[hatter5]

Thinking of building in Wellington?

After a very frustrating time we had to give up on building our own house. Tried to go down the energy efficient route but discovered this would be out of our budget by $140K. 3 months wasted.

Decided instead to use a "reputable" builder who advised he could build our house for the PC Sum of $1700 m2 which was going to be in our range and leave $30K for Solar Hot Water and Solar under floor heating. Handed over $5K deposit and the builder went and arranged for engineering drawings etc.

The day before we got our price I was assured that all the trades quotes were in and just waiting for the double glazing quote."Looking good" in fact, that is until the price was revealed and was $30K over our target price and didn't include any heating system. Another 5 months wasted.

Well bollock's to that! The thought of finding another builder etc and spending at least another 6 months in a rental, so we bought an almost completed house around the corner and saved $$$ and have a sunnier section than the one we sold. Single glasing has been the trade off :[ but a Brivis hot air heating system prevents condensation.

Still mustn't grumble the letting agent we were renting from has spent $60K on architect fees and still hasn't started to build.

We have also been in NZ for a whole year - which is nice.