Straight answers, before you call.

Send an address and a rough brief — what you want, roughly what you have to spend, and when you would like to be in. The next step is walking the block together. Nothing is signed until the drawings are finished and the lump sum is on the table.

The address is the only thing that matters. Beyond that: a budget range you would actually proceed at, a rough idea of how many bedrooms and how you live, your timing, and anything that already exists — a survey, drawings, a DA, a contract of sale.

Yes, and it is the most valuable hour you will spend. Fall, access, trees, sewer, easements, orientation and what the neighbours have already been allowed to build all decide what a block can carry, and none of them are obvious from a listing.

We walk the block, and on a rebuild the existing house as well. You get a straight answer on what the site will take, what it will make difficult, and whether what you have in mind is reachable at the budget you have. If it is not, you hear that then rather than after a design is drawn.

New custom homes, knockdown rebuilds, renovations and additions, and duplex pairs — plus the pools and landscaping that finish them. Single and two-storey, on everything from a tight suburban lot to genuine acreage.

Yes. The Ryde Duplex on this site is a pair on a 385 m² block, drawn as one composition so the street reads one building rather than two half-houses. Whether your block supports a pair is a question about frontage, area and the controls that apply to it.

Yes. Annangrove House is on two hectares and Aristida at Cattai is on 7,290 m². Acreage changes the job more than people expect: service runs, driveway construction, on-site wastewater and machine access become real line items rather than details.

Yes. Mapleton is a two-storey house on a sloping corner block, and Cleary at Pitt Town holds an elevated pool against the fall on sandstone terracing. Fall changes the slab, the retaining and where the garage can sensibly sit — it is a design question before it is a cost.

Yes, as an extra stage of a build or renovation we are doing — same team, same contract. It is not offered on its own. That is the whole argument for it: a pool that has to meet the house at a particular level, a retaining wall that has to be there before the slab, a driveway that has to survive a concrete truck.

The drawings are done by the architect we work with, with Brad involved from the first sketch — suggesting, questioning and pricing as the plans develop. Design, approvals, engineering, the trades and the build are all coordinated through one person, which is what stops the design being drawn in one place and priced somewhere else.

Plenty of people arrive with drawings already done. Send them through with the address and you will get a straight answer on whether they can be built to the budget you have — and if they cannot, where the money is actually going.

It depends on the block and what you intend to build on it. CDC is the faster path where the proposal fits inside the code; a DA is the path where it does not. The decision is worth making early, because it changes both the program and the drawings.

We do. Approvals, engineering and certification are managed through to consent, so you are not the one chasing a certifier you have never spoken to.

Some things, yes — that is a large part of why the houses here are stick-framed on site rather than assembled from prefabricated panels. A wall can move, a ceiling can lift or an opening can widen while the house is going up. What changes is priced as a variation and agreed in writing before it happens.

No honest builder gives you a number before seeing the block and the brief. What drives it is the site — fall, access, rock, services — then the size and shape of the house, the structure, and the level of finish. Send an address and a rough brief and the answer comes back with reasons attached.

Lump sum. One inclusive figure agreed before construction starts, so the number you sign is the number you plan around. If something genuinely changes you hear it from Brad before it happens, not in an invoice afterwards.

Two things, on every job in this industry. Provisional sums and prime cost items are allowances for things not yet chosen or not yet knowable — tapware you have not picked, or rock nobody can see until the excavator arrives. Variations are work you ask for that was not in the signed scope. Ask any builder to show you both lists before you sign.

It is worth having a buffer, and the right size of it depends on how many provisional sums and prime cost items your contract carries. A contract with a long allowance list needs a larger buffer than one where most of the selections are already made — which is a good reason to make the selections early.

At stage six, from the finished drawings. A number quoted before the drawings exist is a guess, and the gap between that guess and the real cost has to be found somewhere later.

Buildabel Pty Ltd, trading as Birch Residential, ABN 79 154 856 363, NSW builder licence 274764C. Worth knowing before you see it on the front page of the contract.

One person, from the first sketch to the day you get the keys. You are not handed between a salesperson, an estimator and a site supervisor, and nobody can tell you a problem belongs to somebody else's part of the job.

The person who priced the job. Trades are engaged and sequenced by Brad rather than routed through a project manager you meet for the first time when something has already gone wrong.

You hear about anything that changes before it happens, and it is agreed in writing and priced before the work is done. That applies to what you ask for and to what the site turns up.

Because a house built conventionally on site can still change on site. It is slower on paper. It is also the reason a wall can move, a ceiling can lift or an opening can widen while the house is going up, instead of being locked the day the frame was ordered.

It depends on the block, the approval path and the size of the house, which is why no honest builder quotes a duration before seeing the site. It is worth agreeing the likely program in writing before you commit to a lease.

Somewhere else — the site is a building site from demolition to handover. It is worth budgeting for rent over the whole build rather than the optimistic version of it.

The finished house is walked room by room with the same person who quoted it, defects are listed and closed out, and statutory warranty and Home Building Compensation Fund cover stand behind the work after you move in.

Anywhere in Sydney.

Anything from a tight suburban lot to genuine acreage. The homes on this site run from a 385 m² duplex site at Ryde up to a two-hectare property at Annangrove.

Send the address anyway. The answer is a yes or a no with a reason attached, not a runaround.

Yes. NSW Builder Licence 274764C, with Home Building Compensation Fund cover arranged through icare NSW and a certificate issued per job before work starts. You can check any NSW licence yourself on the Fair Trading register — it takes about a minute and you should do it for every builder you talk to, including this one.

Since 2011, and a lot of houses since — more than eighty projects across Sydney. A selection of them is documented on this site with photographs and specifications.