custom build anything from 2,500, a square meter up a Reno starts at 2,900 it up high end architectural. We're looking at 4,004 and a half thousand, a square meter working upwards. And that's not the building footprint. A lot of people just think it's the building footprint. It's the upstairs and downstairs square meter. Each of your house. It's a good way to work things out quickly. And as Jeremy pointed out on a previous episode, we [00:12:30] actually do a case study after each project find out what project actually costs. And then we work out, go backwards and create a little item on what little scope of what the project was and what was involved in it and what the actual total bill price came to and then work it back from a square meterage that way. So then we present this to clients and go, Hey, this is something that's similar to yours. And this is where it was at, based on this date and then the basis for the design and the square meterage to start with.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It just helps the design team really get that initial square meterage. [00:13:00] Right. So that later on in the design phase, we're not ripping out nice finishes and things like that to try and bring the budget back.
Speaker 3: And then how detailed should a bill quote be? This is ridiculous. Sometimes if you we'll
Speaker 2: Do a full episode on this,
Speaker 3: Yeah. We could talk about this for hours. But in terms of, if you are spending anything from a hundred thousand upwards, a two page quote is not sufficient. We provide basically a quantity surveyors report, basically over breakdown of every material [00:13:30] you get. Sometimes these quotes can be up to 20 pages, long outlining materials and scope. It works, but we'll touch on this more in a further episode, just because there's so much that we can go into on what should be included in your bill quote.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it needs to be fully detailed that's so it's fair for both the client and the builder, because just because something is assumed to be included by a client, that doesn't mean that it has been, if it's not specific noted on the drawings, then you need to check. Is there a notation on the quote about [00:14:00] it, like is a new boundary fence included or is landscaping included or all these sorts of things that if they're missed, can cause real headaches and put strain on the relationship between the client builder down the track.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the next one is what, how happens when your bill quote comes back over the allocated budget and what is the next step? This is another one we can go on for at least an hour, but these podcasts, we want to keep pretty short. So when you're taking a drive home, you can listen to them normally just quickly, if your bill quote comes back over your budget, [00:14:30] normally what we'll do is we'll highlight some areas where you can reduce it without trying to sacrifice too much and then go back through the pricing. But hopefully if you've done stage two correctly with design, this won't happen. And then the last point is in all the projects we've costed, the design is normally 20 to 30% over.
Speaker 2: This is not our designs by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not our designs. It's external parties. So
Speaker 2: Building designers, architects,
Speaker 3: And it's not their fault. That's the thing. Yeah. The issue is people not working [00:15:00] together and communicating big thing is getting the correct team in place.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Building designers and architects aren't experts in costing. So that's why it is always so far off because they don't know, they're not aware of all the price increases. And especially at the moment timber and steel going up at such a rapid rate, it's not possible for them to stay on top of those rates.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's about getting the correct team together and everybody communicating and talking. Yeah. So like the designers chatting to the construction team and just bouncing ideas back and forth and just saying, [00:15:30] Hey, where are you this sitting out and just working together.
Speaker 2: But again, it's a better time to have a cost blowout before construction starts. So if it has come back over budget, it's not the end of the world. And that's when you really just start reworking the design tweaking finishes to try and bring it back.
Speaker 3: So next stage is stage four, which is structure. If you've done stage one, two and three, stage four is the easiest part. It's the same process over and over for us [00:16:00] start earthworks. We start footings. At
Speaker 2: Least it should
Speaker 3: Be yes. So that's the whole point of while we're moved together in terms of working everything together in house is to make these processes a lot quicker and a lot more efficient and easier. How often should you be meeting your builder during construction? So construction started how often should be meeting on site. We do every once a month. We've also got an online system that gives you access to the owner to log on and they can see photos. They can see an actual timeline. They can see drawings, they can see [00:16:30] any invoices what's left to be paid. What's being paid. Just basically any question that the client has. It gives them this portal that they can go to. And all our communication is through that back and forth. We do a lot of our photos uploaded onto that just for our own records, but it's also great for the client to see what's happening on site. If they're away and those meetings on site, basically just updates and to, to tackle any questions you may have and every builder should be doing this communication is the key on any project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, [00:17:00] that's right.
Speaker 3: And under construction, how long does your build gonna take, raise and build normally between six to eight months, depending on the size of the house, obviously and the complexity and then the new homes is a lot quicker depending on the finish
Speaker 2: At moment. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It depends on the lead time though. Yeah. So we used to be able to sign a contract and then start within a couple weeks or a month. That is not the case anymore. You need at least three, four months minimum from signing a contract to starting construction, just because of the lead times on every trade at the moment.
Speaker 2: [00:17:30] It's meaning everyone has to now be a lot more organized, as you said on in the days of signing a contract and then just kicking off a couple of weeks later, that's impossible in this current market with lead times on materials. So getting more organized is essential at the moment.
Speaker 3: So we'll touch on all of these four stages in more detail and further podcasts. But basically those four stages we believe are the best way to break it down and work through your process. So you've got stage one, which is the [00:18:00] preliminary, which is the focusing on what is the budget? What is actual goal of the project? Then you move into your stage two, which design making sure that you've got the correct design, does it allocate to your budget? And then we've got stage three, which is costing in contracts, which if stage one and two have been done correctly, stage three of costing should be a breeze. This is where you break everything down, detail, everything. And then stage four is just basically the fun stuff where the construction starts and the exciting part, and actually get to see your [00:18:30] dream come outta the ground. And hopefully if you've done one, two and three correctly, stage four is a breeze. That's
Speaker 2: Right. So I think that's it for today.
Speaker 3: Great. Well next week we'll start tackling in those four phases and we'll start on the preliminary and get more into detail. So subscribe and tune in and hopefully we'll see you next time. Catch you then.