Our Approach
When you’re building or renovating, you need to be confident that your builder’s got everything under control. Our project planning approach is designed to give you a full understanding of your project, and give us all the information we need to deliver on-time and on-budget.
What to Expect: Our 10-Step Process
- Meet the team
We’ll be working closely together during the build process, so we think it’s important that you get to meet us in person. During this first meeting we give you an overview of our background and experience, and answer your initial questions. If possible, we hold this meeting onsite or at your section. - You tell us about your brief – and we listen
Next we learn as much as we can about your scope of work, so we can get a solid outline of what’s important to you and define the core requirements of your build. If you have a scrapbook of ideas this is a great time to show it to us – it can be really helpful. We’ll take a lot of notes during this part of the process! - We get an understanding of your budget
If you haven’t confirmed your final budget, don’t worry – this step is mainly to help us set a pricing benchmark. This is also a good time to start getting your finance organised; we work closely with some great Mortgage Brokers and can help to put you in touch. - We begin costing your project
This is the step where you choose to engage Dark Horse Building to complete your costings. We charge a fee for our pricing service this covers our own time, and time associated with obtaining preliminary information from subcontractors and their pricing information. We’re happy to answer any extra questions you have before deciding to go ahead, and we want you to feel completely comfortable before we start.
We produce the costings of your project based on the conversations we’ve had about your budget and brief. Once we’ve finished, you’ll own all the costings and the information: after all, it’s your project! At this stage we also talk you through the pre-consent timeframes.
If you haven’t yet obtained your pre-approval from the bank, this is a good time to get that sorted. - We review the costings together
Once we’ve completed your costings, we meet with you and run through these line-by-line – it’s important that you can clearly see what’s included, and where allowances have been made for other items. - We confirm your costings and start work on your concept plans
Once you’ve confirmed the preliminary costings, we provide a scope of work to our Draftsman so they can get started on the concept plans. These plans will reflect all of our previous conversations with you. - You select your concept, and we complete a budget check
Once our Draftsman has completed the concept, we’ll work with you to make sure you’re happy with everything that’s included. Before getting started on the full drawings, we do another budget check to make sure we’re on target. - You choose the finer details, and we begin work on your drawings
At this stage we confirm all the smaller details about your build – things like colours, selections, and material choices – to make sure everything is included in the drawings. - We review your plans, check budget, and submit to Council
When your drawings are finished, we sit down and go through every page of your plan before completing a formal sign-off. We also complete another budget check.
Then we submit your plans to Council for consent, and Council reviews these and completes the consent process. The standard consent processing time is 20 working days, however we allow five weeks at this stage to allow for time to answer any questions from Council. - Consent is granted, and construction begins
Once Council has granted consent we provide you with a Build Contract to formally sign, then provide your full Programme of Work including all major build milestones and your completion date. We also set up contract works insurance, and give you a copy as part of our disclosure information.
