site cost PD

Hi we are new to all of this... we are building in the avenue - north cranbourne, building with PD, camberwell 29,we were just told our site costs came to 10k!!!!
And this is for a flat block!!!

We were told by the sales office according to the engineering plans we had roughly 350mm fall, PD have come back to us saying we have 1200mm of fall with an M class slab which requires pillars to some of the slab and extra storm water drainage.. I'd like to get a second opinion as i think this may be a little excessive or incorrect.. I was told it was pointless to get a second opinion because the warranty wouldnt be covered unless we went with their guy.. Has anyone got any similair site costs near us or has any idea's on our situation..

Also they couldn't find our alloted pegs so im not sure how precise this site cost estimate is..

Your site costs seem pretty reasonable to me.

We are paying more than that with PD for a "flat" block ...

Id be ok with that...

Hmmm bit of a difference between 350mm and 1200mm fall.

When in doubt trust no one, if your land has settled get out there with a couple of pegs, a string line, spirit level and tape measure and find out exactly what the fall is.

in terms of those costs, also depends on whether any fill etc is present, if the fall is 1200mm a cut and fill costs. So yeah 10k is definately possible.

PD want to charge us $14k for heywood 29. Sales rep assured us $10k max before signing up. They didnt take into account our compaction report. Our block is flat (within 300mm) They say our excessive charge is due to piering as well

Feel like we have been * too and mislead over several issues from PD staff - not happy

We built with PD on a "flat block" and our site costs were $10k aswell. Sometimes I think they just pull these figures out of a hat

Built with PD on a 560sqm block with 1200mm fall (approx 900mm across the actual foundation). Site cost was $8879.

Did they give you a breakdown in your tender? Ours was:
- $2616 cut and fill
- $3951 piering and deepened edge beams
- $2312 drainage

It all depends on the soil test report. Until that has been done any estimate figure is just a guess. Our sales estimate was to expect around $16,000 for site costs. Should I go back to sales and berate them for over stating the figure? Of course not.
Friend of mine in the same estate, <300mm fall, smaller block, smaller house paid $17,000 for site costs largely due to rock.


How much were you expecting to pay? You should probably be pretty happy with $10,000!

What does the soil test report indicate?
If you're building on highly reactive clay (the extent to which it expands and contracts due to changes in moisture) - it costs more
If you're building on fill (even compacted) it might require piering - it costs more
If you're building near an easement, or your garage is on the boundary - it costs more
Is the siting of the house going to cause drainage issues?...
Is there rock?...
The above are obviously not definitive of all possible causes for cost variation but you get the idea.


Foundations are probably not the best area to cut corners on. If you were able to save $5,000 but your bricks, plaster and floors crack after a few years, would you be satisfied with that? Probably not...

We were told by the sales office according to the engineering plans we had roughly 350mm fall

Land sales staff can be a little "creative" with some of the info they provide. And they're not always knowledgeable. Remember they want a sale.... I'd be inclined to check it myself, as Belial suggested.

...with an M class slab which requires pillars to some of the slab and extra storm water drainage..

Find out why you need piering. Is there something underground that needs protecting (often sewer or drainage pipes in an easement)? Or is it purely due to the fall, or the amount of fill on the land?

And this is for a flat block!!!

People want flat blocks. Developers provide what people want by dumping lots and lots of fill on vacant land. Potential buyers come along and go: Yippee! A flat block! This will be cheap to build on!! And then have a coronary when they find out that the slab needs to be upgraded and piers added to deal with all the fill. I watched a couple of land releases near us go from a massive crater more than 3m deep to level and flat... the people building there would never know if they hadn't seen it happen. I'm glad I'm not paying their site costs.

Ask the developer for a soil compaction report, pronto. PD should take it into account and it might reduce your costs a bit.

We have a flat block, and paid $12,500 site costs, including slab upgrade and piering to the rear edge to protect the sewer running through our easement. The soil compaction report showed that piering the entire slab wasn't necessary and we saved $2,000 on the amount in our tender.

Ask questions, see if there's any way of reducing the amount. But $10,000 isn't really excessive.

We were also told we need piering due to the result of a soil test which we knew was never even done! After contesting this with the builder the soil test was redone by another company. Funnily enough the 1m of fill the original test said we had was now reduced to only 10cm hence no need for piering and a saving of $6999 to us. Pays to be vigilent and and ask questions.

While I do agree with your point of view, engineers should be capable of knowing what is required to do the job without having over kill. There would already be a margin of safety included in the calculations

thanks for this tip. i am having my land soil tested this coming month

I agree completely. I would have been happy to pay the money for the piers had we needed them but paying extra for an overengineered block is money I could better spend elsewhere.

I got Fixed site costs with PD for a 515sqm block. It came to around $9,000.
Very reassuring because my area has a bit of rock But I was expecting up to about $15,000.

Wow, thank-you everyone for replying to our questions.

We have no rock, we have no easements (actually they are a good 10mts away from our block)
Our excavation is $47880
Concrete peering are $2045
Services are $3487 (drainage)

Our sales person gave us an estimate for around $5000, but that was that the extreme level, hence why when we have seen the cost double we wanted to question it and get some more advice.

Having found others in our estate building with PD and having site costs no more then $4000 made us question???

This is our 1st soil test report, and they are currently building our road hence the loose soil at the front of our block from the road.

Lets hope that our 2nd site survey makes more sense. Or if there was any other difference…..

But now hearing other stories at least we know this cost maybe just ok.....

You have all been so helpful!!!

how far down are they digging? China?

Nah i'd say they're getting the apprentice to do it with a trowel, should pay his wages for the year or so...

Think lexie probably meant $4780 as that would total it to around the 10k figure being talked about.

Woops! Yes I did make a typo with our excavations! Should be $4780...Sorry everyone!

Our site costs with PD are about $20k, sloping block, HD slab, piering, lots of fill and lots of rock blasting and removal. Plus we've got retaining walls to get done. So many hidden and extra costs. Oh well. We're too far along the whole process to care too much now. Just wanna get the house up and move in. Mind you, initially we were told sites costs would be less than $10k...haha. No one had any idea until the 2 soil tests were completed.

our site costs were $3000, the contract allowed for about $5500 and Bbank credited us the remaing amount. Didn't realise how lucky we were looking at some of these other numbers.

Wow, that's pretty amazing!
It's hard to say, I'm scared of hitting rock so I have fixed site costs just in case ..