David Moses, Managing Director of Horizon Habitats
Website: www.horizonhabitats.com.au
Contact: david@horizonhabitats.com.au
What are the three essential elements in the homes that you build, that your clients desire?
Service and Quality, at a fair price. Our core focus is building homes for families. I believe its supposed to be a really positive experience. There are so many horror stories out there. We stay ahead of the game, and need to be extremely organised to avoid delays and cost overruns during the job. We are in a market that our clients demand the highest quality finishes. This requires a great level of attention to detail as well. Managing our clients’ expectations and delivering a successful project with those parameters is not a 9-5 job!
Do you have any tips for homeowners considering renovations?
- Get a good architect that will design something to your needs. Retain him/her for the duration of the job. Maybe even an interior designer if you need.
- Make sure you have your finances in place, and you allow room for extras.
- Set a realistic budget, update it regularly, and be disciplined in your decision making process.
- Don’t start building until you are comfortable with the design. The more detail you have before you start, the tighter the price, and the less chances of delays or overruns.
- Make decisions in a good time, and don’t change your mind.
- Try and keep lines of communication open between the whole project team – designers, builders, even the neighbours!
What was your most challenging project and why?
Every job has its own challenges. This may be in site access, timeframe, holding parts of a house up whilst working underneath it, and most importantly managing clients’ expectations of time, cost, quality, and service.
Your company recently won the Masters Building Association “Excellence in Housing Award”. Please explain the project and how you won?
This is a job we are really proud of. Parts of the house are 5 stories higher than the road, and 35 metres back. We had to hold up parts of the house while we underpinned and excavated beneath them. A pool was carved out of rock in the courtyard. We had a crane on site for 9 months lifting materials in and rubbish etc out. The finishes were of a very high standard, a Dynalite Smarthome was also installed.
Name two things about you that people would not know about you
- I originally wanted to do architecture at university, but did not get in!
- I am a technology and gadget FREAK! IPod, iPad, iPhone you name it – I have to have it!
