Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 4Jun 13, 2014 12:05 pm Awesome! Yes I agree, timber look garages look great. Interesting, never thought about that. I will speak to my better half and see what she thinks. We were going to go with black aluminum for the front but I think you might be right. We should go with wooden look to match the doors and then aluminum for the rest of the house. Thank you very much! Look forward to seeing your build coming together for the same reason. Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 5Jun 27, 2014 10:58 pm joea... I am very excited for you and am looking forward to following your journey! Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 6Jun 28, 2014 7:40 am Thank you very much Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 7Jul 03, 2014 4:15 pm Got our 'Preliminary' soil test report today. It's based on a approximate location of where the block is going to be as construction is not complete yet. It gives us a rough idea of what to expect for site costs and our SC was spot on, H2 Class waffle slab. Here is a screen shot from the report, if anyone can help me make sense of that table that would be great! Specifically the soil description section. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Cheers Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 9Jul 03, 2014 9:41 pm Cheers onggie! Really looking forward to having it will post photos once it is all set up. Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 10Jul 03, 2014 10:47 pm [quote="joea"]Got our 'Preliminary' soil test report today. It's based on a approximate location of where the block is going to be as construction is not complete yet. It gives us a rough idea of what to expect for site costs and our SC was spot on, H2 Class waffle slab. Here is a screen shot from the report, if anyone can help me make sense of that table that would be great! Specifically the soil description section. http://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag297/joeassi/Sectionofsoiltest_zpsf102adb3.jpg Cheers[/quote joea might be able to help with the description what is it you would like explained Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 11Jul 04, 2014 6:25 am Hi Insider, I don't understand what B, B1 -and CH stand for. I also don't understand what is meant by "refusal on hard basaltic base hole 1" Thanks Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 12Jul 04, 2014 7:05 am Hi Joea B,B1 are just different layers of soil ,the CH stands for a clay that is highly plastic that means it is a highly reactive clay layer. Refusal means that they basically hit rock and couldn't get any further. So you have a 200mm layer of fill then below that a highly reactive basalt clay layer and then basalt rock at 700mm and 1100mm. This is a very common soil profile in the west and northern suburns of Melbourne.The highly reactive clay is the reason you have got a "H2" ,if the fill layer was deeper than you would get a class "p". Not sure why they didn't comment on the compaction of the fill but it is a prelim. report I suppose. Hope that helps Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 13Jul 04, 2014 8:35 am insider Hi Joea B,B1 are just different layers of soil ,the CH stands for a clay that is highly plastic that means it is a highly reactive clay layer. Refusal means that they basically hit rock and couldn't get any further. So you have a 200mm layer of fill then below that a highly reactive basalt clay layer and then basalt rock at 700mm and 1100mm. This is a very common soil profile in the west and northern suburns of Melbourne.The highly reactive clay is the reason you have got a "H2" ,if the fill layer was deeper than you would get a class "p". Not sure why they didn't comment on the compaction of the fill but it is a prelim. report I suppose. Hope that helps Hi Insider, Thank you very much for your information. It makes the report much more understandable. It seems like the sites in Northern and Western suburbs are not really an 'ideal' location to build a home but I guess that's what it is and we have to trust (and monitor) that the engineering of the slab is up to scratch. The report also states that owner maintenance is required which is basically what was mentioned in the 'has anyone rectified slab heave' topic. Drainage, no vegetation near slab etc... So with the basalt rock being at 700mm and 1100mm, does that mean that the piers need to go that deep? The information I posted was only a snippet of the whole report (6 pages in total). I looked through it and nothing mentions compaction of the fill. I will look for it in the final report, is there anything in particular I should take note of about compaction of the fill? Thank you again for your help. Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 14Jul 04, 2014 3:43 pm From what the report says doesn't necessary mean you will need piers unless it is stated somewhere else in the report.If you are going with a raft slab then the beams will be dug down to sit in the natural clay.This would be my preferred footing system in highly reactive soil Once it is determined you reqiure piers a engineer will be required to design the slab. The engineer will generally determine the pier depth using the soil report as a guide. The rock depth in the west and north sometimes is very difficult to determine if it is base bedrock or what the call floaters which are round basalt rocks sitting in the clay.You may have seen old fences made from rock floaters on the side of the road. The fill is only 200mm so probably won't be any compaction report ,developers are allowed to spread shallow top soil without any compaction report just as top dressing.Just a bit sloppy of the soil testing company not to mention their opinion of the fill but don't worry nothing major. There is a organisation called HEDRA who has put out a similar guide to the CSIRO one and it's more current and a little bit better in my opinion but the are both must reads if your on reactive clay. Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 15Jul 04, 2014 4:07 pm insider From what the report says doesn't necessary mean you will need piers unless it is stated somewhere else in the report.If you are going with a raft slab then the beams will be dug down to sit in the natural clay.This would be my preferred footing system in highly reactive soil Once it is determined you reqiure piers a engineer will be required to design the slab. The engineer will generally determine the pier depth using the soil report as a guide. The rock depth in the west and north sometimes is very difficult to determine if it is base bedrock or what the call floaters which are round basalt rocks sitting in the clay.You may have seen old fences made from rock floaters on the side of the road. The fill is only 200mm so probably won't be any compaction report ,developers are allowed to spread shallow top soil without any compaction report just as top dressing.Just a bit sloppy of the soil testing company not to mention their opinion of the fill but don't worry nothing major. There is a organisation called HEDRA who has put out a similar guide to the CSIRO one and it's more current and a little bit better in my opinion but the are both must reads if your on reactive clay. Insider, Sorry I didn't really share other parts of the report as I didn't know what was 'Generic' and what was specific to our block. Here is another section that states the Footing recommendation: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Looks like they recommend both but my guess will be that PD will only accept Waffle slab. I will ask the question in our upcoming tender appointment as it seems most recommendations I am getting is to go with a raft slab 'If I have the choice'. I will track down the HEDRA guide and have a good read through it, thank you for recommending it. I can't thank you enough for the time you have spent guiding me through this report. Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 16Jul 04, 2014 4:43 pm No problem joea It looks like a pretty standard report.You might just want to black out their name below prelim footing recommendations. Earthworks are still in progress so things may change when you get your second soil test. I would still push your builder to use a raft slab One question you may want to ask your builder is, are you designing and installing proper drainage as per the Australian Standards recommendations(agi drains etc). Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 17Jul 04, 2014 6:04 pm insider No problem joea It looks like a pretty standard report.You might just want to black out their name below prelim footing recommendations. Earthworks are still in progress so things may change when you get your second soil test. I would still push your builder to use a raft slab One question you may want to ask your builder is, are you designing and installing proper drainage as per the Australian Standards recommendations(agi drains etc). Ah I missed that bit! Thanks for pointing it out. Yea I will push for a raft slab and definitely will be asking the question about drainage. Cheers Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 18Jul 08, 2014 10:30 am We did some tile shopping and colour matching on the weekend. Few photos of the combinations we were looking at... For the kitchen cabinets we are thinking of going with 'Basalt' for the top and 'Evening Shale' for the island and bottom bench. Not sure if we should do 'Basalt' for both cabinets against the wall and just the island in the darker colour. This is the tile we like and are opting to use for the whole entrance/living/kitchen area. It's a much lighter grey than shown in the picture. We really wanted something a little lighter but the only tile we found so far was at Western Distributors and it was really thin and only pressed instead of a full ceramic. Tile name 'Belgium Stone Cenere 300x600'. For the bench top we are leaning towards 'New Crystal Salt' which is the third Essastone sample from the top. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ You can see the difference between the sample and the full sized tile. I think it's a different batch so we will check the batch before we purchase it. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Looking at different splash back options. First picture is our preferred so far. We also found another nice tile show in the second picture for the splash back. This was all done at National tiles so not sure if PD offer these tiles as an option. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ As you can see we really like grey colours Just gotta make sure it doesn't all come out too dark and grey! Any suggestions are welcome Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 19Jul 17, 2014 10:19 am Our Tender appointment is next Wednesday, it has come around so fast I can't believe it! I've made up a list of all the things to ask/check during our appointment using a combination of 'things you forget' topic summary and the guides from anewhouse website. Hopefully I have everything covered. We still haven't decided on a floor tile, found another nice tile at anytile bur unfortunately the warehouse is out of stock and there is no ETA for new stock.... I'll post up some info once we complete our Tender appointment. Cheers Re: Our first home Dunedin 29 Porter Davis - Merrifield,Vict 20Jul 17, 2014 10:51 am Hi joea, your selections look great, I really like that second tile option for the splash back! it might give your kitchen a little bit of neutral warmth and avoid the dark grey look that you don't want look forward to seeing it all coming together its very exciting. Im still a bit torn between tiles and having the standard bolero laminate I love that "things you forget" thread I've used it to make a huge list of things to remember to add or look out for with our house, I haven't heard of the anewhouse website I will have to check it out good luck with your tender appointment Built the Bermuda with Porter Davis 1. Roof cleaning and paint - which colour do you recommend? I often see black/ dark grey in use these days but I would prefer… 0 8322 Three options 1 Ask the liquidator 2 Find another PD customer and ask the source of their report 3 Pay for new report 3 12334 0 4975 |