Wednesday 29 August 2012

Dilemma

Being able to walk on the slab and see the slab on the site is a little bitter sweet. It gives you a great sense of where and how the house will be situated and it really does get you thinking about the house design. Obviously, it's much easier to visualise things when you can see them in 3D and on-site rather than simply looking at a 2D plan on a piece of paper.

We realised that we hadn't really optimised the house for light and space. It really needs more glass at the rear of the house (which faces north).

We've asked CG to cost up a variation that would include adding either a window or a sliding door to the rear wall of the house. Noting that we are almost at frame stage, we had a feeling this might be costly. And it is. Much more so than we were expecting. Apparently, adding a window is not as simple as buying a window. The variation would require re-engineering, re-assessment of energy rating, amending the building permit, additional bracing and additional administration fees. Not good news really. We had hoped it would be a much simpler (and less costly) exercise.

My advice. Avoid these variations if you can. They will be costly!

No comments:

Post a Comment