Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 21Jul 06, 2015 7:33 pm Well a little more progress. I recieved my proposed slab engineering today. Looks good but so much of it is over my head. I was impressed with the workings overall. I may elect (provision in my contract) to go up 15mm on slab top to 100mm rather than 85mm specified, depending on cost. That is 3.3 cubic metres of concrete extra for the square metres of slab that I need. The cost of which will be revealed in a couple of days. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 22Jul 08, 2015 10:38 pm Dust not quite settled on slab specs and final site cost costings but close. I had a couple of wins today with our builder. They have to redraw the final plans as they had the solar gas boosted HWS placed in a position that because of a specified retaining wall being required, would have meant that we could not have got around the HWS to access the rear yard with the washing out of the laundry door. The HWS needed to get moved to the other side of the laundry door. Not a biggie but it would have been disasterous to realise this after build. So whilst redrawing, they said we could delete a hanging shelf and rail in the WIR to gain some full length hanging that was missing in the WIR. We had tried to get this removed a week ago and it was going to be charged at $1000 fee for administration. We said forget it and leave shelf in and I would remove after handover. Because of the HWS unit being moved on plans, Simonds offered to remove the shelf in WIR without and $1000 administration fee as they had to redo the plans anyway. Nice one. Another win was the relocation of the solar collector for HWS on the north roof into a corner of north roof to preserve important north roof realestate for future solar panels. Because HWS being moved they could accomodate the moving of the solar collector/s to suit. Nice one again. You gotta have a win sometimes. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 23Jul 09, 2015 10:09 pm Good to hear. Any news when they're likely to start? Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 24Jul 09, 2015 10:35 pm Hi Tomcat. Not yet, I need to finalise an option of slab upgrade on my coin that is. As well as maybe going 100mm top, my two sources in building suggest to up the MPa from 20MPa to 32MPa. Do you know what MPa was used in your slab? What about your slab, I don't think you had waffle from memory? Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 25Jul 11, 2015 1:28 am Hey Goody. Yes looks like we have a combination of 20MPa. and 32MPa. That's right, we have a traditional raft slab (trenches/drop edge beams). I uploaded the engineering details online so you can have a look. Details of concrete strength is in the right hand block halfway down under heading SLAB. https://mmmanderine.files.wordpress.com ... report.pdf Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 26Jul 11, 2015 5:43 am TomCat Hey Goody. Yes looks like we have a combination of 20MPa. and 32MPa. That's right, we have a traditional raft slab (trenches/drop edge beams). I uploaded the engineering details online so you can have a look. Details of concrete strength is in the right hand block halfway down under heading SLAB. https://mmmanderine.files.wordpress.com ... report.pdf Hi Tomcat, I will check them out. Thanks for the trouble. I will be a lot less stressed I hope when this house build starts but busy keeping an eye on progress I guess. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 27Jul 15, 2015 7:08 pm I spoke to Intrax today (as recommended by Simonds), the engineers for Simonds of the waffle pod slab. After discussions of options and recommendations by the engineers, it was decided to go with a 100mm top, 25MPa concrete and extra N12 bars on the top of the slab as additional steel ready for the pour. I am unsure of what my site costs will be now but the final engineering can now be completed and forwarded to Simonds for the costing and for the commencement of the build. The preliminary engineering has 85mm top and 20MPa concrete for the slab. The N12 bars were an engineered company recommendation in the preliminary engineering. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 28Jul 25, 2015 3:43 pm Signed off on last variation yesterday. Building commences end of next week. I had a variation that included what I hope to make my waffle slab a tad better than what was minimum engineering. I went for a 100mm top, 25MPa concrete and additional N12 bars at regular intervals around a lot of the slab. Mesh steel was already SL92 so that didn't change . All upgrades agreed by engineering giving me a slightly better house slab than preliminary engineering. Those additions plus a low retaining wall along the entire length of the house cost me extra bucks of course. I knew the builder wouldn't be allowing extra for nothing. All good. On with the show I say now. Five other Simonds Homes in the same small stage have already kicked off with various progress from site scrapes to a frame up. Our Simonds Home will be bringing up the rear so I doubt we will see xmas in our new digs. Oh well. I don't want to rush it. I have a 7 day hold on the slab being left with form work in place and no work rather that the usual form work off end of pour day and start construction day 2 or 3 after pour on green concrete. That is poor workmanship if you ask me all for the sake of expedience. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 29Aug 02, 2015 10:08 am After returning the final drawing about 3 times for mistakes that I had to pick up last week we have finally got something started. Any owner building with any builder, especially a Volume builder needs to have their wits about them and watch everything like a hawk. I can't believe how many mistakes are made in plans that get cut and pasted willy-nilly. Our security fencing and crossover protection and site toilet in place. Next week should see water tapping and site scrape. About bl**dy time I say. A bit over a year since selecting the block. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 30Aug 02, 2015 8:40 pm You talking about mistakes now. Oh boy, you're in for a treat! Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 32Aug 03, 2015 2:56 pm I am in the throws of toing and froing via email over roof drainage compliance at the moment. SaveH20 has done the calculations on my build and the standard 115mm quad guttering is short on cross sectional area for Plumbing code compliance. I am waiting on further and better particulars from Simonds Homes as they initially offered to increase number and or size of downpipes on my coin. I declined the offer at that stage. Even doing that would not have the roof drainage being compliant. Only way to make it compliant is to go a size up in the quad guttering apparently. It has been pointed out to builders and now I am waiting for an official reply which I will duly not and keep record of. It shouldn't be up to me to pay for building compliance as an extra. That is my stand. If there is no satisfactory outcome as far as compliance goes the matter will be recorded and used if required in any case of negligence contributing to slab heave through the courts. I am building on H2 site with a waffle pod slab. I will be doing all the recommended slab protection as an owner I can do. It is an interesting exercise dealing with builders. Some concerns are satisfactorily addressed, some are not and some you can reach a compromise. Compliance to Building and Plumbing Code should not need compromise, it should just meet code. I am sure most owners would agree. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 33Aug 03, 2015 4:34 pm One other thing I forgot to mention. I have in my contract for form work to be left on slab for 7 days whilst the slab cures. This is adding a week to my build period but that is ok. I was surprised, but the builders are allowing me to go on site the day slab is poured and concreters finish for the day and go home to place builders plastic over the slab for the period of the 7 days slab is being left to cure. That was nice of them as they were originally going to charge me $660 and have concreters spray Concur A99 on the slab to cure. I changed my mind on that one when it was realised the membrane sprayed on would need to be ground off to take after trades like tiling and screeding floors flat for flooring purposes. In my case vinyl planks. The $660 will come back to me in a Variation at end of contract. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 34Aug 04, 2015 6:44 pm Good to hear! Good idea on getting your drainage sorted now Goody. Wish we had. Our site is a disgrace. I'm going to upload some pics when I get home that shows how important drainage is pre-build. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 35Aug 04, 2015 10:20 pm I got my reply from Simonds today regarding compliance of roof drainage. Their response was dismissive of my concerns. The response in summary stated they would not have got a building permit without compliance. There is no calculations regarding roof area and pitch and cross sectional area of gutter to back up their reasoning that they had compliance. I have SaveH20's calculation that I am sure are correct and they contradict what Simonds are telling me. I will just build and will keep a copy of my emails regarding my concerns and the issue of compliance saved on a memory stick and will use the response to the concerns raised if there was to be any slab heave. I will do all that is recommended to me as an owner to protect foundations but if I get foundation flooding due to undersized gutters that do not comply then I will record such an event. This will be all that would be required to sink a builder in any subsequent court action I believe. I dearly hope it never comes to that but building matters of a similar nature have ended up before the courts on numerous occasions. I say "Be prepared" and I wasn't even a boy scout. I will just get on with building now and await the next issue to sort through. I can feel there will be many. LOL Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 36Aug 06, 2015 6:41 am 5/8/15. Site scrape completed. Only 27 weeks to go before the builder allegedly start paying me. I know that never happens. I had a week added to build time because I wanted the concrete cured for minimum of 7 days with form work left on. Fancy that, wanting the concrete cured so it has a chance of obtaining its required strength after 28 days. Their own engineers in drawings say to cure the concrete slab, the NCC 2015 says concrete should be cured and I insist via my contract it should be cured for 7 days covered in builders plastic and I the owner gets a time penalty. The issue of slab curing is a joke. Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 37Aug 07, 2015 4:43 pm Meet and greet with SS today. Theo. Things started out nicely, lets see how they go as the build progresses. A drive by to revealed some timber stakes with nails in the top had been placed around the site in preparation of the next construction item. They did not appear to be builders hurdles just stakes around the site scrape. It will be five days before I can get back to see site again. Gotta go to work sometime I guess.
Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 38Aug 07, 2015 8:41 pm Yay, lift-off! Got your Panadol stocked? hehe Re: Simonds Homes- Hudson (Aurora Wollert build thread) 40Aug 07, 2015 9:13 pm Sounds like you have things under good control goody, hopefully no panadol necessary. Hi, Apologies - I know there is plenty out there on this but struggling to put together the puzzle. We're planning our garage/external laundry to master bedroom and… 0 11121 Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 17628 3 48409 |