New Homes
Lifting the lid on hidden costs Ensuring there are no surprises in your new home build One of the requirements for designers is to prepare clients on their home building journey.
The advantages of building a home are numerous, which is why people across Christchurch, Canterbury and the rest of New Zealand are looking to build. Benefits like customisation and the latest in-home technology are only a few of the perks when building a home that’s perfect for you and your family. However, it can be a bit daunting for the first-time home builder. Of course, you’ve done the research and have gotten to a certain point, but there’s some things Google can’t replace: expert knowledge in the field.
Exposed timber frame and trusses designed by Iconic in partnership with Timberworks NZ.
“The designer has to have a good idea of the sorts of costs and convey those costs to the client. This is how much it’s going to cost you before you start the build.
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“I think the client needs to know the cost of construction. There are a lot of hidden costs. It’s up to the designer to inform the client at the very start,” Iconic Architecture principal designer and director, Andrew Toulson says. Specifically, there are two things the designer needs to adequately prepare the client on: 1• The cost of getting the house designed and then the costs of the building consent. 2• The expectation as far as timeframes go from the initial concept through to issue of the building consent.
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While the designer understands the excitement and expectation in building a home, a quality design takes time. The designer needs to set a reasonable expectation on how long the design process goes, as
well as how long the construction process is going to take. Another variable the designer should communicate to their clients is the hidden costs involved in building. “We’ve got amount for the engineer; we’ve got amount for the building consent; we’ve got amount for all the preliminary stuff before you’ve even got a peg in the ground to start building. “From that point of view, there’s a lot of hidden costs that the client doesn’t know about,” Andrew says. At Iconic Architecture, Andrew likes to sit down with the client to go through initial ideas. After that, they go to the drawing board and come up with an initial sketch plan and evaluation, along with an estimated cost of the drawings. Initially, Andrew uses a computer to get down his concept plan. After that, the team converts the ideas onto ArchiCAD, which builds a 3D model of the plan using the concept plan.
