New Home on Block with 2.5m fall

Hi all ,

Just wanting some advice, on options and builders. We have a block 14 x 29 with a 2.5 m fall from the road. We knew heading in that the block had a fall.

just wanted to know any feedback on volume builders or others , would a split level work ?, Estimated site cost for a flat or do we go split level ?

Would be good to know where you are located....

Sorry, Doreen,Victoria . Plenty valley estates

I have similar fall and a split level design.

With regards to the site costs, a lot depends on your soil/geo-tech.

Try this builder. They maybe be able to help. I haven't built through them but have heard of them. They are a sloping block builder in Diamond Creek
http://www.lpwarrenhomes.com.au

Thanks , will get in touch, trying to work out site cost for split level vs flat. Getting mixed information, some are telling me there no difference. Some are telling me split level cost are lower, just trying to narrow down best options i guess

The problem with flat is that one side of the house will be sitting on almost 2 m high retaining wall - this will require some hard core engineering, compaction etc.. The space below won't be very usable.

I would still go for the split design but just use the under-space as a storage or garage etc.

The feedback I've been given is that a split level home will cost $25,000 more to build than a normal home on a flat block.

It can be true for a flat block, the only problem is that you DO NOT have flat block.

Normal home on your block will be extremely problematic to put in as you would either have one side sitting on a high platform with engineered retaining wall and controlled compacted fill or dig deep into the other wall (and spend probably $100K on excavating and moving your soil away) and put part of your house underground.

So no matter what, it will still be split for you in one way or another, the only diff will be the design of your split, e.g. you can have is that your living areas will be on the same level while storage space or garages will be in the basement.

Hi ,
Are you saying site cost will be lower with a split design vs a conventional flat slab ?

That is a significant slope for a small lot. There will be multiple additional costs on account of the slope. Guesstimate $75000.

We have the same size lot and same slope also in Doreen.

We are building with Bentley Homes and they are doing a stepped design for us. Our site costs are fixed at $30,000 plus we paid $15,000 for the stepped design. I am happy we did this option as our main living areas will have ceilings that are over 3m.

To us it was the best option. Other builders we approached wanted to flatten the land which, when we got our quotes, was more expensive.

I would suggest getting a few quotes from different builders. Some builders we approached flat out refused to even give us a quote and said they didn’t work with sloping blocks.

Good luck! ☺️

I am simply asking on how you plan to put a flat slab on your site?

The site itself is not flat and even if you make it flat via clean fill (which also needs to be compacted), you will find out that you end up with a house sitting on 2 meter "mountain" from one side. How you are planning to tackle this?

I agree with Nuevo, we didn’t have the slope you have, but we have a step down in our house, going from 2700 to 3300 ceilings, it makes the back living areas amazing.
Your best bet is to build with the slope of the land.
However I think your first step is to approach some builders, they will be able to give your an indication, because every builder will have varying costs, so anything anyone says here is probably irrelevant to your land.

Thanks, Indicative cost i received from couple of builders were anywhere from $75k to 150K these are not volume builders, most pretty much told me build with the slope pay the site cost or just walk away from this lot.

We had a 4_5metre fall, worked out better more cost effective to go one level with garage, laundry under neath and a massive 3 times the garage storage space off garage, we done retaining walls and had raft slab in garage and brick pylons with strip footings, we doubled all our brick pylons for safety, no problems and house on same level very practical, this for us worked out more cost effective with quality work.

There are builders that specialise in split level homes you will definitely get a better design if you work with the lay of the land rather than against it

We bit the bullet and bought the block, convenience and location was ideal for our circumstances. Now to work with the land and find a builder to help build our home. Thanks all for the valuable advice.

I will be using this thread to update as i go along,