NO ONE wants their building project to become a drawn-out, tedious process held up by seemingly endless delays.

But delays can occur — there’s no guarantee a development application will breeze through council, rain is unavoidable and trades can be hard to source or have limited availability. All these factors contribute to work taking longer than you initially hoped.

While it’s impossible for a homeowner to control every step of the building process, here are three options that can get you into your new home faster.

media_camera Archiblox is changing how Australians view prefabricated homes.

THE PREFABRICATED HOUSE

One option for a faster than average construction time is a prefabricated house.

Built off-site and generally in a factory, the completed home is trucked to the vacant block and lowered into place by a crane.

Prefabrication has long been an option but Australians are gradually warming to the idea, and it’s something architect Bill McCorkell of prefabricated house building company Archiblox believes will continue.

“Historically in Australia, prefabricated homes have been viewed as more temporary and low budget housing but that’s no longer the case,” he says.

“These days, architect-designed prefabricated houses are getting recognition Australia-wide as high-end architecture with sophisticated building technologies.

“Luxurious prefab homes are starting to catch on as a new trend that brings together cutting-edge technologies and high-end materials to create a visually distinctive building.”

Archiblox is based in Victoria and Bill, a former builder, says most clients are from Melbourne, Sydney and regional Victoria and NSW. Clients appreciate Archiblox for its architecturally designed sustainable homes and reduced building times, he says.

“Depending on the complexity of the project, the build time can be as fast as 12 weeks,” Bill says. “For more personalised and bespoke designs, we allow up to a 20-week build in our facility. Most projects are installed in a single day and final touches on site are only two weeks on average.”

media_camera Archiblox allows 20 weeks for a bespoke design.

Why it’s quicker

Bill says there are numerous advantages to building prefabricated homes.

“Prefabricated homes touch the environment lightly with minimal disturbance to the natural surrounds,” he says.

“Building offsite reduces disruption and damage to the property by trades having to come on and off the site. Our homes are designed with consideration for material sizes and dimensions to maximise product usage while reducing material wastage.”

Archiblox uses a range of materials including Colorbond, Australian hardwood and other claddings, including Ubiq wall and floorboard cladding, for a concrete look and feel.

Kitchens, bathrooms, tiles, showerscreens and light fittings are all installed in their factory prior to transportation.

How it saves you money

Bill says prefabrication with companies such as Archiblox offers an alternative to conventional architecture.

“We offer an architecturally designed and driven product with a firm grasp of costs from start to end, which ensures our clients are not presented with nasty surprises,” he says.

“The big advantage is the control owners have over the notorious twin building variables of time and cost; modular removes these risks. The big reduction lies in the soft or holding costs, such as rent and financing.

“For instance, homeowners only need find alternative accommodation for several weeks instead of months. This means far less outlay, upwards of $30,000, to say nothing of the decreased disruption and if you need to borrow money, it is also for a much shorter period.”

jennifer.veerhuis.com.au

Pictures: Tom Ross

More Archiblox archiblox.com.au

media_camera AAC panels are cheaper than bricks and go up faster.

PANEL POWER

New home builder Fairmont Homes is now using aerated concrete panels to construct many of its homes rather than traditional bricks. Fairmont’s AAC (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) panels are supplied by the Stoddart Group, and appear similar to the better-known Hebel.

Fairmont first opted to try the lightweight panels to overcome the high cost and limited availability of bricklayers, but one of the additional benefits has been faster build times.

Fairmont general manager Daniel Logue says the panels also offer acoustic benefits, are cleaner to work with, offer good thermal properties, are cheaper than bricks, have a high fire rating and can even be used to build party walls in duplexes.

Daniel says the panels are simply screwed to the frame of the house.

“Within about two days all the panels are up and that means we can start doing the roof, possibly start inside, and they just do another day or two of rendering.”

Why it’s quicker

Overall, Daniel estimates the panels cut 15 working days, or three weeks, off the build time of a house.

“Ideally a house takes 16 weeks to build, but realistically it takes 20 with the rain,” he says. “But we are getting 16-17 weeks completed and we’ve had one that went down to 15 weeks.

“It all depends on how the remainder of the trades go.”

Fairmont uses an acrylic render on the panels, which means the render can expand and contract substantially — and avoid problems with cracks.

“With normal render, if there’s any movement there’s a chance of a hairline crack; with acrylic it can expand,” Daniel says.

“Acrylic render is elastic, it can move, contract and expand quite easily, so you don’t actually see visual signs of cracking.”

Daniel says Fairmont won’t be moving away from bricks altogether as there are some people who love them.

“We’ll never move completely away from bricks but it is a good option which I think we’ll use a lot more in the future.”

media_camera Fairmont Homes uses aerated concrete panels to construct many of its homes.

How it saves you money

Daniel says a rendered house built with AAC panels is similar in price to a house built from brick.

“Everyone wants a rendered house but a rendered house on brickwork might add $15,000 on to the cost of a normal single-storey home,” he says.

He says the AAC panels do need to be rendered but that’s the look most clients

are after.

“A lot of people are taking it on board because they love the option of the rendered finish,” he says.

“We offer the panels with pretty much every house and land package and 80 to 90 per cent of people are taking it up.

“In one estate we had 30 houses and 20 of them were sold with the panels.”

Fairmont currently has one display home built with AAC panels, the award-winning Carmel 27 design at Willowdale, and is building four more designs using the same material.

More Fairmont Homes fairmonthomesnsw.com.au

COMPLYING DEVELOPMENTS

They won’t suit every building project, but complying developments work in a lot of cases in NSW where the job is straightforward and homeowners want to fast-track the approval process. Basically, as long as your home meets certain criteria, a private certifier can approve and sign off on the project — avoiding the need to go through council.

Association of Accredited Certifiers (AAC) president Craig Hardy says complying developments are an abbreviated approval process which is very much code-based.

They generally take at least 10 days to process because in the majority of cases nearby property owners must still be notified of the work prior to the issue of the complying development certificate.

Craig says Development Applications tend to be more merit based, so the council will make value judgements.

“The code-based option is strictly about ticking the box: ‘Is it the right setback? Is it the right height?’,” he says. “If it’s not, all bets are off.”

How it saves you time

Craig says complying developments are faster than going through council because a certifier can work quickly for a client.

“The whole idea is to get those regular run-of-the-mill vanilla projects out the door to save getting caught up with red tape,” he says.

More Association of Accredited Certifiers accreditedcertifiers.com.au