Busselton Residential Builder

A residential builder client may seek to reduce their building budget by investigating alternative costings from an overseas manufacturer who deliver their cabinets or windows pre-fabricated, which can then installed by local Australian labour.

Cost comparisons are often too good to ignore but like everything else in the building industry – ‘the devil is in the detail’. The cost comparison on cabinetwork, window joinery or the like, are often not on a comparative basis as construction details may not be supplied/equal or even understood by the overseas manufacturer. If details are drawn and described by the residential builder in english with references to Australian Standards; then there is an enormous amount of trust and faith in the overseas manufacturer ‘s english language skills to ensure that the product that arrives at site can be efficiently and economically installed.

specification substitution

A recent discussion with a local builder detailed an account where a client ordered Chinese window frames in the efforts to yield a 66% budget saving on the aluminium window joinery but the Chinese manufacturer misinterpreted the window height with width – a costly lesson for the Busselton residential builder’s client as the pre-assembled window frames did not fit the project’s already constructed brickwork openings. Further exasperation resulted in the realization that all the windows were 12mm thickness toughened glass (in a site only designated a category N1 wind classification) – requiring the residential builder to double his labor for installation across the building stories due to the weight (if in fact they could be installed at all). Other residential builder reports of aluminium windows leaking across multi-residential apartment projects and windows arriving to site unassembled, are real events that will effect profitability on any residential builder project.

A residential builder client’s perceived budget savings by sourcing overseas manufacturers rather than engaging local custom cabinetmakers or window joinery fabricators, may be a false economy as they aren’t competing on equal grounds – just as the Optus Stadium playing surface is vastly different to the MCG turf. A Busselton residential builder needs to take overseas online window joinery or cabinetwork procurement seriously rather than as something that won’t have an impact on their business – regardless of the next free trade deal that Scomo may sign.

Online sales are here to stay with the rise of www.alibaba.com and other B2B marketplaces, so a residential builder needs to develop risk mitigation when trying to procure Chinese prefabricated products to the building site and the consequences to budget and program. Residential builder feedback appears to be consistent; no amount of contract, drawn and specification information by a Busselton residential builder matters if you’re not speaking the same, “…crack-a-lacking language…” (Marty the zebra, Madagascar).