Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 24, 2006 7:53 am Hi folks,
Quick question for anybody that is a builder/engineer/site surveyor etc etc... Our block of land is sitting on an old dam in the South East of Melbourne. First soil test and survey revealed that a hell of a lot of piers needed to go in at site costs of $8,500. No problem with this - would rather have too many piers than have the house sink in 10 years time. Yesterday we heard from the lovely Megan at Porter Davis who said that the second soil and survey test has been done and it has revealed that we do not require as many piers as first anticipated. Therefore .. credit of $3,400.00. Yippee I think as I am thinking of a new leather couch for the formal lounge. The bubble was burst however when the better half spoke to one of his fellow workers (a Civil Engineer) who said 'mmm .. not sure mate but doesn't sound right to me. I reckon they are doing you a dis-service and you'll have problems later on'. So of course better half gets on his high horse and says we'll say to PD to keep the site costs at $8,500 just to be safe. I have requested a copy of the site and soil test from PD (waiting to hear if we can get it) as well as requested a plan of where the piers will be placed so that we can get an independent opinion. Can I have some advice on whether we are doing the right thing here by double checking or do we take their word for it and hope we are not eating with the worms in a few years time?? Amber http://ourdreamhouse.blogspot.com/ Piers 2Nov 25, 2006 12:51 am HI Amber,
I have a post under general Discussion which you may want to read, we are also building in the south east on or part on a dam, in Skye are you in the same area? We are also building with Porter Davis but it has been a bit of a battle not so much with Porter Davis but understand what is going on with our Site Costs. We have had 3 soil tests done, first one was Porter Davis and the cost came back $30,000 for site costs, and as you can understand we were not happy we found this out at our tender apointment. Because we had talked a lot to our neighbours and no one had cost like ours, we decided to get another soil test done inderpendent to Porter Davis and our test came back a lot different so different that PD said they would get another test done, which has now come back different again so now we have 3 different opinions of our land and the last PD site cost has now come down to just over $22,000 and I am still fighting it because our neighbours also build with PD and there cost was only $6,000 big difference, I have seen there soil test and our fill on our land is a lot less then there fill. We have quotes from other buildings for around $8,000. Are your piers Screw piers? we have 46 of them, I would love to know because your cost is a lot less than ours. To get the price down they have not removed the piers just changed the slab, and a few other things. I really do love the house otherwise I would change, Hope to see your reply soon. P.S. Has anyone on the site heard of Pro-struct builders. Thanks Di Re: How many piers?? 3Dec 01, 2006 6:20 pm My brother and his wife built on a land fill area with PD. They had no end of problems when they questioned the site survey report because they thought it was to expensive. So PD cut costsand now they have to have lots of work done because of cracks and PD won't cover the costs. I would think twice before reducing the number of piers, or about building on an old dam site. Joanie Re: How many piers?? 4Dec 02, 2006 5:38 pm Why would PD do a second soil test ??
Where they unhappy with the first one ?? Why do they like the second one better than the first one ?? Peter Clarkson - AusDesign Australia www.ausdesign.com.au This information is intended to provide general information only. It does not purport to be a comprehensive advice. 3 2996 I am building a new residential house. The structural engineer suggests drilling 60 bored piers which are no less than 600mm deep and at lest 300mm in stiff clay. If… 0 1134 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 109679 |