Porter Davis homes

STEP DOWN HEIGHT FROM LIVING AREA TO GARAGE


We have just received our tender documents and under the category "Excavation" it specifies "74mm step down to Garage". When I asked about this I was told that this is the height difference between the floor of the Main Residence and the floor of the Garage.

As our block is on a slope (falling front to rear) the finished height of the garage floor is approx 1.2m below the existing road level, at the front of our home. Although we will have a grate installed at the end of the driveway (directly in front of the garage) to collect rain water which runs down the driveway, our concern is that under heavy rain conditions there could be a high probability of water passing the grate and entering the garage.

In addition, and more worrying as we only have 74mm difference between Garage floor level and the inside of the home then there could be a risk of flooding the whole home should the Garage flood under extreme weather conditions.

For everyone else who is also building on a block which falls front to rear (and therefore has a Home which is "cut" into the block at the front) has this been a concern to you?

Finally, can anyone offer any advice as to whether a step of 74mm is sufficient? I was always under the impression that the difference in height between Garage and Main Home was around 120-150mm.

Any advice most welcome......

Thanks...........

Hi Roshi

I'm doing a 42 square house, frame stage was fast, only 2 weeks Lock up took forever about 3 months, was quite depressing and painful really.

Good Luck

Hi everyone,

Wow great forum and a lot of useful information. We are looking at building and selecting a builder which is not easy. We got a 14mx28m block. Trying to find a layout that we like that fits our block is tough. Then trying to compare the inclusions from builder to builder is another difficult thing. We've seen the Creswick 24 which is a new addition to the Porter Davis Access range. We love the layout but was wondering if anyone has built the house before? Porter Davis' current promotion of $999 for $48,000 worth of upgrades is great but is still lacking quite a few features other builders like Carlise Homes and even Places (which is part of PD) offer as standard. Even when it comes to Facades. Do you get insulation to the walls as standard? Do the standard range bricks and roof tiles OK? Or you people normally upgrade them too?
Any advice would be appreciated. So many builders these days, hard to decide who to go with
Thanks

$999 for $48,000 worth of up-grades er "SAY WHAT",is this right or is it a typo!
If thats what your being told,i would tell them to pull this leg "IT PLAYS JINGLE BELLS"

Hi yeah apparently so, quite a few builders offering similar sort of promotion. I was told from a source that they still have to recover those costs somewhere in the building process from you, so it isn't exactly 'free'. So not sure how true that is.

http://porterdavis.com.au/content/Promo ... mo_web.pdf

More on topic, the Creswick 24 is a very interesting new plan; it's hit our shortlist for a 'budget' option.

More on topic, the Creswick 24 is a very interesting new plan; it's hit our shortlist for a 'budget' option.[/quote]


It is on topic,its a PD home & their promotions

While it's true that Carlisle have a better base spec, their prices are higher too ...

Jealous of your build times though!

Hi Chorlton, 74mm is one brick course and is seems to be the standard stepdown used for garages with a down slope in front, while ours isn't as significant as yours approx 400-500mm from the crossover to garage level, we have an ag drain in underneath the current batter which will become a small retaining wall in front of the house section, we're adding a 100mm channel grate drain across the length of our roller door and the builder allowed for a larger storm water pipe under the garage to connect both that drain and the normal downpipe.

That said, i've been advised that this meets all the relevent requirements and should be sufficient.
However in those *extreme* weather conditions we seem to be seeing more of lately, we do still expect some water may get in, hence the 74mm , also worth noting is that the slab should fall away from the centre hence if water should get in you would expect it to flow towards the outside edge of the slab hence towards the rear door, the plaster and skirtings go to to the floor so potentially they may be at risk from water damage but to be honest, unless your in a low ****** area and experiencing a flash flood, in which case it may exceed 150mm anyway so at that point even your front door won't have enough clearence.

So all that aside technically if you want it and are willing to pay for it despite it being in excess of the engineering requirements, chances are they'll do it, but then your talking a custom slab design, more concrete, deeper excavation and maybe changing slab type or additional peiring etc it could get quite expensive.

Our solution is fairly simple, accept that for 99.9% of the time as per standard will be sufficient, for the rest of the time chances are there isn't much you can do except deal with it when it happens, by all means ask them to give an estimate of the cost of works for an increased step down, storm water upgrades etc, but they could be rather expensive.

Hi Belial,

Thank you for such a detailed response.

May I ask who advised you that the design meets all relevant requirements? I've asked PD directly and the response I received was pretty dismissive to say the least !!!

As a side note, and to keep others up-to-date with our progress (for those interested), I would like to say that the help & support we've received from our Sales person has been first class!! I know that their main focus is to sell homes but ours has been extremly helpful and IMO genuine.

However, I have to say that my dealings so far with PD Main Office have been less impressive !! I don't want to go into detail now as its off-topic but am happy to answer any questions which may be posted on here, as honestly as I can, for those interested.

Cheers.............