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SilentC,
When I lived in Colorado, where the winter temperatures can fall to minus 30°C, the living room in our house, which extended out over sloping ground, had a wooden floor. The floor was insulated by thick fibreglass batts between the floor joists. As far as I remember, the batts were held up by twine nailed to the joists. The insulation seemed to work pretty effectively.
Rocker
The energy star rating stuff has been in force in Sydney since July last year but it is just filtering it's way down here. I don't think we are going to need double glazing here though, we don't get that hot or cold.
We can build a kit home on whatever floor we want. They don't provide the floor, so you build a slab or raised floor, or whatever you want. I must admit we would prefer a raised floor because we'd like floorboards, however it will probably be cheaper and more 'star rating' friendly to build on a slab.
Interesting that I JUST this minute binned some old Harkaway stuff in my vain effort to clean up.......
I have met the Harkaway people and feel they are at the top end of their market in quality. WHen I visited their display home in Pakenham(?) it presented beautifully which is to be expected - importantly, get really clear about what they do and what you have to do. From memory their prices were ok.
What type of home are you interested in as they do have a range.
If youre trying/hoping to get a true period feel, then consider the ceiling heights they have and have a very close look at the originals youre trying to emulate. They do have an outer-wall-system that goes a long way toward recreating the right look, but you know .....
have fun
:D
Hey Darren,
Have you had any more dealings with Harkaway? Ms. Grunt and I are seriously thinking about putting one of these on our property. We've bought a couple of these Kit Home mags and Harkaway had great looking houses.
Thinking I might take a year off and project manage the building process. Gotta be better than doing this computing stuff. Damn I hate computers.
Grunt
hi mate
duck down and see their display home - it is pretty good. Let me know if I can help.
have fun
We decided on Kitome in the end. Really came down to cost. Harkaway are providing a top end product, with timber windows and so on. Unfortunately, when we looked at how much it was going to cost, we decided that for what we need to build (attached dual-occupancy about 50 squares in all) we simply couldn't afford to go with Harkaway.
I would have loved to have built one of their houses (something from the Pavillion Courtyard range). From the few conversations I had with them, it sounded like they are right into working with you on the floor plan, they almost force you to change it to suit your needs. I was impressed from that point of view.
The rule of thumb is to double the kit price and that gives you the rough finished cost. Go and have a look at their display house down there, I have no doubt you will be impressed.
I have loved the Harkaway Homes for many years. We are currently looking at the option of extensions at our home in Nrthn Victoria.
The 45 year old house is a flat roof rectangle of 15 squares at the moment, and we want (and are only allowed) to ad 40 m2 or one room to the existing dwelling. We also want to put on a gabled/pitch roof and a double garage with a bedroom above which will adjoin the house. The house is currently on a mound and build on stumps with a timber floor.
The entire look we want is the Harkaway House - Pavillion Roofline with a verandah around the house. The end shape will effectively be a L.
As the current house is basically a box, we were wondering if it might be possible to simply kit over/around the existing house using the Harkaway kit as I understand the kit is simply the exterior of the house?
Cost wise not worth it? Barking up the wrong tree? Any ideas or thoughts?
Best thing would be to contact them. Their kits are certainly not "out of the box" in that they tailor each one to the customer, so I don't see any reason they wouldn't do it.
As an aside, Beechwood homes went belly up this week.
Hi
looked at building one of these a few years ago. Seemed professional. One thing I liked was they had developed a hardiplank material that looked exactly like federation weatherboard. Not sure if it was correct, but they suggested that it was only made for thier homes and not the general market.
Flower - you definitely would not need to wrap your house in a Harkaway product - study their design and note those elements that you love then create your own, better design. One thing though - what do you mean by "only allowed to add 40 square metres"? If you only have a 20 square home, it will be a challenge to make it look like a 33 square Pavillion..... or am I missing something here? .... probably am :D:D:D
Hi Seriph,
Our house is restricted on renovations due to the area it is located in - a flood area, you can only add 40 m2 on ground floor. We will also be adding a double drivethru garage 6x12m with a master bedroom and ensuite upstairs, so it will be a bit bigger. The measurements will be 28m x 22m which will include the verandah.
With further investigations, I feel that it wouldn't be the best option, it would be cheaper to use the same format but source the materials locally.
Many thanks
Personally I've had no direct dealings with Harkaway & I don't want it to sound like an endorsement but the feed back I've had over the years is that they are good.
In Vic from the start of this month additions need to achieve a '5 Star Energy Rating Level'. If the extension or reno is greater than 50% of the existing then the entire home needs to be upgraded to comply.
Just thought I'd throw that in.