We are excited to announce our latest offering for owner builders.

Online courses that are interactive, informative and a whole lot of fun.

Completing one of our courses will give you the knowledge and confidence to successfully complete an owner builder project on time and on budget.

The course covers all aspect of administering your project including onsite and offsite activities for owner builders.

Discover how to manage each of the sub trades, what you should expect of them and what they will expect from you in your role of general contractor, or principal contractor.

Learn the basics of plan reading and estimating and what information is need when writing a contract between yourself, suppliers or contractors.

Best of all do this from you own home and in your own time.

Of course as with all our products and courseware, help is only an email away or you can join the forums, ask question or access our owner builder resources.

Keep an eye on this blog for the launch date which is schedule for later this month.

For the first few months, we will be offering several free owner builder resources to anyone purchasing and completing an online course, don’t miss out, we are going to include an ecopy of our highly acclaimed Owner Builder Project Management System, our newly released Safety Management System for Owner Builders and access to an online Basic First Aid course.

Also in the upcoming month of March, we will be announcing our 2009 schedule for podcasts, webinars adn even ownerbuilderTV to give our clients even greater support during their owner builder project.

Visit our website and have a look around, please leave a comment, we love feedback.

www.ownerbuildercourses.com

Talk Soon and

Happy Owner Building

Rick Heaton

Technorati Tags: build your own home, owner builder courses, owner building

Owner Builders from all over the world have been coming to us for advice and assistance for over 20 years.

In this time we have helped thousand of you to save your hard earned cash by showing you how to best manage your owner builder construction project.

This blog is about getting the information out to more and more people and to help you exchange information and ideas on how to find great deals on materials suppliers and contractors.

We hope you find the articles interesting and helpful, you can always have alook at what we have to offer owner builders in Australia and across the world atour website ownerbuildercourses and keep an eye on this blog for the latest in owner builder ideas, news and innovations.

Best Regards and Happy Building

Rick Heaton

Technorati Tags: australian owner builder, build my own house, owner builder

Since I last posted, some very important changes have occured to both our organisation and the way in which the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading are processing owner builder applications.

Firstly, we are continuing to build our business to be the ultimate information portal for owner builders across the country.

We have acheived accrediation and approval in our own right as a Registered Training Organisation and offer the following nationally accredited courses:

• 39129QLD Course in preparation for owner builder permit, which is the recognised course for the issue of an owner builder permit by the Building Services Authority in Queensland
• 91498NSW Course in owner builder compliance, which is the new course developed by the Department of Fair Trading in New South Wales, for the issue of an owner builder lecense in New South Wales.
• CPCCOHS1001A Work safely in the construction industry, which for our Queensland students will allow us to issue the general safety induction card for the construction industry.

The changes to the New South Wales owner builder course come into affect on Septmeber 1st, 2010.

Our existing course will remain approved and be offered until this date, at which time we will transistion to the new course.

Anyone undertaking the course currently will have until the end of December to receive their permit based on the ‘old’ qualifiaction.

In moving to the new course, the format will change and we are at present developing new owner builder resources which are consistent with the new course content and satisfy the requirements under the Australian Quality Training Framework.

Two new videos have been posted to our owner builder course website, with three more to follow over the next three weeks. Keep an eye out for those.

If you have any questions on owner building in any state or territory in Australia, please do not hesitate to drop us an email or browse around our website.

Happy Building.

Rick

Technorati Tags: owner builder course, owner builder course new south wales, owner builder course qld, owner builder course queensland, owner builder courses nsw

Over the last couple of months, we have been working with the Australian Capital Territory Planning Authourity to have our online and correspondence courses approved for delivery in the ACT.

The online owner builder course is $117.00, with the correspondence course costing just $177.00 (the additional is to cover our printing and postage cost of course reading and resources plus manual marking of assessments)

As one of only 4 recognised course providers in the ACT, we have already had three satisfied students successfully undertake the course and gain their Certificate of Completion.

So if you are thinking of building your own home as an owner builder, in the ACT then consider our course.

Like all our products, we offer full support via email during the course and throughout the construction of your owner builder project.

Keep watching for more news and innovations from our owner builder website.

Best Regards and Happy Building

Rick

Technorati Tags: build your own home, owner builder, owner builder courses, owner builder courses act

I am often asked how to put a value on owner builder works for the purpose of making an application to the relevant authority for the issue of an owner builder permit or licence.

Each of the states and territories have varying requirements on the value of works which require the applicant to hold an owner builder permit and in some cases determines whether or not an approved course is required.

Following is a recent question and my subsequent answer to a visitor to our website.

“Hello RIck, 

Please explain how a value of $11,000 or more is substantiated – see BSA statement below: 

 ”It is a requirement under the Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991 (QBSA Act) that if you wish to

perform or coordinate domestic building work on your property for a single project of a value of $11,000 or more you must hold an owner builder permit.”

In other words, who will know if I submit a building application to the council, without a Owner Builder Permit, and the value turns out to be $12,000?

 I need to determine whether I need untertake an Owner Builder course.”

Hi Scott,

The value of the works are based on an estimation of what would be fair and reasonable costs for labour and materials if it were completed by a licensed contractor.

 One of the ways they would determine this is through applying an appropriate square meter rate that would be typical for the type of project your are constructing.

 For example in the greater Brisbane region, it might be reasonable to estimate that a four bedroom home, brick veneer, tile and of traditional construction methods and average standard of finishes and fittings would cost $1250.00 per square meter for a builder to complete.

 So I guess they could, if they got serious about it, put the project out to tender to determine the value of the works.

 Keep in mind that extensions and renovations are generally more costly than new construction and that pergolas, decks, sheds etc may come down to $1000.00 per square meter or less depending on the type of construction.

 Hope this helps.

So, you see the authorities will check on your estimate of the value of works when you submit your plans for approval.

Remember, always err on the side of caution, you do not want to get off on the wrong foot with your council or local authority.

Best Regards and Happy Building

Rick

Technorati Tags: owner builder, owner builder licence, owner builder permit, owner building

Just a very short blog letting you know the first of a series of videos produced for our owner builders is now online and available to view at www.ownerbuildercourses.com This is just an intro video into what will be an amazing collection of information and tutorial videos for our owner buider students and clients.

Have a look, let us know what you think.

Best Regards and happy building

Rick

Technorati Tags: owner builder course, owner builder course new south wales, owner builder course queensland, owner builder course victoria, owner builder courses, owner building

Sometimes that decision can be extremely frustrating to realise and fulfil, but once you get over the hurdles and see your ‘vision’in place and working not only for you but also your clients, there is an incredible sense of satisfaction.

Well, that is exactly how it is with our new online courses for owner builders. They simply work well.

The feedback wwe are receiving from the students who have completed the owner builder courses online have been extremely encouraging.

The process of getting them up and running was certainly frustrating, we were effectively offline (with no revenue) for around three weeks while we ironed the bugs out and many nights buring the midnight oil were required to get it right.

We will not say it is perfect, it will take us a while to sort out all the issues, but it is very very good. (thanks go out to my team).

So, what does this mean for our prospective and current students?

Simply, we are on the way to providing not only the most affordable owner builder course out there ($117.00) but also free access to our owner builder forum (we want to build an owner building community of like minded people who can truly draw from each other experiences), free access to the very latest owner builder news from all the states and territories and online video tutorials for you to refer back to at any time during the construction of your owner builder home.

All of this will occur over the next few months so please keep visiting the owner builder courses website and providing us feedback so we can give you what you want, simply the best owner builder information you can get.

You can send us info directly from the link on the contact us page or drop me an email at rick.heaton@ownerbuildercourses.com

Bets Regards,

Rick Heaton

Technorati Tags: build my own house, home building, home owner builder, owner builder, owner builder courses, Owner Builder Courses Online

It has been a while since my last post but I have been working on some great new resources for owner builders.

These resources include a project managment kit for owner builders (CD Version) our full range of online courses for each of the states and a generic Safety Management Sytem for use by owner builders running their domestic construction project.

Each of these resources are available for purchase from our website at great prices, but best of all they are free to every student completing an owner builder course with us. Considering our course are only $117.00, that is unbelievable value and a lot of people are saying I am crazy, but hey we just want our owner builder students to have the very best in resources, skills and knowledge.

What else we have planned for you in the next couple of months will blow you away. We are going to be producing about 20 videos which step you through the owner builder process, from applying for your permit to practical completion of your project. Each of the videos is aimed at supporting the online content of our course and again, it will be free to our owner builder students.

Finally, we are going to launch an online project management assistance program which will give you access to our expert staff (for a fee of course, I cannot give everything away for nothing), this assistance will be priced according to the level of support you want and will include all areas of offsite project management, from running your tender process to bookeeping and financial monitoring,stay tuned for these exciting developments.

Tip of the day:

You will only get out of any project (including owner building) what you are willing to put into it, so get on the learning trail and make your project a huge succss.

Best Regards,

Rick Heaton

Technorati Tags: australian owner builders, owner builder, owner builder courses, owner builder courses new south wales, Owner Builder Courses Online, owner builder courses queensland, owner builder courses south australia, owner builder courses victoria, owner construction, project managment