Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 25, 2021 7:46 pm Hi All, I am a first time home buyer trying to buy a land and building a house. I am trying to understand the fall on this block in the middle ( blue coloured one) and a rough site cost. One builder quoted less than 10K and another over 20K saying the fall around the block is too high. 1. Am i correct in calculating the fall 40.94 - 40.44 = 0.5m ? 2. Developer of the land said they will have retaining walls? If so will builder have to worry about retaining walls? 3. Can I build a house with garage to the boundary? as one builder said if there is a retaining wall on the side they can't build the house to the boundary. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Thanks a lot in advance. Xe Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 2Jan 26, 2021 10:35 pm I'm no expert on building but from my understanding E means existing surface level so your block would have 1.97m of fall East to West. I believe BW and B will be the final surface level after the developer has put in the retaining wall and cut the land. Therefore the final fall should be 0.5m which you have identified. The retaining wall would be at the rear of your block (with the block behind you sitting higher than yours) so you should be able to build the garage on the boundary. The builder should not have to build a retaining wall as the developer has indicated they will and the drawings seem to indicate this. Site costs aren't determined based on fall alone, soil type and other factors can cause price variation. My builder is charging me $5000 site costs because my block is under 300mm fall. The catch is my area is known to be rocky and I have 8m3 rock allowance so if they dig up more rock I will have to pay extra as a variation at the slab stage progress payment. So you need to ask the builder whether their price includes rock allowance. Another thing to look out for is the quoted slab type. My builder allows for up to H class slab, if your block has a highly reactive soil you would need a more expensive slab which could be a variation charge. Hopefully someone else on here can verify what I've told you is correct. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 3Jan 27, 2021 10:12 am Hi Xenus You will need a proper survey, Soil report and engineering retaining and footing details. That is just a preliminary plan with very little information Ask what happens when things unfold/change after you have handed over a deposit and you are locked in Who Pays the increased Costs? .. I suggest you read the land developers and Building Contract Hint, it's always the client Cheers Chris Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 4Jan 27, 2021 11:10 pm Thanks Andrew and Chris for responding with information. As land is not titled I am relying on the engineering details provided by the developer. At the moment trying to get quotations from Builders to understand the site cost and overall house cost. Most builders have specified in their fine prints that site cost is for M class with a 300mm fall. I am waiting for one builder to provide site costs (who specified in their inclusions that site cost is fixed for a H1 class). Thanks Xe Thanks Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 5Jan 28, 2021 10:58 am xenus As land is not titled I am relying on the engineering details provided by the developer. At the moment trying to get quotations from Builders to understand the site cost and overall house cost. And that is the problem Class, S &M requires controlled fill If the developer runs out of money then the fill maybe uncontrolled and the levels change? In which case the owner always end up paying somewhere along the line Builders aren't interested in firming up unknown Details/costs, banks don't lend more and then clients walk xenus I am waiting for one builder to provide site costs (who specified in their inclusions that site cost is fixed for a H1 class). What happens when that Builder comes back and says its H2? All contracts favour the builders.. he will come back for additional costs. If you don't want to pay then you pull out and find someone else Unfortunately, you will be out of pocket 3-5% while starting all over again Cheers Chris Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 6Jan 29, 2021 1:10 pm The plan you have presented is part of the civil plans packet and is related to stormwater. You need the Disclosure Plan as it will provide Finish Contour Levels depth of fill if any and the with of easement to the rear. The civil plans are what is designed to be done BUT these can be amended. The disclosure plan can only vary 10% We are Expert Consultant's, and we are here to help. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 7Dec 21, 2021 2:14 pm Hi everyone, would really appreciate your help in estimating what my site cost is going to be. Attached is my plan and geo-site report with some information summarised as much as possible:
Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 9Dec 21, 2021 2:53 pm Lukey88 Hi everyone, would really appreciate your help in estimating what my site cost is going to be. Attached is my plan and geo-site report with some information summarised as much as possible:
Hi, Site costs vary from builder to builder. My site was class p due to presence of trees like yours. Prior to putting a deposit with my builder he said he would lock in the site costs at $5000, that was before the soil tests were done. We ended up needing a lot of piering but I did not pay anything extra. I know of other people building with Metricon and they have paid $30,000 site costs for less reactive sites than mine. Have you already paid the deposit to Metricon? If so they have a bit of leverage over you and they generally they overcharge to offset their risk. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 10Dec 21, 2021 3:46 pm Andrew1989 Lukey88 Hi everyone, would really appreciate your help in estimating what my site cost is going to be. Attached is my plan and geo-site report with some information summarised as much as possible:
Hi, Site costs vary from builder to builder. My site was class p due to presence of trees like yours. Prior to putting a deposit with my builder he said he would lock in the site costs at $5000, that was before the soil tests were done. We ended up needing a lot of piering but I did not pay anything extra. I know of other people building with Metricon and they have paid $30,000 site costs for less reactive sites than mine. Have you already paid the deposit to Metricon? If so they have a bit of leverage over you and they generally they overcharge to offset their risk. Thanks a lot for your reply Andrew1989, much appreciated. I guess you're really fortunate that your builder locked it in before soil test was done. And no, I haven't paid my 5% deposit with Metricon yet. Wanted to gauge what others think my site cost will be based on their experience so I can roughly know if Metricon is ripping me off or not. P.s: Metricon hasn't provided me the fixed site cost yet. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 11Dec 21, 2021 6:47 pm You will probably find most volume builders will charge you around $20-30k for site costs but that should be fixed. My builder was a smaller builder so I guess that is why I only paid $5k. I had a 8m3 rock allowance so it could have gotten costly if they dug up a lot of rock thankfully they didn’t. You have to read your contract carefully to make sure there are no additional costs you may incur. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 12Dec 21, 2021 7:00 pm Andrew1989 You will probably find most volume builders will charge you around $20-30k for site costs but that should be fixed. My builder was a smaller builder so I guess that is why I only paid $5k. I had a 8m3 rock allowance so it could have gotten costly if they dug up a lot of rock thankfully they didn’t. You have to read your contract carefully to make sure there are no additional costs you may incur. Appreciate the advice, thanks a lot Andrew. Cheers. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 13Dec 21, 2021 11:27 pm I had a $35k provisional sum allowance for my site costs. My fall over the building area is about 1m or so. Anyway after the survey report came in they have given me P class slab and I apparently need a retaining wall 200mm off my boundary so my site costs is now $45k. My neighbour has their garage to the boundary so my builder had to order a footing probe to see if my retaining wall would cause any structural integrity to the neighbours slab. Apparently it's all good now. So that's just an FYI for you on my experience. But it depends on many different factors. Unfortunately you won't really know until you have the soil tests done. Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 14Dec 22, 2021 5:29 am kennyc I had a $35k provisional sum allowance for my site costs. My fall over the building area is about 1m or so. Anyway after the survey report came in they have given me P class slab and I apparently need a retaining wall 200mm off my boundary so my site costs is now $45k. My neighbour has their garage to the boundary so my builder had to order a footing probe to see if my retaining wall would cause any structural integrity to the neighbours slab. Apparently it's all good now. So that's just an FYI for you on my experience. But it depends on many different factors. Unfortunately you won't really know until you have the soil tests done. Thanks a lot for your reply Kenny. I did have my soil tests done as per my post above. So just wondering, regarding your site cost, why wasn't yours fixed but provisional? Is it because land wasn't titled yet or soil test wasn't done yet? Re: calculate fall and rough site cost 15Dec 22, 2021 7:42 am Lukey88 kennyc I had a $35k provisional sum allowance for my site costs. My fall over the building area is about 1m or so. Anyway after the survey report came in they have given me P class slab and I apparently need a retaining wall 200mm off my boundary so my site costs is now $45k. My neighbour has their garage to the boundary so my builder had to order a footing probe to see if my retaining wall would cause any structural integrity to the neighbours slab. Apparently it's all good now. So that's just an FYI for you on my experience. But it depends on many different factors. Unfortunately you won't really know until you have the soil tests done. Thanks a lot for your reply Kenny. I did have my soil tests done as per my post above. So just wondering, regarding your site cost, why wasn't yours fixed but provisional? Is it because land wasn't titled yet or soil test wasn't done yet? Soil test wasn't done yet. 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 4671 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 18372 We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 36911 |