Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Nov 10, 2011 5:17 pm Hi guys, I've received 2 quotes for the landscape after a knock down and rebuild job. 1 coming in at 28k and the other at 33k. The job is for: 192m2 of sir Walter buffalo laid turf 51m2 of decking Merbu 90mm width 78m2 of 20mm-40mm lilydale topping 24-41m of Prefabricated concrete blocks retaining wall (the 28k quote suggested i didn't need the retaining wall where the deck ends) a rough design of the landscape as below Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ a photo of the backyard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I was wondering if this would be considered a reasonable quote. There is some shaping work required and possibly some soil removal but the fall of the land is no more then 450mm at the highest point. Both landscapers suggested that it would be a couple of weeks work O_O !! looking at the shape of the land i would have thought it would be about a weeks worth of work! My Baby Hartley initial deposit 7th Aug'10 Signed contract 4th Dec'10 site start as per contract 25th May'11 slab pour 22nd Jun'11 Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 2Nov 10, 2011 5:25 pm Check out the starting your new landscape sticky. It has a table of the approx ideal amount that should be spent to maximise a properties value. Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 3Nov 10, 2011 9:33 pm hi, While the post u refer to has the ideal amount of money to put into a project, my question was more about the actual quotes i received. i was wondering if the prices I've been quoted is consistent with other peoples experience. My Baby Hartley initial deposit 7th Aug'10 Signed contract 4th Dec'10 site start as per contract 25th May'11 slab pour 22nd Jun'11 Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 4Nov 10, 2011 10:10 pm For the work and area, I'd say that's fair and reasonable. In fact I'd say that's pretty good. Really make sure the soil prep for the turf is according to the turf thread and you'll barely lift a finger on it for the rest of your life. However for nearly 200m2 of turf that's hard to justify that much! We are obsessed with large turf areas for absolutely no good reason other than we are lemmings following the last person or landscapers work and the best advice I can offer is to minimise turf areas. Even if kids are involved, 200m2 is going to be way over the top and a very poor investment. Allow for food growing areas. This is your chance now. You're building your garden. Food, power and water are all going to be very expensive. Reduce lawn areas to save water, provide area for food growing to offset grocery costs and include small trees to cool the home and reduce home energy costs. Make sure the toppings are not used on the hot side of the house or western side. This will make the house hotter and more expensive to cool. If it has to be make sure you shade it with small trees and large shrubs. Set shrubs out from the fence line. Trees should come well away from fence lines and be scattered throughout to create a cool canopy and functional space in summer. Overall this quote says nothing of the standard of work you will receive either and that is only something some background research will provide. This is not an even playing field in that regard. Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 5Nov 11, 2011 3:33 pm thanks for the advice. will definitely look into the vegie/herb spots. My Baby Hartley initial deposit 7th Aug'10 Signed contract 4th Dec'10 site start as per contract 25th May'11 slab pour 22nd Jun'11 Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 6Nov 11, 2011 5:03 pm By doing some of those things you might get the quote down as well Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 7Nov 12, 2011 10:14 pm 51m2 of merbau decking would definitely bump the price into the range your quotes are in, and I'd say a 2 week timeframe is reasonable, given the size and type of work to be done. As Fu says, if you can DIY some of the work, you'll knock the price down a fair bit. We were looking at around $30,000 for our backyard, but took on some small construction projects ourselves, plus the purchase and laying of toppings for paths. We also did all the plant sourcing and the actual planting. We deferred a couple of non-essential projects till later on to keep things within our budget, and ended up with our professional landscaping coming in at under $20,000. My planting has been an ongoing project, with many of the plants coming from cuttings propagated by friends. It's all looking pretty good now. I have a couple of landscaping threads here somewhere - will see if I can drag them up from the depths of this forum... Here you go - you may find something useful here, at least an idea of what's involved in a big project, and the sort of things that can be DIY-ed pretty easily: Main landscaping thread: http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=29727 DIY projects: http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=31647 Some progress pics from earlier this year: http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=45486 Re: Landscaping quotes - is this reasonable? 8Nov 13, 2011 10:15 am Thanks for the info. Looking at different things we can do to keep the price to under $30k. My Baby Hartley initial deposit 7th Aug'10 Signed contract 4th Dec'10 site start as per contract 25th May'11 slab pour 22nd Jun'11 Seems good to me. I've been told $4-5k/sqm is reasonable in Perth. 2 11166 Hmmm, I have checked your past posts and it seems that you are in NSW, not WA as I had thought. It pays to show your State in your avatar. Retaining wall regulations… 5 7850 Hi, you've probably already resolved this, however, Commbank will probably pay the funds to you after you send evidence the work is done regardless the change in the quotes. 1 35312 |