I Love Watching a House Go Up
That's the honest reason this business exists. I love builds. Every stage of them. I love walking through display homes, and I love watching a timber frame on a slab turn into a house someone's actually going to live in. If I could be on site every day of a build, I would be.
I'm Luke. I've worked in construction for about twenty years, on both residential and commercial projects. These days I do facades on high rise apartments, mostly installing big windows.
People may think a house and an apartment tower are different jobs. They are different in a way, but the principles are the same. It's one trade after another, in the same order, every time.
The Part Nobody Sees
Because trades run in that order, each one covers up the work before it. That sounds obvious. It's also the whole problem.
The windows I install come pre-made and lock together. Inside them are rubber seals that stop water getting in, and stop the wind whistling through. Sometimes the rubber seal falls out while you're putting it together. It only takes a minute to put it back in.
It also takes no time at all to lock the next piece over the top and keep going without putting it back in, because once that's done, nobody can tell. Not the site manager, not the builder, not the person who buys the apartment.
Nobody finds out until it's windy. By then, whoever's living there just has a place that whistles, and they have no idea why.
I'm not saying people are dishonest. Most aren't. It's usually someone who couldn't be bothered spending the extra two minutes. But once something's covered up it's invisible, and the only chance anyone has of catching it is to inspect the work before the next trade turns up.
I Had a House Built in 2006
It was a well known volume builder, which I won't name.
The build ran well over schedule. There were things I could see that didn't look right to me, but back then I wasn't sure whether I was being fussy or whether something was actually wrong.
A mate of mine is a builder. He told me to get an independent inspector in. I did, near the end of the build, and the builder ended up having to fix quite a lot. If my mate hadn't said anything, I'd have moved into that house with all of the problems still in there.
Here's the part that stuck with me. I often played golf in a social club with the general manager of that building company, who I also considered to be a mate. So I'd picked a builder with a name behind them, I knew someone there who was very high up, and I still ended up with a shit build.
It's not about knowing the right people, and it's not about picking a big enough company. It's that nobody can watch every trade on every site every day. That's not having a go at builders, it's just how it is.
What I Actually Think About Builders
There are dodgy operators in every industry and building's no different. But most builders I've come across genuinely want to hand over a home they're proud of. That's what they're trying to do.
Most builders, especially volume builders, rely on a lot of different subcontractors to get a house finished. That's normal, and it's how modern residential construction works. A single build can involve concreters, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers, plasterers, painters, cabinet makers, tilers and plenty of others.
Most of them take pride in their work most of the time. But it's still a human process. Workmanship varies, mistakes happen, and it only takes one person having one bad morning to bury something nobody will ever see again. Even the best site manager can't be everywhere at once.
That's why I sit on both sides of the fence.
My job is to help you get an excellent home. That happens by having an independent inspector check the work at each stage, before the next trade covers anything that may have been missed.
And when something does go wrong, I'm here to tell you it's usually a mistake rather than your builder trying to get away with something. Catching it early protects you, and it protects your builder from a small defect turning into a dispute twelve months after you've moved in.
What I Am, and What I'm Not
I'm not a licensed builder and I don't carry out the inspections myself. I don't know every code and standard for every trade, and I'm not going to pretend I do. The inspections are done by an independent specialist who does that work for a living.
What I bring is twenty years on sites, a good understanding of how a build actually runs, and no financial interest in you signing with one builder over another.
Luke Dodson T/A New Build Assist
ABN 13 340 913 083
Real Estate Agent Licence No. 4366758
PO Box 1450 Broadbeach Qld 4218
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