I have just had a student tell me how much they enjoyed the Owner Builder Course, but was surprised that it did not cover several important areas of consideration for NSW Owner Builders.
One of the ares she mentioned was Insurance. It is an interesting observation, and one that I felt required some clarification. Up until two years ago, the NSW Department of Fair Trading, required in the learning content, a section on insurance, including the relevance of Public Liability, Workers Compensation. Builders All Risk and Home Warranty Insurance in respect to owner builder works. Despite enormous protestation from myself, they have dropped this and other important areas such as contracts and legislation from the required learning. Queensland through the QBCC have shown a better appreciation of the required skills and knowledge and retained these areas of study in their course. Abacus Training recognises the need to provide this education and cover these topics. That is why we include this in your reference materials, supporting documentation, resources and Owner Builder manual. You will not be assessed on this knowledge, but all the information is there. Remember, we are not just about ticking a box to get your Statement of Attainment, we want to provide you the best opportunity to be successful as an owner builder. That requires us to provide information and support over and above what the Department of Fair Trading mandates as the course materials. And imagine, there are companies out there who still tell you that you can complete the educational requirements of an owner builder course in three hours! I would not like to be committing my hard earned to a project like building or renovating without being adequately informed and prepared, would you? Happy Building, Rick
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To me, there are two reasons to become and owner builder.
Firstly it is the overall experience and the satisfaction you can get from being able to say "I built that!" Secondly, is the obvious potential to save money. It is possible to save a considerable amount of money by being an owner builder. You should be able to save at least the builders margins which can run at around 20% on most standard domestic construction projects. These savings are made through buying well and 'haggling' with suppliers to get the best possible price. This may sound easy, but it requires discipline. Abacus Training is here to help you to stay disciplined throughout our owner builder project, give you access to the required knowledge and provided you with easy to use tools to track and manage your project. Tools we provide include the Tendering documents and templates included in our Owner Builder Project Management System. We are working on video tutorials that will better explain the use of the templates and support the information provided in the course notes. Tendering and letting of the major contracts for the works you are going to 'let out' to appropriately qualified trade contractors is possibly the most important function you will undertake as an Owner Builder. Being organised and having a plan to manage the tendering process is key: You will need to:
Owner building is a lot of commonsense. Couple this with a good system, education and discipline and the owner builder experience should be very rewarding. Happy Building, Rick Heaton Hello to all our Owner Builder students in NSW and QLD.
Firstly let me welcome you to this the first of our blog entries in the new format. We decided to bring the posts inhouse to allow us to better manage and respond to each of our owner builder students. An important development is our decision to cease all courses other than owner builder courses for Queensland and New South Wales. This ensures we can better service those of our students that are completing nationally accredited courses that we offer under our Registered Training Organisation. We would like to point out to our students, the requirements of each of the owner builder courses and the way in which they must be delivered by the RTO. For NSW, the Department of Fair Trading has decided to require each owner builder applicant, to complete 5 Units of Competency from the National Training Package CPC08. Each of these Units will take around 8 to 10 hours to complete, inclusive of assignments and assessments. So allow around 50 hours to complete the Owner Builder education requirements for NSW. Be very wary of any provider who tells you that this can be completed in 3 hours. For QL students, the QBCC require the completion of one single Unit of Competency that has been specifically developed for owner builders in QLD. The mandatory time for completion of this course is 24 hours inclusive of assessments and assignments. We make no apology that our courses require you to put in a reasonable effort. Building a house as an owner builder is a significant task and should be taken seriously. If you fail to understand the requirements, obligations and level of detail involved, you run a real risk of costing yourself a considerable amount of money and may end up with a sub standard product at the end. Our courses guarantee that we will provide you access to the information required to prepare you to become an owner builder in NSW and QLD, but it is still up to you to out in the effort and not take short cuts. Owner building should be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience. Our goals is to help you realise that enjoyment. Best Regards and Happy Building Rick |
AuthorRick Heaton is a Building and Construction Industry professional with formal tertiary qualifications in management and training. Archives
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