Cost of the gas package

On Friday 28th Aug I heard from Clarendon's sales rep Stephen who we are dealing with and he let me know the gas package would cost $1550 on top of the chic package.
At least long term there are savings, we just now need to see what Gas Water system they provide and whether it's adequate.

The other interesting thing I found out at work is that the Shoalhaven Council does require two car garages to be 5.8m wide, which means Clarendon needs to widen the garage some 135mm at a further cost to our budget.
Makes you wonder why most of the project homes provide around 5.6m and not 5.8m for their two car garages.

The Difference between Extras

When we paid our deposit of $1000 we considered what extras we would include in our tender. The choice was the Style Plus chic and the Style Plus Luxe.
The Chic costs an extra $4590 whilst the luxe you add a further $4890 to that, making it a round price of $9480.
However the only difference between the two packages is:
1. 900mm vs 600mm wide gas top
2. Irwell pin tapware
3. Stegbar grange semi frameless shower screens.
4. Gas package including 135 litre HWS, gas top and gas oven and 1 gas point.
Seems not much for the extra $4890, so we decided we only want the gas package added to the chic extras.
We emailed the Clarendon Sales rep on Sunday 23rd and are wating for a reply about how much extra the gas package alone will be as a gas HWS is cerainly giving you savings in the future.

Choosing to build the Clarendon Waterford

We saw the Clarendon Waterford at Heyward Bay and it suited us because of the numbe rof rooms and the open layout. It had everything we wanted.

Have a look at Clarendon they have quality houses.

Floor Space ratio decisions

When you are looking at the kind of home you want built on your block you need to consider the floor / space ratio that councils have.

It can differ from council to council but ours has a ratio of 50%.

This means you add up all the floor space of your new home and ratio it with the square meters of your block.

Say you have a new home that is 320 Sq meters and the block is the average 670 square meters. that means the ratio is 320/670 = 47.76% which is under the 50% requirement. but don't worry if it comes out slightly over, there's a few considerations you can take in your calculating the floor / space ratio. [ Depending maybe upon council's so check ].

Normally you can exclude the gargae area from the calculation, then also the stairs of it is a two story home.

And also if you want the alfresco type patio in you outside area this also is excluded, because it's not enclosed.

So do the quick calculation and avoid being disappointed at choosing a home that won't fit your block.

Deciding to build a project home

Well, we finally made the decision to build a project home and chose Clarendon as the Waterford provided us with exactly the number of rooms and study and layout that we wanted.



Of course we looked around and compared different homes from other builders but the Waterford suited us down to the ground.



We had of course to check the size of the Waterford against the size of the block we had to make sure that it would fit. That's one of the things to keep in mind when looking at homes, consider the dimensions especially now as they sell you much smaller blocks.



The other thing to keep well at the front of your thinking is your budget and the price of the home.



It's not just a matter of the base price either. You need to add in all the extras such as tiling and carpets. TVantenna and clothes line. and so on and so on.



It's realy good for you to sit down with an excel spreadsheet and enter it all in to see that you cover everything.



And then keep in mind that you may want upgrades and extras which will cost an arm and a leg.



lastly the bank will only lend you 80% of the value of the home completed so don't go overboard.