Plumbline

Best for

• Home builders and renovators. It's written to the NSW Home Building Act's rules on deposits, insurance, cooling off, stage payments and warranties, and the examples to Victoria's and Queensland's deposit limits (see "Builders: what we build in").
• Anyone who quotes a project, takes stage payments and builds over weeks:
  • bathroom and kitchen renovators (Tile & Timber: estimate by room, Victoria's 5% deposit limit, the job week by week)
  • pool builders (Deep End: estimate by pool type, Queensland's 5% limit, dig to swim)
  • landscapers, granny flats, decks and pergolas, shopfitters
• Audiences: first home builders working out a budget, renovators comparing quotes, and anyone burnt by a "from" price before.

Less suited to: a one-day trade call-out (Signal), a removalist (Crate), or a developer selling finished apartments.

Personality and voice

Exact and plain-spoken, the site supervisor who writes everything down.

• Headlines: "Built right, to the millimetre." · "Pay as it's built, not before." · "Slab to keys, week by week."
• Buttons: "Estimate my build" · "When you pay" · "Book a site visit"
• Microcopy:
  • "$638,000 to $792,000 · $2,900 to $3,600 per m² all in"
  • "Over 10%: the deposit can't be more than 10% of the contract price, and anything above it may not be covered by insurance."
  • "Major defects · 6 years: 4 years, 6 months left, to 19 Apr 2031"
• Words to avoid: "from $199,990" without the block, "fully insured" without saying what by, "we'll sort it out later" about variations, and "start next week, pay today".

Colour

Measured contrast (WCAG).

• Daylight:
  • ink on paper 15.3:1
  • muted on paper 5.5:1 (5.0:1 on well)
  • plan on paper 6.9:1 (6.2:1 on well, 6.5:1 on its soft fill, 7.9:1 on card), white on plan 7.9:1
  • ink on hi-vis 12.1:1; hi-vis text 6.3:1 (7.2:1 on card)
  • ok 5.6:1, alert 5.7:1
• Site lights:
  • ink 16.4:1
  • muted 7.2:1 (6.6:1 on card)
  • plan 9.8:1, text on plan 9.0:1, plan on its soft fill 8.2:1
  • hi-vis 14.3:1, ink on hi-vis 13.4:1
• Closing card: text 14.8:1, hi-vis em 11.6:1, ink on its hi-vis button 12.1:1.
• Example dials: terracotta (Tile & Timber), aqua (Deep End) and sandstone bronze (Keystone) all meet AA, light and dark, and so does each closing card.

Typography

• Display: Sofia Sans Condensed, 600–900, uppercase. Headlines, totals, the handover month.
• Body: Sofia Sans, 400–800. Reading, forms, buttons.
• Mono: Cousine, 400 and 700. Sizes, rates, dollars, dates.

The signature move: the lit words turn plan blue and a dimension line is drawn under them, ticked at both ends like a drawing.

Layout

• Frame: a 1200px wrap with a max(20px, 4vw) gutter. An ink top line with a hi-vis label for the licence; a sticky header with the plumb bob; a blueprint grid fading in behind the hero.
• Hero: copy on the left; the estimator on the right.
• Then: the payment schedule beside the rules that protect you; the build timeline; the warranty clock beside your cover; questions; and a blueprint-navy closing card with a plumb bob that swings to rest.

Shape

• Crisp: --r-s 3px, --r-m 6px, --r-l 10px.
• Grids and dimension lines: blueprint grids behind the hero, page heads and closing card; the timeline's track is ruled in months.
• The mark: a plumb bob on its line. Page heads carry a hi-vis set square.

Motion language

• Estimator: the range slides in and the band moves along the scale.
• Payments: the bar's segments resize as the deposit changes.
• Timeline: bars slide to their new weeks; the handover month slides in.
• Warranty: the bars fill to how much of each warranty has gone.
• Elsewhere: the dimension line draws under the headline, the plumb bob swings to rest, sections reveal with a 14px rise over 650ms, and the phone menu drops in.
• Motion switch in the footer ([data-motion-toggle], html.calm, remembered as site-motion, with the default from prefers-reduced-motion). Calm stops the line, the swing and every slide.
• Site lights switch ([data-theme-toggle]), remembered as site-theme; theme-color follows.

Imagery and illustration

Your own builds at every stage (slab, frame, lock-up, handover) with the clients' permission, and your own team on site in their gear. The template draws grids and dimension lines so nothing is borrowed. No display-home renders passed off as finished builds, and no invented reviews.

Signature components

• Estimator: .estimate[data-estimate] containing script[data-est-data] (types as key to label, min, max, step, def and rates per finish as low and high per square metre; unit; scale), button[data-type], input[data-size] with [data-size-out], fieldset.finishes radios, input[data-extra] (data-lo, data-hi, optional data-for-types), [data-est-range], [data-est-per], .est-band i and [data-est-lines].
• Payment schedule: .payments[data-payments] with data-for (the estimator) and script[data-pay-data] (stages as label, share and note; depositMax; insureFrom; price; optional overText and depositNote), containing input[data-deposit], [data-pay-price], [data-pay-bar], [data-pay-rows], [data-pay-warn] and [data-pay-insure].
• Build timeline: .buildline[data-buildline] with script[data-bl-data] (stages as label and weeks; startIn), containing select[data-start] (filled with the next 12 months), input[data-weather], [data-bl-rows], [data-bl-finish] and [data-bl-sub].
• Warranty clock: .warranty[data-warranty] with script[data-wt-data] (periods as label, years and note), containing input[type=date][data-done] and [data-wt-rows].
• Supporting pieces: .plan-pair, .card, .facts (--n columns, or .stack), .notice, .side-box, .checks, .faq, .close-card (--close-bg, --close-em).

Multi-page kit

• Phone menu: .menu-btn[aria-controls] opens .site-menu. Escape, an outside click or choosing a link closes it, and Tab stays inside while it's open.
• Current page: aria-current="page", shown as a plan-soft pill.
• Inner pages: .page-head (a blueprint grid and a set square), .crumbs, a .tag and a smaller .h1.
• Fields: .field, .fields, .field-wide, fieldset.field-set, .check, .form-card, [aria-invalid="true"]; form[data-template].
• Tiles, segmented control, gate, slider, switch, tables: .choices, .seg, [data-gate], input.range, .switch[role=switch], .table.
• Events: estimate (low, high, mid, type, size, finish), payments (deposit, ok, price), timeline (weeks, finish), warranty (done).
• Helper: Plumbline.refresh(root), and Plumbline.last, the latest detail of each event, for scripts that load afterwards.

Builders: what we build in

We checked these for Australian builders in October 2026:

• Deposits. In NSW the deposit can't be more than 10% of the contract price, and amounts above it may not be recoverable under home building compensation cover. In Victoria and Queensland it's 5% on work of $20,000 or more (10% below that in Victoria; in Queensland, 10% from $3,301 to $19,999 and 20% up to $3,300). The payment schedule enforces whichever limit you set and says why.
• Insurance before money. NSW home building compensation cover applies to contracts of $20,000 or more, and the builder can't ask for payment until it's in place and the certificate is given. In Victoria, domestic building insurance and its certificate come before any money for work over $16,000.
• Payments by stage. Progress payments should match the work done: stages like base, frame, lock-up and fixing, each inspected, never ahead. The schedule is built from stages, not dates.
• Cooling off, variations and provisional sums. NSW contracts over $20,000 have a five-business-day cooling-off period; variations are in writing and priced before work starts; provisional sums are listed with their allowance.
• Statutory warranties. In NSW, 6 years for major defects and 2 years for everything else, from completion. The warranty clock counts them.
• No card surcharges. Surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa ended on 1 October 2026.

These notes are design guidance, not legal advice.

• Protecting yourself in case of builder insolvency (NSW Government)
• Deposits and payments for domestic building (Consumer Affairs Victoria)
• Understanding deposits and progress payments (QBCC)
• Card surcharging to end on 1 October 2026 (RBA)

Do and don't

• Do give a range with what's in it, not a "from" price.
• Do tie every payment to a finished, inspected stage.
• Do put the licence number and insurance on every page.
• Don't take a deposit over the limit, or any money before the insurance certificate.
• Don't use display-home photos as if they were finished builds.
• Don't put text on hi-vis in anything but ink.

Accessibility

• AA contrast throughout (measured above), a skip link and a 3px focus ring.
• Estimator: project types are a segmented control, size a labelled slider with its value, finishes a radio group with descriptions, extras labelled checkboxes; the range is announced.
• Payments: a labelled deposit slider; stages as a list with shares and amounts in words and numbers; the over-limit warning is a status message.
• Timeline: a labelled start month and weather slider; stages and weeks as a list beside the bars; the handover month is announced.
• Warranty: a labelled date field; each warranty's time left in words, beside its bar.
• Forms: labelled fields, errors listed in an alert, linked to and marked on each field.
• Testing: responsive to 360px, and tested with motion on and off, in Daylight and Site lights.

How to make it yours