Understanding Building Costs / Calculator
UNDERSTANDING BUILDING COSTS / CALCULATORS
Quite often people underestimate (including builders) the cost of building, so it is critical to have a good understanding of the entire scope of works so we can deliver an accurate quote for completing your project on time, within budget and to the highest standards and attention to detail.
Even Governments get it wrong continuously on building infrastructure projects, cost overruns extensive reports have identified that we have an inefficient industry. Issues like inadequate use of technology, project design documentation, and insufficient collaboration across the professions resulting in poor project scoping and delivery.
HOW MUCH WILL YOUR PROJECT COST?
Either building a new home or that new addition or remodelling project can signal the exciting sound of your dreams taking shape or they can conjure visions of fear understandable. These major construction projects can be scary and expensive. But doing homework on the front end can help you develop a firm budget, and clear vision. What do you hope to accomplish with the project? And how much do you have to spend? Are there options that you haven’t envisaged for a more cost effective solution?
The nature of each project carries levels of complexity that might not be immediately apparent, budget at least some extra cushion for the unexpected.
An example: Perhaps you have an older home, and when your contractors tear up your carpet, they discover structural problems with the flooring or maybe the plumbers find old pipes that need to be replaced. Hope for the best, but plan for at least a bit of the worst. Everything works back to proper planning and detailing either a 50 or a 500k building project.
The industry is full of tricks and traps for the unaware and you need to be cautious. The cost variances between consultants , for exactly the same services, recently we had a structural engineering company wanting to charge thousands more for the same thing ,imagine the one off tradespeople , like carpenters or plumbers etc. may sound cheap trying to do everything yourself but normally works the other way.
Even a small project like a room extension involves several trades from roofing, concreters, steel fixers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, renderers, cabinet makers materials etc.
For a better understanding of building costs, developed industry calculators like homebuilding.cordell.com.au and bmtqs.com.au/construction cost table, are a great help and updated regularly.
H4 Living with an integrated design and building function giving you up to 4 quotes from independent master builders is a business model based on BIM (Building Information Modelling) where all parties come together to achieve a successful project. Like many European countries that already adopted the system, Australia at government level is considering implementing this process in all government building projects starting from 2016.
Cost savings, time efficiencies and more successful projects are achieved which benefits everyone.
We are hoping that BIM is implemented at the small residential and commercial projects level as well, and H4 is already leading the way in this process. Refer www.buildingsmart.org.au/campaigns/the-national-bim-initiative.
We hope that we can be of assistance bringing your vision to reality.