Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 27, 2013 9:44 pm Hi there, I have recently purchased a small piece of land (500m2) in South Brisbane and plan to build my first home with a well known builder. The land frontage is 20m and I have planned to build a north-facing, single story(low-set) house. There are three other plots adjacent to my one (ie on left, right and behind) and the plot to the left of my plot is 2.5m higher, plot to the right is 2.5m lower. The front (other side of the road) is open with vacant space of land with small trees. I recently got soil testing done on the land through the same builder that I plan to build with, where the site classification was measured to be M (moderately reactive), there were no other issues except for Wind Classification, deemed to be N3 (W41N). I am unsure what this wind classification means and why the builder is charging me close to $4000 dollars for this? (I feel that the calculated wind may be higher as the lots are all vacant at the moment) Is this a council regulation and what would be your recommendation/opinion on this matter? Thanking you in advance! (Please inform me if I have missed out on any details) Regards Re: Council Requirements (Wind Classification) 2Aug 27, 2013 10:01 pm This is a good source of information about how the classification is arrived at: http://stratco.com.au/pdf/Brochures/oth ... _Guide.pdf. Basically you are paying for additional fixing to hold down the individual roof components down, and perhaps strapping to restrain the whole roof. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Council Requirements (Wind Classification) 3Aug 28, 2013 8:33 am An extra $4000 is a ripoff in my opinion unless the engineer has specified some major alternative method of tie-downs. Normally you'd just be looking at decreasing the spacing of your strapping and increasing your triple grips to one at every rafter/top plate junction. A second year apprentice would have all these done in one day and the materials would be an extra $200 at most. Ask the builder for the documentation of what the extra cost is for exactly and who specified it. Stewie Re: Council Requirements (Wind Classification) 4Aug 28, 2013 9:49 am We had this issue too. not the price - quite moderate - but strengthening of roof - ie ties. We have no house behind us - and never will be. Apparently winds mean we need it that way. Couldn't really argue the point - so did it. I had a feeling it was well below $4k though. This was on google. Development controls 2.3.1 Front setback D1 New buildings within residential areas shall adhere to a front building line, which is 5.5-6m to the… 1 2712 I'm wondering if anyone knows what the requirements are of a builder to be eligible to hold Domestic Building Insurance for proposed works. https://www.dbi.vmia.vic.gov.au… 0 2586 Even if it's not being sub-divided and you want to keep it as Torrens title, you will still need to talk to a town planner or Council themselves, to see if they will allow… 1 6842 |