Do I really want to supply materials or trades on my new home?
Posted on January 27th 2023
NO, IT’S NOT WORTH IT!
Here are the reasons why it is not worth it.
- The Occupational Health and Safety act, requires the builder to induct trades and delivery guys into the company, They need to be inducted onto each individual job site and the trades need to go over safe work method statements with the Builder. All of this will be over and above the standard inclusions, because all of the trades that work for the builder have already done this. The trades also need to have Red cards to work on domestic building sites. They also need to have public liability insurance and a lot of people simply don’t have this.
- If the trades that will be engaged to do the work do not complete the work on time, this will mean that the builder will have to suspend the works and a delay of construction fee will have to be charged at a weekly rate, because normally the job would progress further and the next progress payment due would help cover the costs for that stage of construction.
- If the builder does the work, there are no arguments about liability with any defects or issues with non-compliance with the National construction code, or the Australian standards, Its one phone call and no heartache to get anything fixed.
- The builder would have to charge extra for additional time required to manage trades and to co-ordinate the delivery of materials, The builder has standard supplier agreements with trades and suppliers and have long standing relationships and understanding of how they need to be managed. Most of the time the builder would order materials and it get delivered to site, if owners supply materials, usually it gets delivered to the factory and they need to double handle it to get it delivered to site, costing more in labour and risking damage the items etc. They would need to check items to see if they are damaged on deliver and then re-pack them suitable for transport, again costing more labour. Of if they were to get delivered to site, they would need to open up the house especially to take the delivery.
- If owners supplies materials to the house and those materials get damaged or stolen, the builders insurance does not cover this and HIA domestic building contract that gets used, states that it is the owners responsibility and not the builder’s, so therefore is too much of a risk.