Lic. 000000C (demo)
Built on solid ground
New homes, extensions and renovations, run by one site lead from the first peg to the keys.
Tallbeam Building Co is a team of builders in Newcastle, working from Merewether since 2009 across the City of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. We build new homes and knock down rebuilds, extend and renovate older houses, and take on the smaller jobs that make a house work better: kitchens, bathrooms, decks, pergolas and granny flats.
Most of the ground we build on has a story under it. Much of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie sits in a mine subsidence district, parts of it are mapped as bush fire prone, the coast and the lake bring planning rules of their own, and the older suburbs carry heritage conservation areas. None of that has to slow a job down if it's known before the design starts, so that's where we start.
Every job begins with a site visit. We walk the block with you, check the address on the NSW Planning Portal for the subsidence guideline, heritage, bushfire and flooding, and then price the job in writing, every allowance on its own line. One site lead runs the job from the first peg to the final walk-through, with our own carpenters on the tools and licensed specialists for the electrical, plumbing, gas and air-conditioning work.
Eight kinds of work, each with its own page on what it costs, what approval it needs and how the job runs.
Building in NSW comes with consumer protections that a good builder should be glad to point to, not bury in the fine print. These are the ones you'll see on every Tallbeam job, and the ones worth asking any builder about before you sign.
The statutory warranties run six years for major defects and two years for other defects from completion, whoever builds your home.
We hold a NSW contractor licence for residential building work. The number is on every page of this site and on every quote, because the law requires it and because it's yours to check.
On every job over $20,000 we take out Home Building Compensation cover and give you the certificate before we ask for a deposit.
Our deposit is never more than 10% of the contract price, and it's never asked for before the paperwork above is in your hands.
For work over $20,000 you get a written contract with a five business day cooling-off period. Before you sign anything over $5,000, you get the Consumer Building Guide.
Electrical, plumbing, drainage, gas and air-conditioning work on our jobs is done by licensed specialists we coordinate, under our contract with you.
If your home is in a mine subsidence district, building needs Subsidence Advisory NSW approval as well. We factor it into the plan and the timeline from day one.
Before a peg goes in, the approvals are in hand: the development consent or complying development certificate, and Subsidence Advisory NSW approval where the lot is in a district. A surveyor then sets out the house on the block to the approved plans.
Footings and slab are designed by an engineer for your soil and your lot's subsidence guideline. On Guideline 1 ground, Subsidence Advisory inspects the reinforcement before the concrete goes in, so we book that in with the pour.
Our own carpenters stand the wall frames and set the roof trusses. The frame is checked against the plans and the engineering before anything covers it, because it's the last time every member can be seen.
Roof on, windows and external doors in, cladding or brickwork finished. The house can be locked, and the work inside carries on out of the weather while the outside is still being tidied.
Linings, waterproofing, tiling, joinery, doors and trims, with the licensed electrician, plumber and other specialists worked in around our carpenters. The site lead sets the order so no trade sits waiting on another.
We walk the finished house with you and fix what's on the list. You get the certificates, and the statutory warranty runs six years for major defects and two years for other defects from completion.
Three jobs told start to finish, with the plan, the ground and the build in stages. Tallbeam is a demonstration business, so these are sample projects.
We ask for a review a month after the keys change hands, once the owners have lived with the work. Six jobs from across Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, one sheet each.
"Never open in the rain"
"Going up was the only way to get a third bedroom on our block. When the forecast turned, they moved the roof stage back a week and rang to tell us why, so the house was never open in the rain."
"Three weeks meant three"
"They told us the kitchen would be out of action for three weeks, and it was three weeks. They set up a sink and a bench in the laundry so we weren't washing up in the bath."
"Quiet on the quiet days"
"Our bathroom is on the second floor of a 1960s block. They put together everything the strata committee asked for and kept the noisy days to the hours the other owners agreed to."
"Level with the back door"
"The old deck had rotted at every post. The new one is hardwood, sits level with the back door, and the old timber was gone off the site the same afternoon."
"They checked before pricing"
"Three builders came to look at a roof over our deck. Tallbeam were the only ones who checked what approval it needed before they put a price on it."
"A call every Friday"
"Mum's flat out the back was finished in time for her to move in before winter. The site lead rang every Friday with where things were at, even the weeks when not much happened."
Sample reviews. Tallbeam is a demonstration business.
Ring or send us the address. A new house in Warners Bay or a deck in Merewether, we start by reading the ground you're building on, then walk it with you and put a fixed price on it in writing.
Both. We're based in Merewether and build across the City of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, from the terraces of Cooks Hill to the lake edge at Toronto and the ocean side at Caves Beach. The two councils have their own planning controls and their own flood and coastal policies, so we check which ones apply to your lot before we design anything, and our area pages explain what each suburb's ground asks of a build.
It depends on the job far more than the suburb. As a guide, most new homes and knock down rebuilds we build land between $400,000 and $900,000, whole-house renovations between $150,000 and $400,000, and kitchens between $25,000 and $60,000. Each service page gives its range and what moves it. After a site visit you get a written quote at a fixed price, with any approvals and allowances spelled out line by line.
Yes. A deck, a pergola or a bathroom gets the same site visit, the same written fixed price and the same site lead as a new home. Jobs over $5,000 come with the Consumer Building Guide before you sign, and jobs over $20,000 also get a written contract with a cooling-off period and Home Building Compensation cover before any deposit.
That depends on two things: what approval the job needs and how far our current jobs have to run. Exempt work like a small low deck can start soon after you accept the quote. Work that needs a complying development certificate, a development application or Subsidence Advisory approval starts once those are in hand. We give you a realistic start window at the site visit rather than a promise we can't keep.
Much of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie is, but it varies street by street, and so does the surface development guideline that sets what can be built. You can look up any address on the NSW Planning Portal's Spatial Viewer. We check it too, before we draw anything, because the guideline can change the footings, the slab and whether Subsidence Advisory NSW has to approve the job itself.
Yes. We build to plans drawn by architects and building designers as well as to our own drawings, and we're glad to be brought in early so the build cost is known while the design can still change. You appoint the certifier for the job. We quote from the plans and the engineering, and flag anything that would cost more to build than it needs to.
