Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Dec 02, 2009 7:55 am Hello all This is my first post, so I hope this is in the right spot! My husband and I are building our first home (third home, but first time building) and I am a tad worried about site costs after reading some other posts on this forum!! Our block has a 20mtr frontage and is 31mtrs deep... it slopes very gradually at around 700mm across the block towards the North West corner... the site surveys and soil test indicate H class site... and our builder allowed for a H class waffle slab... with a allowance for a fall of 300mm and 60/40 cut and fill.... of course being a NEWBIE i have NO idea what this all means!! Does it mean they will cut 60% of the total fall ie; 60% of 700mm??? and fill the bottom corner??? Any help with this would be WONDERFUL Im freaking out, as the contruction manager is away sick, and I wont get these costings until he arrives back!!! We are on a shoe string budget, so every cent counts!! THANKYOU!! Built the 'Urbis' by J G King We are in, now the work begins!!! Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 2Dec 02, 2009 9:01 am We had pretty much exactly the same as you. 30 x 20 mtr block with a 500mm fall. Soil removal was going to be HUGE so we dropped the garage down 600mm to compensate. Unfortunately this actually pushed the price of the footings up as suddenly there had to be a second cement pour and extra pierings around where the garage and the house meet. However what we have saved is having a 1.8mtr retaining wall at the back of the house. We now have a 1mtr retaining wall at the back. Depends how big your house footprint is. For us in the long run it would have been better to build a squat 2 storey house so the cut and fill would have been 50/50 and little to no soil removal. Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 3Dec 02, 2009 11:38 am Hi Netadelle Just checked out your blog, your house is looking great! It actually amazed us to learn that our block has a 70cm fall! It looks almost flat to us!! The majority of the fall is in the bottom right hand corner of the block, so most of our house footprint on no more than around a 40cm fall .... so Im hoping it will be okay.. my understanding is that a waffle slab in 'on ground' so Im guessing they should only have to cut in 30-40 cms and fill the low part... although since I have no idea really I am probably WAY off... anyway, its scary stuff... it would suck to be up for a heap more costs at this stage!! Built the 'Urbis' by J G King We are in, now the work begins!!! Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 4Dec 02, 2009 10:18 pm Hi there 700mm fall across the entire block is not bad. If you have to cut in fill, this would be 1.4 metres, most builders allow for 500mm cut and fill. Costs are all part of the process which you cant really beat Regards Shane Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 5Dec 03, 2009 5:49 pm Thanks for your reply ... Im still confused... why would they have to cut 1.4mtrs if the lowest point of my block is only 70cm lower than the highest part? wouldnt they just cut 35cm off the highest part, and dump it onto the low part and compress it?? Maybe I should just wait until my builder explains it to me.. just sorta wanted to be prepared beforehand Any insight is much appreciated Built the 'Urbis' by J G King We are in, now the work begins!!! Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 6Dec 14, 2009 2:22 pm wemyss_castle Our block has a 20mtr frontage and is 31mtrs deep... it slopes very gradually at around 700mm across the block towards the North West corner... the site surveys and soil test indicate H class site... and our builder allowed for a H class waffle slab... with a allowance for a fall of 300mm and 60/40 cut and fill Your builder allows for 300mm fall across the build area, not the entire block. If your fall is predominately to one corner, you may be within the 300mm envelope across the build area, depending on where you situate the house. The 60/40 cut and fill means they will take the total fall across the build area, then cut 60% of that, and push it across to fill the 40%. You will most likely wind up with excess soil, but this can be spread out to partially fill the lower area too. Depending on the depth of the cut, you may require a retaining wall to secure the cut and prevent the soil collapsing. Equally, if the fill is near to the boundary edge, you may require a retaining wall to prevent the soil spilling into your neighbours property. Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 7Dec 16, 2009 12:27 pm I have about 1500mm front to back on a similar size block rise to the rear. I am looking at building a 2 story house which would have about 1m fall over the footprint. I was under the impression that the 1m was nothing much as far as build cost over flat. I had been considering building 2 story front with split level raised single story rear, but thought this would cost a lot more. upstairs beds2/3 ----\ ...........................\_________ back living/kitchen area about 1m raised. ....study/bed1--------/ Do you think the split is going to cost more/less/similar to having the back level with front. considering the extra cut/fill and retaining walls required if level? Slab poured 21/04/2011 Frame finished 27/05/2011 Moved in 07/11/2011 Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 8Dec 27, 2009 4:52 pm Hey! We have a 3m fall over our 42m block so yours sounds little to me! lol We have had to put a split in our house (3 stairs or 1/2m giving us nearly 10ft ceilings at the back of the house) which has meant we have a smaller fall at the back of the house. Dont know if this apply's to your house but to save puting up 1m high retaining wails at the back door we have used Dropped edge beams on the back of the house. This retains the fill made from cutting the house into the block. These are costing us but looks much better and we dont have to retain right out the back door. So now we will not have to retain except for the small sections down the sides at the front. Good luck with all your decisions! Built our Granton in 2010 Handover December 3rd- wooohooo! Now the hard work has began.... Retaining walls and landscaping Re: 700mm fall over 31mtr block 9Dec 29, 2009 8:02 am Hey there Just thought I would let you know that we have all our site costings back and they are charging us a little bit extra for the foundations.... and they are going to cut 30cm in the front right hand corner, and dump it on the botom left corner to make it level, and then use deeper piers in for the left corner where the fill part is.... so the deepest part of the cut will be 30cm... which shouldn't require a retaining wall thank god, because we are poor enough already!! Thanks for all your feedback!! Built the 'Urbis' by J G King We are in, now the work begins!!! Thank you Splashers. Tomorrow I might check if I can get a few packs of 300x300 in the same tile finish. It may be good to use these could in the shower recesses. I'm not… 4 4682 I've got a challenge here. Background is the builder has cut too deep for the slab and the slab is now below the very substantial retaining wall. It's failed occupancy… 0 18391 AS4654.2-2012 External Membranes it is "Informative" but if you get water ingress your insurance assessor will go to this straight away and if not achieved, they will deny… 9 1801 |