A quick run down of why I'm asking;
I got an email Friday arvo from a construction manager. Basically telling me they have started construction and have discovered all sorts of rubish buried at the site and he says the site is contaminated with tree roots, grass etc. Anyway he says they have to remove 200m3 and bring in 300m3 cleanfill. That plus removing the rubbiush is apparently going to cost us an extra $8300
He sent this email just before closing and asked me to call him Monday to discuss! I think he knew we wouldn't be happy and sent it last minute so he didn't have to deal with us!
Our earthworks amount listed in a variation to our building contract is a little over 7K (we had a provisional sum amount in our contract that was a little higher).
So if their soil guys (or whoever) looked at the block before their quote, shouldn't it have been obvious to them there was rubish etc on there? I have some photos showing rubish sticking out of the ground. The pics I have on my thread show it was covered in grass and shrubs (some 2m high), anyone who drove by the block could see that. I wonder if they even visited before giving us an earthworks price if they are telling us it's not enough. Shouldn't it have been accounted for?
Now they wanna charge over double
We are scouring our contract to see what options we have. We can't terminate (or threaten to) because the price increase to the contract does not exceed 5% (although not far off).
In the SPECIFICATION pages of our contract it has a section on siteworks, it reads;
SITE OBSTRUCTIONS
Where trees or roots occur within the building sites they shall be felled and stumps and roots grubbed out and removed from the site. If during the course of the construction other trees or subterranean matter e.g. rocks, stumps and ground water are in the opinion of the Builder or Statutory Authority considered to be a hazard they shall be removed by the Builders and the cost shall be recovered as a Variation pursuant to the Building Contract.
I'm reading this as meaning all of the above should be included in the siteworks cost except if the find what they consider subterranean matter. Therefore if they want to charge us for the rubbish, so be it, I can live with that. But the roots and grass??
We really don't know if this is just a matter of sucking it up and paying or if they should have foreseen this if they had someone look at the block before giving us our earthwork costings.
Any advise or even if anyone knows how companies determine what they will charge for earthworks ie soil tests ect would be much appreciated.
TIA
P/S Some of this is quoted from my rant on my thread, sorry if you have had to endure it twice.
Sorry 
PeasInAPod
