Hi! My husband is an electrician, due to his trade he didnt need to go on the course, just paid for the licence and got the owner builder licence straight away. He has built the house from start to finish and just got a plumber to come in as they have to certify it afterwards. Has taken 18 months and when finished will have spent just under $250,000 to build. The mistake we made was, we bought the land in both our names, so the owner builder licence is registered in the names on the deed, therefore cant do another for 6 years. If you buy in just one name(on the deeds) the other half can apply after 3 years, if we had done that, we start buiding another at the end of the year. Havnt figured out a way round it yet... but if anyone else knows, let us know please.

If you don't mind, who did you get the mortgage with? (PM if you prefer)

No problem at all. We went with a company called Big Sky Finance. They have a branch at my hubby's refinery but I think you can go online and find your local branch. We also spoke to Commonwhealth bank who also offer redraw mortgages but we went with Big Sky as they were willing to offer finanace based on a letter from HR as my husband has been working for his company for less than 6 months.

ACE

thanks, handy tip about the names on deeds did your other half have his sparky licence b4 getting owner builder licence, just wondering if hubby would have to get bricklaying licence first?.

HI My hubby had his temporary licence when he applied for the owner builder licence. It is a long story with licences here, you cant apply for your permanent licence till you have been working for 12 months under temp one then you have to study and go to college and all sorts before he could get his full one (thats with sparkys anyway, dont know about other trades)... so the temp one was fine when we applied for owner builder one.

We've just started building our own home as an owner builder. We or rather I did the course - took about a weekend and cost about $350 through a company called The Peach Institute which you can do as a correspondence course or you can get one that allows you to go in and do the course classroom style. Then once the certificate came through sent this to the BSA and paid another $270 and we got a licence.

We have to get a licensed plumber and electrician (plumber includes gas fitting and drainage work) other than that we can build it ourselves.

I'm acting as the Principal Contractor for the job so have to abide by Health and Safety regulations (although the course I did including heaps of info on that side of things), we have taken out construction and liability insurance cost of around $1800 for a year.

The plans cost us around $1000 but that was very very cheap people said we should of been paying more like $10,000 for our house plans. We found a nice retired guy to do ours but at the same time that came with problems and took 18 months to get the final copy.

The plans had to be certified by an Engineer cost $400.

The everything goes into the council for planning and cost a massive $1443.50 which was a shocker but they charged us for things like the pool as a separate entity almost.

Once all of that is done off to the bank to grovel. Being owner builder you need to be able to show you have 50 - 60% of the overall costs. For us we had bought the land outright and also had some cash to start it all off so we had enough to cover that percentage. We ended up going with the Bendigo Bank as they had a good fixed rate at the time, local bank and very approachable, plus we are opening up another normal account with them to allow us to have things like a visa debit card and cheque book without all the bank fees you usually get charged.

Then allow heaps of time for gathering in quotes, stressful arguments with the OH as to what should be put in and what shouldn't, add a lot of grey hair and we have finally got it out of the ground but only to the initial steel stump posts stage

As ours is a timber home the carpenters we have are doing the majority of work but as they are experienced carpenters it is costing us $45/hour per person so the labour cost is massive.

This all sounds very expensive but we are saving approx $150k on building it as an owner builder compared to getting in a builder up this way. At the moment the builders have jumped from approx $8000 per sq metres to anything from $1000 - $1600 per sq metre so there is a major price hike up this way at the present time.

Ours is a big house approx 450m2 under roof and pool and we're hoping to build it for around $420k with the land costing us $140k resale value as soon as it is finished in the current market here would be $800K plus so it is a big investment for us as we have no pensions etc for later on in life.

One thing to cut down on costs of building is to go direct to the saw mills which cuts out the middle man as such. In Bundaberg there is one called Burnetts which is a popular one they use even though we are miles away from it in the Far North.

There will be a lot of stress involved but I think it will be worth it in the long run financially and something we have always dreamed about doing

Sounds brilliant mate, good luck to you.

ACE

HI! i was just reading your last and thought that your house maybe similar to ours. Wood/glass/steel on steel stumps. ours is similiar size. Is yours all on one level? We are just at the final stage and moved in at xmas.. we went over budget a bit... as it took so long to build as my OH did the lot himself, he even laboured for the plumber as he was a mate and would, as you say, cut the labour costs down. If they say you need a plumber to seal the wet areas, which will cost loads, take no notice. As long as you get the right sealer and get a cert with it when you purchase it you can do that yourself. Our friends paid some guy $800 to paint the sealer on the floor of wet areas as they thought you had to have a certified person to do it, but you dont. We have found it a steep learning curve, but are ready for the next one. When all landscaped we will be selling up.. as only did it to make a bit of extra cash.. however, we have become rather attached to it.

Yeap ours is on one level but we have lifted it all up off the ground by 1.2m to allow the air flow. Apart from the main carport which is on the ground but the roof line is the same height as the rest of it so when (???) we get a boat we can fit it under the carport. I haven't heard about the sealer side of things so thanks for the tip Any others you can give me?

OH used to do plumbing work back in the UK and has worked for the plumbers here so he is going to be on hand for a lot fo that side of things as well. The other thing is we are good friends with an electrician (luckily) so he is also labouring for him pulling through the wires etc hopefully cutting down on costs a bit more.

What is your design like? Ours is a bit of a 'H' shape with one side having the bedrooms the other being the living and in between is the outdoor entertainment area. As we are in the Far North we have gone for a massive outdoor under roof area.

How long did it take you from start to finish?

The wet areas need to be "wetsealed" prior to installation of tiles. If you doing it yourself under your O/B number you can go to a tile shop and buy a tub of sealer and maybe borrow their "bostick sausage applicator".
You prime the areas [usually the bathroom floor, en suite floor, toilet perimeter & then the shower recess walls] then apply the bostic mastic to the joints [wall & floor, corner of walls etc. this is called the bond breaker. Then you paint a coat of the sealer over the lot. The joints need to be taped with a cloth bandage after the first coat, then recoated.

You could just pay a company like wetseal Australia they have franchises all over the place. As a guide, we charge about $32 per m² for wetsealing and $16 bucks per linear m on perimeters. We've wetsealed a few owner builds though only if we're doing the tiling as well. Selfish I know but often diy tilers perforate the membrane and as the issuer of the certificate we're liable for six years for any defects, even if we didn't cause them.

You will need a waterproofing certificate to present to the council to get your final approval. Some tile shops will supply you with a blank one with your kit on production of a valid O/B number.
Talk to the local tile shop, they are usually helpful and will point you in the right direction.

Thanks for that I will ask them

We are on the sunshine coast hinterland, so bit cooler than you. When we were in Port Dougls we looked at some show homes like yours, they were just awesome, but not hot enough here for them. We have a parents retreat at one end, then lounge living area and kitchen, then a corridor to the study and the 3 kids bedrooms, and they have a play room at their end of the house.. so they can make as much noise at their end. It is all on one level on a slight slope. on the one side of the house it is 600cm off ground the other side is 2.5 metres off the ground with a raked ceiling. The wall that faces the rain forest in the lounge area is all glass. My husband started with the footings in Oct 2005 and we moved in Dec 2006, it is not quite finished but liveable. I didnt think it would take quite so long, but as he did it himself and he is a bit of a perfectionist, it felt like forever! maggie

Sounds fantastic Maggie and what a great place to settle down We have also included a bit of a parent retreat at one end so the visitors don't get under my feet too much and more importantly as my Step Mother always says visitors are like fish after a week they start to smell The rest of our bedroom wing is split between the kids and us with a looooonnnng corridor between us and the kids Sounds like we have thought alike when designing or homes