Arden Developments

To Banyan27 and the other guys building in Aquarevo. There's a shocker waiting with the site works cost. Apparently Arden had managed to do an initial soil test and the engineer deemed it as a class P (problematic). Essentially a lot of work with slab. Talked to the developer they are pitching a different story mentioning no builder was allowed and there's not a lot of fill. Developer also mentioned they are still awaiting the 'compaction report'. Apparently this report sounds like a pre-requisite for any soil test. Long story if you are at this stage or awaiting on when the provisional sum is going to be an actual on your site cost, question everything!

Most definitely still active since I started back in 2013 with my initial post.

Thanks Vellas great to hear !! How’s things going with your house? Any post build headaches?

In hindsight it might be better to ask for a provisional sum based on a P type slab with a few piers at least to get that in your budget. They could always return the extra once they do the site survey and engineering.
Wish I've done mine that way.

Building the Votivo43 - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88553

Can't agree with you more bro. Looks as though we are on a ping pong with the developer and Arden. The question is why this is classed as a P type soil which is the worst type of land possible to build on. When we brought land the communication was there was very little fill and all plots were flat. Building on a class P type land would definitely up the anti on slab costs irrespective who you build with. Awaiting with fingers crossed as mentioned on FB. Please take whatever action you guys need in order to highlight this to developer. More the pressure the better I suppose. For us we are looking at a staggering 27k alone for slab costs which was almost double the provisional cost set aside for any slab upgrades. Hard to fathom.

Plenty of things can cause a site to be classed as P. My soil type was E but overall site was classed as P (recommend to have a P type slab) due to having an old tree (removed by the developer) on my block. It apparently impacts soil moisture levels.

Building the Votivo43 - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88553

Yes that's right many things can impact soil classification. Mainly the soil class is based on load bearing capacity. Less the ability more the stuff you need to do hence get's more high on the classification. Nasty thing about this was the land sale was done based on the fact these had little to nothing for the developer on these plots. I would have much rather spent my money elsewhere if this was the case from start. Its like buying a cheap plot on a hill, knowing you have huge spend at the start. This was not cheap as well. That's the issue.

You can probably still back out? That is normally the risk of buying off plan - you don't know what you're going to get until it gets built.

Building the Votivo43 - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88553

Can but would be at a cost. Contracts already signed.

The only slight issue we experienced was rendering started to crack in places pretty early on, however Arden were very quick in resolving the issue by getting workpersons on site to redo the render!

Apart from that it has been smooth sailing. As we have recommended 4 people in the past to build with Arden, I still strongly believe they are a better builder by far!

The only slight issue we experienced was rendering started to crack in places pretty early on, however Arden were very quick in resolving the issue by getting workpersons on site to redo the render!

Apart from that it has been smooth sailing. As we have recommended 4 people in the past to build with Arden, I still strongly believe they are a better builder by far![/quote]

That’s really great to hear Vellas it’s reassuring !!

One way around it is sign the contract subject to soil test so you can back out.This estate is literally a filled in swamp.

We are building with Arden also. In the initial stages. Its a knock down rebuild and we are waiting for site costs to come back. In the interim though our sales person has come back at us with a random extra cost added to our quote of 5k for crane use to from building material in to our lot over existing power lines and then another 7k to provide tiger tails (whatever they are!) To power lines due to oh&s requirements??? That's a total sum of 12k they have just pulled out of nowhere.

They say its a council requirement but after having visited council to ask questions council were actually scratching there heads.

Has anyone got any knowledge or experience with this?

Tiger tails - Ausgridhttps://www.ausgrid.com.au/Your- ... iger-Tails

It probably is due to site access on your block? Do you have something in front that will prevent them to deliver materials easily?
Have they done a site survey as well?

My suggestion is go speak to other builders and see what they say.

Sometimes things like these get added at sales stage but then get removed at tender (like BAL for example).

Building the Votivo43 - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=88553

The builders are the ones saying this. When I approached council to see if this is the usual requirement they were scratching their heads saying its only to drop materials off on a vacant block!

Just want to clarify if we are getting taken for a ride and what measures to take to ensure we dont get charged unreasonably. Hard when we know nothing about the industry and are trying to budget!

We also had the $5k crane cost. They have used a crane multiple times, I tried to query it but told it was required. We do have overhead powerlines in street.

Was that part of your site costs and did you get charged the 7k as well for tiger tails?

Hi MangoC, it was listed separately to site costs under OHS but we didn’t have the tiger tails cost, we did sign a long time ago and I know of other builds both with Arden and other builders to have tiger tails included in their costs.

Thanks Ezza. Its hard to know what is a legitimate cost and what can be pushed to be avoided.