A house nearly doubled, and handed back at lock-up

The house was 113 square metres: four bedrooms, a lounge, a meals area off the kitchen, one bathroom. We added another 87. The back came off, a living and dining wing went on, and the wet areas were rebuilt around an ensuite that had not been there before.

We stopped at lock-up

This was never a full renovation contract. Our job was to get the house framed, roofed, clad and glazed — weathertight and secure — and then hand it back for the owner to finish. Painting, tiles, cabinetry, floor coverings and electrical were all listed as exclusions before anything was signed, and the building permit itself says lock-up only.

Stopping early is a perfectly good idea and an easy one to do badly. It works when the line is drawn on paper rather than in conversation, because everything past that line is now the owner’s to organise and pay for. Ours was a written list, agreed up front, and nothing got added to it halfway through.

Then we found the septic tank

It was sitting where the footings had to go, along with a run of buried concrete nobody knew about. This is the second Blairgowrie job we have written up where an old septic tank turned up under a house — the back beaches were on tank and trench long before they were on sewer, and none of it got drawn on anything when the mains went through. If you are building down that end, assume something is under there.

The footings had to go deeper as a result. That was costed and agreed with the owner before we dug any further, which is the only sensible way to handle something nobody could have priced at the start.

Built so they can stay in it

The design had to meet the Liveable Housing Code, which is not a finish you pick at the end — it sets door widths, thresholds and how much clear floor sits beside a toilet. So the entry is step-free, the shower is hobless, and the bathroom walls are backed out for grab rails nobody needs yet. Done at frame stage it costs very little. Retrofitted later it is expensive and it looks it.

Six months

Site start was July 2025, the windows were signed off in December, the plumbing was finished two days before Christmas, and the final inspection was approved in January 2026. Six months, on a house that grew by most of its own size again and had a septic tank under it.