Wrong ceiling height - rectification and appropriate compens

Hi.

We're in the process of building our home. It has been a long build (13 months) and we now have a completion date of less than 4 weeks away so we're in the late stages of the build.

Our design (and contracted works) include a studio above our garage, with a ceiling that rakes down to 2400mm above finished floor height. Walking through the house, we noticed the walls were looking pretty squat. We did a detailed measure up and found that the ceiling rakes to 2100mm above finished floor height - around 300mm lower than it should. We raised this with our builders, and after investigating they confirmed that the carpenters misinterpreted the drawings and built the frame incorrectly.

Where should we go from here? At this point, the entire structure has been built, final plaster has occurred and electrical fit-off is nearly complete, but I see this as a BIG miss. We have a good working relationship with our builders, and I'm not particularly interested in getting legal advice if this can be negotiated - just looking for tips on what I should research and look into.

Personally, I wouldn't accept it. Builders problem to rectify and cover the costs to do so.

You say you have a good relationship with the builder. What remedy has this good relationship offered to date?

Have you been doing private certifier inspections? If I builder can miss something so obvious I'd be concerned about what else has been missed and covered up.

i'd start with asking the builder on what their suggestions to rectify this would be.

I would now want a cathedral ceiling or my original ceiling,I would personally contribute to the cathedral ceiling.

isnt 2100 lower than minimum standard height to begin with? thats a huge f up. Get them to rectify at their own cost. Not your problem.

Imagine that you have specified 2700 ceilings and your builder made 2400 instead. It would not be the end of the world because only you would know about this problem.

In your case, however, we are talking about 2100 which is a huge difference. Think about selling this house any time in the future, its value will be much lower because it will have a visible problem in one of its rooms.

it would be, if that was one of the main features you wanted in a house. taller ceilings are one of the major selling points that increase the value of the house, the builder would basically rob you of significant chunk of money down the track.

Unless the room is for storage then it's non compliant

BCA V2 2019 S3 P3.8



You have 2 options
1. The builder deconstructs the section and rebuilds as per plan / contract / BCA (yep that pesky little book)
2. Develop a Performance Based Solution 'PBS' (Fire Engineer) addressing save evac of that room/area in the case of a fire.

Either option is going to cause a delay and trigger further LD's (liquidated damages)
If you proceed with option 2, first you need to confirm the building certifier can, and will accept a PBS.
Your builder should be dealing with this as it's his problem! However make sure, you make it perfectly clear you MUST be kept informed of what is discussed and proposed.

If you do go down the track of Option 2 you need to discuss with the builder how he is going to off-set the stuff up. At that height "don't accept ceiling fans"!