Building a new house and would love to hear from people for ideas that they would have put in their palace in hindsight? Something you think would have been good to put in during construction?
Never had my own but as one who lives in housing provided by work and thus I have no choice where I live:
Every room should have a window. Particularly toilets - no dunny in middle of the house with no ventilation (and sunlight kills bugs)
Have eaves!
Kitchen, linen cupboard and laundry relatively close together if you have a family. Housewife home all day goes kitchen to laundy and linen cupboard repeatedly. The cheaper designs nowadays don't even give you a linen cupboard.
Likewise if you have little kids - ability to close a door between living area and the passage that leads to their bedroom - particularly if you have tiles.
Do what ever you can to use sunlight to heat your home, in your location big north facing windows and thermal storage.
Look into the concept of energy efficient housing design, might cost higher to build but it will cost you less in the long term.
The toilet and bathroom should have a window but I think it would be great to have a decent sized room with no window. Great for sleeping in the day where it's dark and quiet.
If possible try to insulate the building and also stick in plenty of power points. Around twice as many as you think you will need may be adequate. A fireplace of some sort is great especially if you have access to some trees for wood. If you can get a water heater element going through you fireplace you will both heat your house and your water with fire in winter.
Eaves definitely but NOT boxed or covered in - doesn't matter if your gutters overflow then when or if it rains.
Cellar - dual purpose in cyclone area.
BIG shed or garage for toys.
More insulation in my timber framed house.
NO weatherboards due to the bastards needing painting every five or so years - I believed the ads that say ten 
If you're miles away from the coast sell and move closer and just build a smaller house.
If you are a shift worker put your bedroom at the southwest corner - cooler until midday after nights and if you somehow sleep too long you can feel the seabreeze kick in in WA......
Good luck and have fun.
Yes eves are important in Australia. I can't believe a house is allowed to be built here that doesn't have eves but if you drive in most modern housing estates most houses don't.
We've got a passive solar design with north facing living (with eaves) good thermal mass and good insulation (hebel Powerpanel cladding system) so I hope were kicking goals. .
Bedroom in the SW corner for sleeping (shift worker) and as far away from the living as possible.
One house I had they put the single light in the centre of the carport... Fkn useless.. no light in the car, boot or bonnet. Couldn't see a thing at night except the car roof.
One front and rear would have been better.
U or V shape guttering, they don't block up and are self cleaning if the ends are left open... after the downpipe.
What about a home theatre room in the centre of the house so that you can insulate it well?
One of the best things I did to my house was to install a skylight window in the loungeroom, but only because it faces south and got very little natural light. Now its excellent and only needs lights at night.
My bathroom has windows high up and faces north, so it has great privacy and plenty of natural sun light.
So, I would agree, good solar design would be a must have. I guess if you are using powerpanels and have decent thermal mass, you are onto a good design. Are there prevailing breezes that you can take advantage of so that you can get a breeze flowing through the place?
Oh yeah, if you are crazy like me, cable up everything with twisted pair cabling!
The best thing I did was put movement sensors to turn the lights on in the passage and garage. Fantastic with kids getting up in the night and good to get another beer from the fridge in garage.
Decrepit said..
"Unless you want to collect rain water, (and that's a good idea these days) you don't need gutters."
The East Freo council (as late as 2007 when I built my games room, carport and shed) insists that all run-off be contained on the property. That means gutters, downpipes and soak-wells or tank.
Waste of time as far as I'm concerned. The gutters on the house get blocked from our lovely shady trees and the upstairs ones are about 6m above ground level and I'm getting WAY too old to be climbing the extension ladder....
I'm sure our roof run off stays on this block, but it's an uphill slope to our neighbours in sandy soil.
What about ground level collection gutters into a soak well? Probably get just as blocked but easier to clean out.
Some points to ponder.
High ceilings if you can go that way. Not the standard job, but high. I think its 32 course brick high, but check.
Tinted glass, not the add on film but tinted, or darkened glass.
Big wide deep kitchen draws.
Big bathroom, with vent fan over shower, and in bathroom itself. Don'T bother with a bath with jets, we did and have used it randomly in 6 years.
Walk in robes, no faffy tiny ones, proper size jobs.
Double check, and check again as the window frames and door frames are bricked in. Its a pain in the coit sorting out not square frames with screens and tiles after its all in.
Fill the gutters, then check for low spots (will rust out) add down pipes as required to elevate.
Run 10mm 3 phase to your house..
Bomb the fixed variable rate on construction..i.e the first payment is 60 grand from the lenders. dont go install interest only payments in this first year period. Bomb the debt as maximum as possible in this low debt time frame.
are you building rural or residential .. if you are building rural im a wealth of knowledge when it comes to clearing of native vegetation fire exclusion zones and infrastructure.(applications were financially crippling with the doc department of conservation)
Whats the situation? Lack of details provide a non accurate answer.
At the end of the day if your a high income dual income earner or are .and are renting you should build. you cant go wrong.
TIP"1
Build in a recession or buy established and renovate gfc etc bust and then hold it for a boom and sell it of to some knob jockey whos boasting to his friend that his 10 houses has gone up 30 percent a month Then purchase his investment property when he is selling at a loss dropping the housing prices for being to greedy.
Anyways its difficult at the moment in our state to get an advantage out of capitol growth with interest rates capital gains and stamp duty out weighing .
At the end of the day if your a high income earner or are .and are renting you should build. you cant go wrong.
Just build what ever it is the labor government with its immigration policies will ensure you have a sound investment...
Watch dodgy commission making financial/superannuation "advisers" that will tell you to buy in a boom over priced when the bubble cycle is being penetrated by a needle.
Tip2" DONT EVER GET DIVORCED This will cripple you mentally and financially.
Make sure you can service the loan on a single income and live comfortably which is slowly becoming /out of reach (ausie dream) ,budget in the future that there might be kids if your young.Australia is becoming very unaffordable now Its "THE HAVES AND HAVE NOTS"
Most successful people are the ones who are third fourth generation who have stuck together and held accumulated assets.
Apparently in this day and age some sort of self protection from home invaders is required.
Possibly the best / worst piece of television I have seen in a long time.
I've posted this before, but this document is the best thing I've seen for good advice about sustainable building.http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html
Passive solar design principles are the most important thing, by design your house should be comfortable all year around with minimal need for heating or cooling.
Arranging wet areas in a cluster, kitchen, bathroom, laundry etc with the hot water system nearby is one of my favourite tricks. Save money with plumbing/drainage and the hot water comes on quick.
Build your house so that the main roof expanse faces north or as close to north as possible with optimum angle for solar hot water and solar power installing maximum panels for greater return. Definitely have 3 phase power( the larger wire size - up to 16 sq mm -the better voltage you get - less volt drop) using 1 phase to export the power the other 2 for import that way you maximise your earnings(your aren't using the power you produce)
3 phase is more economical for heavy load items like pool pumps and hot water backup heaters
Pick you 3 favorite rooms....
Room 1 - add 3 feet
Room 2 - add 2 feet
Room 3 - add 1 foot
ie - 3 feet on the garage (boards), 2 feet on living dining, and 1 foot on mater bedroom. And and 1 metre to the main robe for the wife.
In all seriousness... (the above is), the "standard garage" is a JOKE at 6m x 6m, or even worse at 5.6m x 6.0m. Go for 6.5m x 6.5m. And trust me, 7.5m x 6.5m is what you really want !! 7.5m gives reasonable space for 2 car, perhaps boards, bicycles, etc... Racks for storing boxes, documents, etc. Believe me, 7.5m x 6.5m is what you will want.
Garage Door - 5.2m wide, not the more standard 4.6m to 4.8m.
Extra width to door and entire garage, allows you to get 2 cars in there, with far more comfort. And more comfort when getting in and out of cars. I know plenty of people around me with "normal small garages", and they can't even get 1 car in there. So much "stuff", shelves, kids toys, bikes.... not even room for 1 car !!
A standard Subaru Forester is 4.56m long x 1.8m. You want 0.75m on all sides, for comfort, parking tolerance, etc.
That means a 2 car garage should be 6m x 6.6m WITHOUT SHELVES. At least 6 x 6.25m. Add shelves to 3 sides, 400-500mm deep, plus 300+mm moving space = about 8m x 7m. That's a man's garage !!
Sure, you can go smaller.... But if you have toys, boards, kids, bikes, ski's, box's, a home business, etc.... 8m x 7m is THE GO !!. Or a separate storage area, separate to the garage. Perhaps a 3m x 5m storage room. Shelves on 3 sides... or shelves on 2 sides, toys on 1 side...... etc... either way, that extra 10-20m2 is critical for most people, in 2011 onwards.... bloody consumers !! 
My advice as an Architectural draftsman would be to build as small as possible. All thermal and fire requirements are legislated in the building code and part of Basix requirements so eaves and insulation and water tanks are necessary.If you see windows without eaves around your area and its a new house then theres something else going on in the design, maybe the eaveless side is facing south and if it south it will never get sun so wont need eaves . Either way Basix is flexible and small design changes can influence thermal requirement outcomes dramatically. If it wont pass basix , try changing window sizes, amount of windows, or the amount of fall off and size of water tank, its very corruptable . A good idea would be to purchase a copy of "building your own home" and visiting this site forum.homeone.com.au/
just some things to keep in mind:
-Every Area is different from the next, what goes down in Sydney wont neccessarily be the samw thing for newcastle or QLD or Darwin so asking on this forum you're gonna get so much misinfo. Thats why people employ local architects or drafties coz they know the requirements right off the bat. employing non local designers will increase costs a bit if they are unfamiliar with your area as there is soooooo much BS to sift through each councils requirements.
-Higher ceilings= higher heating and cooling costs
-concrete floor= excellent thermal mass
-steel frames only can be used for one story buildings and still need termite inspection due to the rest of the house containing timber products.
- Timber framed houses last much longer in a fire, steel frames will buckle and melt much quicker.
-dont over insulate, it will work against you, but Basix will sort out minimum requirements according to design and climate conditions.
-Solar/ gas are the best and cost efficient water heating
-If you install solar panels for elec, build room for storage battery banks.
-Bathroom and kitchens are where you will spend most of your money so if you can keep them as small as possible the better.
- the house should be a highly functioning organism as well as keeping you dry and comfortable so get everything right
PS its only a personal opinion here but I think attached garages are a bit of a wank, I mean its like a bedroom for your car and is expensive too, the concrete alone needs to be a higher rating and usually garages are bigger than the master bedroom, for what? a car? carports are a very cheap and effective alternative. It can also depend where your building, most new estates have covenants that say you need to have an attached garage so all the houses can be somewhat congruent, but personally you'd never catch me out in one of those new manufactured suburbs with tiny streets where you can get fined for parking on your own grass. Put a massive steel shed out the back for half the cost.
PSS. I'd never build a new home.
