Building plan 7429014412 · work sheet

Salvaging utilities & parts from another area (land free)

Salvaged parts pricing — Australia

Room totals — materials only, you do the labour, ~25m² rooms, land free

Room 1 — built expansion-ready~$8,000–$13,000
  • Floor (screw piles + reclaimed timber, or thin slab)$2,000–$4,000
  • Walls (recycled brick / Besser, self-laid; shared wall built structural for room 2)$2,000–$4,000
  • Roof (DIY frame + salvaged or new Colorbond)$2,500–$4,500
  • Salvaged doors + windows (4–8 openings)$500–$1,500
Room 2 — the planned add-on~$5,000–$9,000
  • Floor$1,500–$3,000
  • Walls (only 3 — shared wall already done, ~$1,500–$3,000 saved)$1,500–$3,000
  • Roof (ties straight into room 1, no cutting)$2,000–$4,000
  • Salvaged doors + windows$400–$1,200

Room 2 comes out cheaper because the shared wall is already built and there is no extension "surgery" — no cutting in, no beam, no leak-prone join.

What you actually pay

The figures above are the full cost to build a room. But you do not front most of it. Everything except salvage, transport, and your own labour is provided by the charity and paid back only when you sell the home or pay it off over time. So the real money you need to start is small.

Provided free · repaid later

  • The land (held forever by the trust)free
  • The building plan & instructionsfree
  • Concrete slab / footings$2k–$4k
  • Licensed electrician$3k–$8k
  • Licensed plumber$3k–$10k
  • Owner-builder permit + council$1k–$5k
  • Shared utilities main (power/water/sewage)covered

You provide · up front

  • Salvage — going and getting the partsfree–cheap
  • Transport — trailer / fuel / truck hire$50–$400/day
  • Labour — your own time building ityour time

So your true out-of-pocket to begin is often just a trailer, fuel, and your weekends. The charity fronts the slab, the licensed trades, and the approvals — and that money is recovered when the home is sold on at its determined value or paid off at 30% of income. Nothing is given away permanently; it cycles back to build the next home.

This is for the case where the land is free to the group (land the charity holds in trust, a bought-out ghost town, or a donated block), and where somewhere else — a building being demolished, a condemned house, a decommissioned or abandoned site — already has power, electrical, and sewage installed. Instead of paying for new parts, the group salvages them and transports them to the new site. The expensive part of any build is never the materials, it is the new fittings, the slab, and the paid trades. Free land plus salvaged parts removes two of those three.

How it works

  1. The plan is provided at the location for free — the design, the layout, and the build instructions are there waiting for whoever wants to use them.
  2. People just get the parts (salvaged or bought) and build it themselves, room by room, using the plan and the shared utilities main.
  3. No one needs cash up front to own a home. A person pays off their room over time at 30% of their income — so income decides the pace, not whether you can start at all.

AThe land model — why it stays affordable

Land held in trust · you own what you build

The charity holds the landThe land is owned permanently by the trust and never sold. It can't be bought up or speculated on, so it stays available for anyone to build on.
You own your homeYou own the structure you build with your salvage and labour. You can sell it on, but only to the next qualifying person — not onto the open market.
Resale at determined valueWhen you leave, the home is reassessed and the next resident pays that value. You get back the value of what you built; the land stays free underneath.

Keeping the land out of the market is the mechanism that stops the homes drifting expensive over time. If "determined value" is based on what it cost to build and improve rather than open-market price, the homes stay affordable for everyone after you too.

BThe cycle, at a glance

Source site(power/sewage) Salvage +transport Free land+ free plan Build theroom Live in itown it Pay off at 30% of income, or sell on at determined value money recovered → funds the next home

CEstimate your room

Room-cost calculator

Everything is provided free except salvage, transport, and labour — so this works out what you actually spend to build a room. The slab, licensed trades and permits are covered by the charity (repaid later) and are shown separately.

25 m²
3 days
Your cost up front$2,360
+ Charity-covered, repaid later (slab + trades + permit)~$9,000–$27,000

Up-front = salvaged parts + transport + any paid help. The charity-covered figure is fronted for you and recovered when the home is sold or paid off — it is not money you find now.

"30% of income" payoff calculator

30% of income goes to payoff$240/wk
Time to pay it off1 yr 8 mo

Simple estimate, interest-free, payments steady. Real terms would be set by the trust. The point: income sets the pace, not whether you can start.

DWhat you save

Same 25m² room, three ways

Builder turn-key (normal market)~$60,000
Salvage self-build — full material cost~$10,000
What YOU front (salvage + transport, DIY)~$2,000

bars to scale · max ≈ $60,000

EYour first weekend

STEP 01

Sort the paperwork

Confirm your plot with the trust, and lodge the owner-builder permit and council approval (the charity helps and covers the fee). Nothing legal happens without this.

STEP 02

Find a source site

Call demolition contractors and salvage yards, or scout a condemned building / ghost-town site. Line up what you can strip: doors, windows, roofing, pipe, timber, brick.

STEP 03

Hire a trailer, make a run

Box trailer or tipper for the day. Pull openings out whole, number and photograph them, stack flat, cart to the free land. That's your first real cost — fuel and a day.

1Find the source

Demolition contractors (they pay to dump material, so they often give it away), council-condemned buildings, old farm sheds, closed factories, and dedicated salvage yards. A ghost town as in "Start plan, make money" already is the source — the old infrastructure is the supply.

2What to take, two lists

Salvage run checklist

0 of 13 collected
Enclosure parts
Utility parts
Before you start

Leave behind: anything cracked, rotten, or full of nails not worth pulling — and treat old wiring, switchboards and meters as scrap, not reusable (see below).

3Removal and transport

Pull doors and windows out whole (unscrew hinges and frame fixings rather than levering). Number and photograph each piece so it goes back together fast. Roofing and sheet stack flat; pipe and conduit bundle and tie. Hire a box trailer or a tipper for a day, or a Hiab truck for the heavy beams. Only carry what is worth the fuel — bring the openings, the pipe, the roofing and good timber; leave anything cracked, rotten, or full of nails not worth pulling.

4The parts you must NOT just reuse — and the rule that does not bend

Power must be disconnected at the source by a licensed electrician before anything electrical is touched. Salvaged electrical components (cable, switchboards, meters) generally cannot legally be re-installed without testing, and old wiring is usually replaced new — treat salvaged electrical as scrap value, not reusable. Sewage and water pipe reuses fine, but the final connection of electrical, plumbing and gas must be done by licensed trades in every state. Salvaged structural timber holding up a floor or roof should be checked by an engineer before it carries load. And the build still needs an owner-builder permit and council approval as set out earlier in the plan.

So the saving here is real but specific: free land removes the biggest cost, salvaged doors/windows/roofing/timber/pipe remove most of the materials cost, and the charity fronts the slab, the licensed connections and the approval — recovered when the home is sold or paid off. What is left for you to actually find up front is salvage, transport and your own time. That is the cheapest version of Building plan 7429014412 that still ends up legal and safe to live in.