Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 16, 2021 8:19 pm Hi All, it’s our first time building a home with Metricon and got hit by a $12k bill for 1.5 day worth of work by Flatout on rock excavation. That seems outrageous to us. Does anyone know how to go around it? Can they do this to you? Re: Hit the Rock 2Nov 17, 2021 5:00 am ElaRad Hi All, it’s our first time building a home with Metricon and got hit by a $12k bill for 1.5 day worth of work by Flatout on rock excavation. That seems outrageous to us. Does anyone know how to go around it? Can they do this to you? What on earth did they do for $12k? To put in laymans/simple terms for comparison, in Sydney, to dig an 8 x 4m pool in solid ironstone costs us around $8-9k. Check your contract, if they have a rock as a provisional sum, normally they need to give you notice and you need to be allowed the opportunity to check the work. We use the NSW fair trading contract and it requires us to actually allow our clients to be present when the work is being undertaken. Which brings me to to my hump day rant, the HIA contract is so awful for consumers, it is so biased towards builders, you should always insist on using the NSW Fairtrading contract as it is slanted more in favour of the consumer. Anyway, I have a rock excavation calculator which I will post cheers Simeon Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Re: Hit the Rock 3Nov 17, 2021 5:05 am Here is my bulk excavation estimator. There are two columns, one for rock and one for clay. All you need to do is put the dimensions in for the area of excavation ( I have made these red at the top) and then at the bottom it will spit out the fair price you should be paying in Sydney. Any more means you are likely being overcharged ( unless there are unique site characteristics that need to be priced in). Anyway, use it as a guide: Bulk Excavation Calculator for Rock and Clay FYI I developed this after we got our rock excavation estimates wrong on a couple of jobs and it has been quite accurate for us. Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Re: Hit the Rock 4Nov 18, 2021 12:59 am ElaRad Hi All, it’s our first time building a home with Metricon and got hit by a $12k bill for 1.5 day worth of work by Flatout on rock excavation. That seems outrageous to us. Does anyone know how to go around it? Can they do this to you? Shortly before handover we were presented with a building variation for $4,000 for about a day of rock excavation that had been carried out 11 months previously. I checked our contract and no provisional sum for rock had been included so the builder was required (and failed) to follow their own contractual procedure for Hidden Site Conditions. Furthermore, I checked the geotech report which clearly showed rock at the level they encountered it at an adjacent borehole so they really should have anticipated and allowed for it. Thus ensued a few days of debate where the builders first argument was to provide the invoice from their subcontractor as proof of the claim and it was immediately obvious their subcontractor was overcharging. Fortunately when we were notified of the rock (11 months previously) I went to site that evening and photographed the extent of the rock excavation and we also had the benefit of CCTV footage of the excavation work from a security camera on an adjacent property so we could go back and review what actual work was performed. Interestingly we found that they had overcharged the rock excavation by 25%, added a $1,375 charge for "supervision" when the CCTV footage clearly showed the supervisor was only on site for 5 minutes and added a $380 charge for machine float that (again) the CCTV footage showed never happened. When we informed the builder of this they mumbled something about not having the time to check everything their subcontractors did and settled for $1,780 which was my estimate of a fairer amount. I was surprised that with the advantage of their heavily biased (towards themselves) HIA contract that they weren't more careful in following the required contractural procedures as this really disadvantaged their claim... to the point that if we had wanted to be totally unreasonable I think we could have rejected their claim entirely. I wasn't surprised at how they mismanaged their subcontractors claim as by this time we were used to that type of thing happening routinely. So, as Simeon has already said, check your contract to verify that the correct contractural procedures have been followed. Re: Hit the Rock 5Nov 18, 2021 4:51 am robw17 ElaRad Hi All, it’s our first time building a home with Metricon and got hit by a $12k bill for 1.5 day worth of work by Flatout on rock excavation. That seems outrageous to us. Does anyone know how to go around it? Can they do this to you? Shortly before handover we were presented with a building variation for $4,000 for about a day of rock excavation that had been carried out 11 months previously. I checked our contract and no provisional sum for rock had been included so the builder was required (and failed) to follow their own contractual procedure for Hidden Site Conditions. Furthermore, I checked the geotech report which clearly showed rock at the level they encountered it at an adjacent borehole so they really should have anticipated and allowed for it. Thus ensued a few days of debate where the builders first argument was to provide the invoice from their subcontractor as proof of the claim and it was immediately obvious their subcontractor was overcharging. Fortunately when we were notified of the rock (11 months previously) I went to site that evening and photographed the extent of the rock excavation and we also had the benefit of CCTV footage of the excavation work from a security camera on an adjacent property so we could go back and review what actual work was performed. Interestingly we found that they had overcharged the rock excavation by 25%, added a $1,375 charge for "supervision" when the CCTV footage clearly showed the supervisor was only on site for 5 minutes and added a $380 charge for machine float that (again) the CCTV footage showed never happened. When we informed the builder of this they mumbled something about not having the time to check everything their subcontractors did and settled for $1,780 which was my estimate of a fairer amount. I was surprised that with the advantage of their heavily biased (towards themselves) HIA contract that they weren't more careful in following the required contractural procedures as this really disadvantaged their claim... to the point that if we had wanted to be totally unreasonable I think we could have rejected their claim entirely. I wasn't surprised at how they mismanaged their subcontractors claim as by this time we were used to that type of thing happening routinely. So, as Simeon has already said, check your contract to verify that the correct contractural procedures have been followed. Rob, That is a crazy story! So happy for you that you came out on top. What I think you will find that this story highlights is that the some of the staff in the larger builders who deal directly with clients: 1. Have no clue about what is going on a building site as they are spread far too thin. How one person can be across 15 job sites and build a high quality home is beyond my comprehension. When we are excavating, or doing any critical task we make sure we have at least one team member supervising all day ( sometimes 2), but that is why our clients are willing to pay a little more. Project homes are basically built by the trades who submit invoices that are rarely checked, but just passed on. I have witnessed this personally 2. The staff have very little idea what is actually in the HIA contract and how it needs to be administered. So clients need to be on top of the contract and the procedures so you know your rights to object, and notice periods that need to be given for variations, extensions of time, notice of delays etc. Anyway Rob, so happy you won that argument! Cheers Simeon Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Re: Hit the Rock 6Nov 18, 2021 7:52 am im impressed that the neighbouring CCTV setup had footage from 11 months prior. I keep mine for 2 weeks before overwriting it Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Hit the Rock 7Nov 18, 2021 9:26 pm Noname im impressed that the neighbouring CCTV setup had footage from 11 months prior. I keep mine for 2 weeks before overwriting it During the build we lived in the adjacent property so it was no accident that one of the security cameras was pointed next door at the construction. My security system stores about 2 months of footage so I downloaded everything monthly before it was overwritten. The purpose started out as just an interesting side project to compile a time lapse video of the build... but it also sure came in handy to keep an eye on what was happening. 7 6249 Hi all, I have been looking at land in South Australia, that is on a slope however most of the core excavation is complete, with a flat area to place a house. The agent… 0 1390 |