Melbourne's West · Fixed price

Knockdown rebuilds. Love your street, not your house.

Keep the suburb, the schools and the neighbours. We take the old house down and build the right one, with the demolition, the permits and the design handled by one family team.

Book a Free Site Assessment Or call +61 468 043 6854.3 on Google from 24 reviewsFree, no obligation. There is a house to look at, so we come to you.

Is it the right move

Three honest ways to know.

A knockdown rebuild is the biggest call a homeowner can make without moving house. It is right for some blocks and wrong for others, and a builder who cannot tell you which is which is not being straight with you.

A completed Zaman home on an established street in Melbourne's west — The part you keepProject Bethany

You love the street, not the house

The suburb, the schools and the neighbours all work. The house does not.

Tell me more

You have been here for years. The school run, the neighbours, the shops you can walk to, all of it works. The house is the only part that does not. If the location is what you love, replacing the house keeps everything that matters and fixes the one thing that is broken.

Renovating stopped adding up

Every quote grew, and the compromises stayed.

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Older homes reach a point where extending means pouring money into stumps, wiring, plumbing and a layout drawn for a different family in a different decade. When every quote grows and every compromise stays, starting again on the same block can be the cleaner decision.

And when it is not the answerThe honest one

Sometimes a renovation is the better call, and we will say so.

Tell me more

If the structure is sound and the layout mostly works, a renovation may serve you better, and we build those too. And if it is the suburb you want to leave rather than the house, a rebuild will not fix that. We would rather say so at the site assessment than halfway through a design. An honest no costs you nothing.

The full picture

The eight things you are actually paying for.

You will not find a dollar figure on this page. Every house and every block is different, and a number that is true for one is false for the next. A published range is a guess wearing a suit.

What we can promise is the list itself, complete. Most people get caught out not because they knew these and planned for them, but because nobody told them they existed.

Naming every line costs us nothing and saves you the worst kind of surprise. Putting honest numbers against them takes a site assessment, which is free.

Timber roof trusses of a new home under construction — Every line, namedNo numbers, on purpose

Taking the old house down

The house, the shed, the old slab and the footings, all cleared.

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How big a job this is depends on the size of the house and what it was built from, which is why it gets assessed rather than assumed.

Asbestos checks

Homes built before 1990 get tested, and anything found is removed first.

Tell me more

It turns up most often in the eaves, wall sheeting, wet areas and fencing, and licensed specialists remove it before anything else comes down. It is a normal, managed part of the job. The reason it frightens people is that some builders leave it out of the conversation until it arrives as an extra cost.

Disconnecting power, water and gas

Every service is formally cut off before demolition, then reconnected after.

Tell me more

Power, gas, water, sewer and the phone line each run through their own provider, with their own process and their own paperwork. It is one of the least known costs in a rebuild.

Council approval

Permits for the demolition and the new home, plus any rules specific to your block.

Tell me more

Some blocks carry extra council rules covering heritage, the character of the street, trees or flooding, and those shape what can be built. We check what applies to your block before anything is signed.

Getting the ground ready

Soil testing and levelling before a slab can go down.

Tell me more

A block that has held a house for fifty years still gets tested like new land, because the slab does not care about history. Whatever the soil report calls for is done before the pour.

Building the new home

Slab to handover, on a fixed price with every inclusion in writing.

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This is the biggest cost, and the one every builder is happy to talk about. It is the lines around it that get left out.

Driveway, fences and garden

Demolition clears the block, so the outside is part of the job too.

Tell me more

The driveway, the fences and the garden are part of the project rather than leftovers from the old house. Worth budgeting for as deliberately as the inside.

Somewhere to live meanwhile

You are out of the house from before demolition until handover.

Tell me more

It belongs in the plan from the first conversation, not as a late discovery. It matters enough that it gets its own section further down this page.

Book a free site assessment→

The process

Five stages, demolition included.

The same five stages as every Zaman build. The demolition, the disconnections and the council work happen inside them, handled by one team, rather than landing on your desk between contracts.

See the full process→

A Zaman home under construction — One team, start to finishStage 04 · Build

Consult

We come to the house and give you an honest read on the block.

Design

Drawn for the block you already know. Council approval handled here.

Fixed price

Signed before the old house comes down. Every inclusion in writing.

Build

The block is cleared, then the slab goes in and the new home rises.

Handover

We walk every room together, hand over the warranty, and give you the keys.

The unspoken question

Where do you live while it happens?

No builder puts this on their website, so here it is plainly. From before the power is cut off until the day we hand over the keys, you cannot live in the house.

The build itself typically runs 6 to 8 months from slab to handover. At the site assessment we put honest dates around everything before and after it, so you plan around a timeline rather than a hope.

Kitchen of a completed Zaman home in Tarneit, stone island and black marble splashback — The other end of the waitProject Nadir · Tarneit

Rent nearby

Same suburb, so the school run and the week's routine hold steady.

Tell me more

Leases and notice periods take time to line up, which is why this conversation starts at the assessment rather than at demolition.

Stay with family

Workable, if everyone agrees on the dates before the arrangement.

Tell me more

Common, and it asks a lot of two households. The families it works best for are the ones who were clear eyed about how long a build takes before they moved in.

A stretch of each

Family for the early months, a short lease for the rest.

Tell me more

Plenty of families do both, in either order. There is no right answer. There is only a planned answer and an unplanned one.

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Real projects

Homes we have built.

Real homes, real suburbs, real photographs, and the owner's permission on record. We do not publish anything else. The knockdown rebuild projects are being matched to their stories now, and every home below has its own page you can look through.

See every home we have photographed→

No 01Project NadirTarneit→

No 02Project Bethany

No 03Project Virgo

No 04Project Waiora

No 05Project Waurn Ponds

Fixed price, covered

The price we agree is the price you pay.

A knockdown rebuild has more moving parts than a build on empty land, which makes the fixed price contract matter more here, not less. The full detail, including how to check us on the public register yourself, lives on one page.

How your money is protected→

The Zaman Fixed Price Promise

A fixed price building contract, signed before the old house comes down
Every inclusion itemised in writing
First Resort Home Warranty cover, certificate in your hands before any deposit
A structural workmanship guarantee that outlasts handover

Knockdown rebuild questions

Asked in every first meeting.

Eight questions we hear at nearly every kitchen table, answered the same way here as we answer them in person.

How long does demolition take?

Knocking the house down is usually one of the quicker parts. What sets the real timeline is everything that has to happen first: the power, water and gas cut off, council approval, and the asbestos check. Each one runs on its own clock. At your site assessment we map that out for your house and give you dates you can plan around, rather than a number pulled from the air.

The house is old. What about asbestos?

Many Australian homes built before 1990 contain asbestos somewhere, often in the eaves, wall sheeting, wet areas or fencing. Before demolition the house is inspected, and any asbestos found is removed by licensed specialists before anything else comes down. It is a normal, managed part of a knockdown rebuild. The reason it frightens people is that some builders leave it out of the conversation until it arrives as a variation. It is on our list from day one.

Do we need council approval to knock the house down?

Yes, for both the demolition and the new home. Some blocks also carry extra council rules covering heritage, the character of the street, trees or flooding, and those shape what can be built. This is exactly what the free site assessment checks. We look at what applies to your block and tell you before you commit to anything.

Can we keep our existing power, gas and water connections?

No. The existing ones are formally cut off before the house comes down, and the new home gets new connections built to current standards. Each one goes through its own provider with its own process and its own paperwork. It is one of the costs people know least about, which is why it is named on this page.

What happens to the garden?

Demolition clears the block, so treat the garden as part of the project rather than something that survives it. If there are established trees you love, tell us early. They shape the design, and some trees are protected by local rules whether you plan to keep them or not. Anything you want saved is worked out at the assessment, before machinery is anywhere near the site.

Can we live in the house during any of it?

No, and any builder who implies otherwise is not being straight with you. You are out from before the services are disconnected until handover. The section above covers the realistic options. The short version: families who plan it early do fine, and families who discover it late do not.

Our house is tired but solid. Should we still knock it down?

Maybe not. If the structure is sound and the layout mostly works, a renovation can be the better answer, and we build those too. A knockdown rebuild earns its place when the problems live in the bones of the house rather than its surfaces. We will tell you which side of that line your house sits on, honestly, at the assessment.

How do we find out what it would all cost for our block?

Not from a website, ours included. Any figure published before someone has stood on your block and walked through your house is a guess dressed up as an answer. The free site assessment exists so the first number you hear is one that means something. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.