Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 03, 2014 3:52 pm Hi all We are deciding whether to go projector a smaller custom build (knockdown rebuild established rea). Our block may have 1.2 or up to 2m fall sidways. It is not an obvious slope but it is there. The original home is built on piering and we will be demolishing it. It seems there has already been fill at the site as there is a small retaining wall between the yard and the house next door (0.5 metres?) which is at ground level. A custom builder has come out for a quick look and said he would definitely think it needs to be bearers and joists and is concerned if a project builder is looking at slab. The project builder came back and said that it can be slab, provided the footprint is narrow enough (?), thereby presumably avoiding having to redo the levels of the block.. Im' not very technical. They only provided this info when pushed though.. originally they just talked about a dropped garage. When we asked them about single levels, they said not so feasible due to drop edge beams and retaining walls.. is this because they want to put the single on a slab? Does b + J eliminate tehn the need for drop edge beams and so much retaining wall? I know contours and soil would be needed to know for sure but can any experts provide some insight into how all of this works? Thank you.. Re: Bearers and joists, slab and other - project v custom 2Sep 29, 2014 9:37 am Hi I'm no expert but our house is on a sloped bit of land and we are doing a KDR and the house was originally on stumps... we had a quote from a volume builder for the house to be on a slab as that's their standard build process. However it was going to add a number of steps from the garage up to the house and steps within the house. Not really a major problem except we would lose some of the 'extra' space we had put in the garage but more importantly we were losing the height we had in the original house. We wanted to go a bit higher (building a single level house) rather than lower. So we asked for it to be built on Bearers and Joists. And we're paying for it. A lot! (About $65k extra) and some of it is still on slab (garage and alfresco area and the porch) But yes bearers and joists will mean that you can be on one level as the stumps will create a level platform for them to build on. The drop edge beam to me is just filling the whole space down to where the ground meets with concrete. So a LOT of concrete if you have a slope. They do 'cover' this with brickwork as well. That's my interpretation of a a DEB (drop edge beam) but if you google it or search this forum there is a lot better technical explanations -- so for our house with the garage and the alfresco area we have DEBs but the bearers and joists all sit on stumps and a surround of brick (around the perimeter of the house) This diagram may help... the right hand side is bearers and joists and the left hand side is on slab... Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Hope that helps. Hi All, about to commence a bathroom renovation and need some advice on subfloor works. Current subfloor is hardwood T&G floorboards on 90x45 joists, but intention is to… 0 5847 Thanks for all replies. I just noticed now the pictures I added to post right on top of page were wrong. I attached pictures showing "current" and my "suggested" floor… 9 14644 |