If someone asked me where I'd put extra money in a build — not to make it look better, but to make it genuinely better — my answer might surprise them. It's not the kitchen. It's not the master ensuite. It's the things behind the walls and beneath the cladding that most people never think about until something goes wrong.
Brick Over Lightweight Cladding
I've built plenty of homes with lightweight cladding, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it. But if you're asking where I personally would spend more money, I'd choose brick every time.
A brick home is still going to be standing and performing well in 30 years. It's thermally efficient, resilient, and largely maintenance-free. Lightweight cladding, on the other hand, is only as good as the installation and the ongoing maintenance behind it. When movement occurs — and in Queensland's climate, it will — cladding needs attention. If that attention doesn't happen, small openings can allow water ingress, and water ingress in a wall cavity is one of the most expensive problems a homeowner can face.
Brick removes most of that risk. It's a higher upfront cost, but it's a decision you're unlikely to regret.
If You Are Using Cladding, Do It With a Cavity
If brick isn't in the budget or doesn't suit the design, then the most important thing you can do is build in a cavity behind the cladding using a batten system. This creates an air gap between the cladding and the wall, which does two critical things: it allows any moisture that does get behind the cladding to drain and dry out, and it provides a thermal buffer that improves the energy performance of the wall.
A cladding system fixed directly to the frame with no cavity is a system with no margin for error. If water gets in — and eventually it will find a way — there's nowhere for it to go. A cavity-backed system is significantly more forgiving, and in my view, it should be the minimum standard for any lightweight external wall.
This is one of those upgrades that costs relatively little in the context of an overall build budget but can save tens of thousands in remediation costs down the track.
Wet Areas: Don't Cut Corners on the Substrate
The other area where I'd encourage clients to invest more is the substrate used in bathrooms and other wet areas. There are products on the market — and widely used across the industry — that are technically compliant but offer very little tolerance for imperfect waterproofing.
My preference is always 19mm compressed sheeting on the floors in wet areas, & 6mm Villaboard on walls. It's far more robust, it's more moisture-resistant, and it's a far better base for tiles and waterproofing membranes. Bathrooms take a lot of punishment over their lifetime — steam, water, cleaning products, thermal cycling — and the substrate beneath the tiles needs to be able to handle that without degrading.
Spending a little more on the substrate in a bathroom is the kind of decision you'll never regret. Spending too little is the kind of decision that shows up years later, when tiles start lifting or walls start softening, and the only fix involves a full bathroom strip-out.
The Common Thread
What these three things share is that none of them are visible once the house is finished. You can't show them off at an open home or point to them in a photo. But they're the decisions that determine how a home performs over decades, not just how it looks on the day it's handed over.
In my experience, the clients who end up happiest with their builds are the ones who understood this early — and spent their budget accordingly.
