Quotes for a house to be built, and had the quote of $24000 for site excavations from the builder with just 1.5 metres fall over the block. An earthmover not associated to the builder is going to do it all for $5000.
Another earthmoving bloke we know told us he is getting paid $3000 for a days work excavating for a home, the builder is charging the housebuilder $22,000!! FOR 1 days work for an excavating crew....
I had a builder quote me $7500 to level my block, had it done for $1200 myself, then went back to them... plus many more thousands for deep footings, double brick walls etc etc, only to not need them to do any of it. Still charged though, until I complained with my photographic evidence that none of it was done. IE footing photos before the concrete pours with tape measures down the holes!
Also They tried to charge an extra $3000 for a tank with pump, only for me to discover it was already in the list of inclusions
Enyone in similar situations
its a good idea to shop around if you have plenty of spare time. I notice some builders will charge you 5-10k just because he "thinks" you really need them.
I was quoted $5000 for soil removal. I said stockpile it on my block and I'll remove it myself.
Only cost me $200 to remove.
We have a similar fall over our block. We were charged around $7,500 for the cut n fill and soil removal.
We are in the same boat. We have a block with around 3m fall some of the site costs we were quoted were ridiculous. One of the builders whose display home we liked said they would not build on such a massive slope so we were a little disheartened when the sales consultant just mentioned that we should look at getting the block levelled independantly and then approach them or we could go to any other builder to build on a levelled. But since we do not know much about buildings, footings , slabs etc so wondering it this option worth considering any names or suggestions.One thing we are worried about is once we have levelled the block what if the builders say still won't be able to build.
I was quoted $5000 for soil removal. I said stockpile it on my block and I'll remove it myself.
Only cost me $200 to remove.
Similar issue - and then ended up little if any fill - my block was pretty flat. Not sure how they estimate this - maybe what the customer will bare ...
Going a step further, we were looking at a home builder company, and they were going to charge me $10700 to have a 31500 litre Taylex water tank installed with pump.
I bought one for $4750 including delivery put in to hole I've already got dug. If I wanted them to dig the hole it would be another $2000 for them to do it, and lay the 5mm gravel 100mm deep on the bottom, so $6750 installed.
So the pump would've cost me $3950 from the building company !!! .... I'm sure I can buy a suitable pump for the house for one hell of a lot less than that.
The long and the short of it is that they add possibly 20% markup to their 'retail' price .... not a bad bit of cream off the top if they do that on everything.
We haven't had our soil tests etc done yet. The builder has included an estimate of $30k in the price.