Hot Chippies Blog

The less stressed building experience.

I was recently asked to give a presentation at the HIA Home Improvement Expo on my ideas for people on how to achieve a successful outcome for their building project. After hearing countless renovation horror stories it was easy to put this together for the expo. At Hot Chippies we recommend our clients follow three easy steps to take the stress out of their building experience:

Plan your project – prepare a wish list, set a budget, order your priorities and gather helpful project information such as existing plans, designs and photos.

Select the right builder – are they a HIA member? Then conduct what I like to call the ‘wallet test’ – what’s the price and what do you get for your money? Then look at the builders themselves for compatibility – what are their personalities like? Are they honest? Do you trust them?

Relax as much as possible! – Stress creates poor decisions when clients and builders are under pressure. At Hot Chippies we help our clients achieve less stress through our Relaxed Renovation offer. This special offer includes a stay in one of Canberra’s premier serviced apartments, a couple’s day spa treatment at Canberra Day Spa and double Dendy movie passes. So you can unwind while we take care of your building project.

Vince Robinson – Proprietor
 

Posted by Hot Chippies

Sustainable Development – Doing the small things

There are a number of small things that can be done on building sites that may take a little effort but over time can have a great impact. Here are a few ideas on small things that can be done on a remodelling site to help the environment.

Reducing waste from remodelling sites – how often do you walk past a renovation site to find bins full of mixed waste or salvageable materials? Something we have been doing is separating timber, metal and concrete waste. The concrete goes to concrete recycling, the metal is picked up for free by scrap metal recyclers and often our clients have friends who can reuse timber that we de-nail before stacking neatly away on their block. This has reduced the amount of building rubble on our sites by over 80%

Washing out – When bricklayers, plasterers, tilers and painters need to wash out their equipment, we set up a wash out area. This keeps their mess away from your walls and your drains.

Smart Ordering – being organised with orders can help reduce emissions as a result of transporting materials to your site. A little bit of planing will minimise the number of deliveries to the building site. Prefabricated products reduce waste on a building site as any surplus or waste material can be disposed of by the manufacturers and as they will have large quantities of un contaminated waste it can be easily recycled.

Vince Robinson – Proprietor

Posted by Hot Chippies