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Home Extensions: The Process

If you haven’t embarked on a home extension project before, understanding how the process unfolds can be difficult. Building a home extension is certainly complex – with Planning laws, Local Government regulations, insurance and other requirements that need to be complied with. It means you certainly want to work with someone who’s seen and done it all before, to ensure your project runs smoothly.

We’ve developed a flow chart that explains how the process unfolds at Exactus Homes.

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Our first meeting

When you contact us, we will ask you about the home extension project you have in mind. It’s always best to arrange a face to face meeting, to be able to see the home and evaluate the requirements. Ralph Brewer is the owner and builder at Exactus Homes, and he will typically come and meet with you.

The key to any successful home extension is close supervision from an experienced builder. Don’t be surprised to see Ralph taking a close look at everything along the way to ensure your home extension is ‘built with pride’.

Ralph is happy to explain the process to you and give you rough indications of what to expect. Don’t worry if you don’t really know what you want – we meet many people who start with a concept of improving their home, but no real idea of how to go about it. After this meeting, you can decide what you’d like to do next.

Our proposal

If you are still interested to explore your home extension project further after the information we’ve provided you in our first meeting, we will give you a proposal document. This includes a rough estimate of your project cost based on our experience and assumptions.

It includes information on Exactus Homes and what makes us different to other home builders.

Going to the next step

Based on your acceptance of our proposal document, we can either;

Provide you with the fee for a draftsperson or architect to develop concept plans for your home extension project. This fee will be reimbursed if you build with Exactus Homes. If you do not proceed with Exactus Homes, this fee enables you to keep your plans.

If the cost proposal exceeds your budget parameters, it’s best to tell us and we can suggest how to reduce the scope or simplify the plans to meet your expectations. This is something we regularly do with clients. Sometimes it means leaving part of the home extension to be a Stage Two in a couple of years, or deciding to do some things themselves, like painting or landscaping.

Estimate preparation

We prepare an estimate for your home extension project. An estimate is an indicative price based on assumptions, allowances and provisional sums. Usually an estimate is within about 5% of the final quote value. Once you review your estimate, you may either choose to reduce or add to your project scope.

An estimate is an extensive process for Exactus Homes. We provide your plans to our suppliers and tradespeople to source costs for their materials and services. The process can take several weeks as we wait for their responses, and collate all of the costs in an extensive spreadsheet.

When we share with you our estimate, we clearly specify the component costs, rather than providing one big number.

Preliminary Agreement and Deposit

Once you’ve received your estimate, there might be a process of going back-and-forth to achieve a final cost that you’re happy with. Based on your acceptance of our estimate, we proceed with;

A complete site inspection
Site contour survey and soil test
Engineering plans
Working drawings and plans
Energy efficiency report
Your selection of fixtures and finishes
Dilapidation report

Quote preparation and contract signing

We prepare a formal quote. At this stage you can continue to make changes. All going well, a fixed price contract is prepared and signed.

Building plans to Council

Building Plans and the Contract are submitted to Council for approval. This can take a few weeks, especially if Planning approval is required.

Begin construction

Construction commences on your home extension project! You can still make changes (where it’s feasible to do so) and a variation to the contract is created and signed.