Prelims: Where Every Build Really Starts
The moment our client's funding came through, the whole team felt it. There's a particular kind of joy that hits when months of paperwork, phone calls, and patience finally land on the right side of "approved." For him, it meant his family home was no longer just an idea on a page. For us, it meant we could finally get into that bit of land on Meeanee Road and get cracking.
But long before the diggers arrive, there's a stage most people never see, and it's where every good build is actually won or lost.
So what are "prelims," anyway?
Short for preliminaries, prelims are everything that has to happen before a single nail gets hammered. Finding the section. Getting plans drawn. Engaging a surveyor to peg out the boundaries. Booking a geotechnical engineer to test the ground. Getting an engineer to design the foundation. Lodging the lot with council and waiting for consent.
It's not glamorous, but it's the bit that decides whether a build is smooth or stressful from day one. Skip a step, pick the wrong professional, or miss something on the consent application, and you'll pay for it later, in time, money, or both.
How it played out on Meeanee Road
For this build, we included the prelims inside our contract. That meant we engaged the team, ran the process, and kept our client in the loop without him having to chase a single professional. He's a dad of four with a day job and a running regime , the last thing he needed was to spend his evenings hounding consultants.
And we had a cracking team on it:
Paul at Achrys Architectural Design designed this home, and honestly, he's squeezed every last millimetre out of this site. Paul had originally designed the subdivision for the previous landowner, so he knew the constraints inside out. The section is 234m², and he's fitted a 106m² home and a single car garage onto it. That's not luck , that's a designer who knows his craft.
Jacob at Below Ground did the geotech report. Easy bloke to deal with, sharp work.
Guy at Surveying the Bay handled the survey and got results back fast, as he always does.
With those three on the job, council had no reason to push back. Consent was granted without surprises , which is exactly how it should go when the right people are on the team.
The BB Build way
Most builders won't even price a job until full plans are sitting in front of them. We chose to jump in earlier. Off the back of Paul's concept drawings, we put together an early estimate so our client could get his funding application moving. Once finance was confirmed, we took care of everything else.
That's a small change in approach, but it's a big shift for the homeowner. It meant he could carry on with work, his kids, and his running while we did the running around. That's what "we'll take care of it" should actually mean.
What's next
Consent is in hand. The site's ready to come alive. Next up: foundations. Scan the code again when you walk past and you'll see things start to move quickly from here.
