OUR BUILDING PROCESS
1. Let’s talk.
The sooner we touch base the better! You may be working with an architect already, or wanting some advise on who to choose, or you may have your working drawings finalised. Whatever stage you are at with your home design, it’s incredibly important to us that we sit down with you and your architect to begin building our relationship. We often find that working with an architect early means we can help the creativity stay within budget and ensure no time is wasted when pricing a job.
2. Preliminary Work + Working Drawings.
Here we move forward with any initial work that may need to be done before the actual contract kicks in – for example; engineering reports, soil testing etc. It also includes meetings with the architect, chosen subbies and suppliers. This helps us get a feel for your budget and preferences for items like bathroom fixtures and fittings, kitchen cabinetry, door hardware etc.
3. Price estimate.
Once your architect supplies us with working drawings, we get on and do the full price estimate. Pricing your job can take roughly 3-5 weeks depending on the complexity of your build and the capacity of suppliers. This allows enough time for us to contact and receive quotes from various vendors, then work through the process of collating them.
IMPORTANT: We price a job based on the architect’s plans. We look to reduce costs after that if needed, in consultation with your architect. We feel it’s important to see what the total build cost would be with all the bells and whistles!
4. Building Consent.
When we are all comfortable with the plans and price, we lodge for building consent. The target time for this is 20 working days, we like to allow 5weeks for this process based on our previous experiences with both the Invercargill City Council and Southland District Council. You will receive email updates from the council on the progress and updates if there are any hold ups.
COST + MARGIN VS FIXED PRICE
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
5. Signing your contract.
We have two types of contract we use. "Fixed Price" or a “Cost +Margin” contract, supplied by New Zealand Certified Builders or Masters Builders. We prefer a Cost +Margin, only because it speeds up the process of pricing and building as you only pay for what you use and we don't have to worry about slowing down to process variations. This also ensures the process is completely transparent, with no hidden contingency costs. We’ll supply you with a monthly cost tracking sheet so you can see exactly where the spend is up to, and be confident that we are as close to the original estimate as possible. We will happily provide a Fixed Price contract, it just takes a little more time to price, and if you decide to make changes during the build (which is only natural), there may be a hold up until we process the variation from the contract. We pride ourselves on our accurate pricing, as we utilise the smartest technology to estimate costs.
We run a very tight ship with our team, suppliers and subbies. Smart technology definitely plays a role in keeping us aware of costs at all times. The main thing is that communication stays frequent and open!
6. Payments
With a Contract + Margin contract it will stipulate a five day payment term which is standard in the construction industry. However, all our invoices are payable by the 20th of each month, for all charges incurred during the previous month. We’ll send you your invoice no later than the 13th of each month. The exception to this may be when a deposit is required for specialist suppliers.
With a Fixed Price Contract, you will receive a payment schedule which states payment claims (usually 10% of build price) to be made at the various build stages, i.e Floor Down, Closed In etc.
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