Site Cost Shock
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Some background....we have a flat site (barely 0.2m fall) which in most cases be ideal for a new home, but it is situated in a flood zone. Specifically under the 100 year flood level. To reduce the risk of flood, the local council has 'encouraged' new developments to be have finished floor levels (FFL) with a freeboard of 0.5m above the flood level. This means the the FFL of our proposed new house needs to be approx 1.15m.
Looking at Clarendon's tendor this has added ~82K to our site costs (we expected an increase but nothing to this degree). Here are some approximations of the additional costs (on top of the standard site costs)
1. Extra fill to be carted in 10K
2. Drop Edged beams all around the house 42K
3. Integrated retention walls 2K
4. Upgrading to H class slab 4K
5. I need to conduct my own flood survey 3K
6. A provisional allowance for screw piers 15K
7. Stairs (front and back and railings) 6K
My Questions
a. Is this reasonable for a house ~40 squares
b. What are my alternatives? Would it be more cost effective to have a suspended slab?
I hope you haven't paid Clarendon more that about $1500 at this stage as you may need to try others. Clarendon also need to know you are prepared to walk away otherwise they'll just charge you four times what it should.
I would personally say to Clarendon, find a way to do it for $24k or we're out of here!
I would be telling them to try a bit (lot) harder.
Other option is to do it on a do and charge basis. Companies definately over estimate for groundworks. Or take it out of the contract and just have them do from the slab upwards.
After this suggestion, the guy at the builders office was "oh yeah, we could do that too" so clearly he hadn't thought about what else could be done, just what would get us to spend more. The retaining wall I built with the bigger cut only cosy $1200 in rock...
This is why it's important to not spend any money until a final price is obtained and keep looking with mor ethan one builder. You've got to keep the builder competitive.
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