Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 5May 07, 2008 1:47 pm mmm....donuts Homer Simpson 1956- Links: Site Costs Ready Reckoner | H1 Addiction Medical Advice | Château TDL: The Backyard Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 7May 07, 2008 2:13 pm mmm....donuts Homer Simpson 1956- Links: Site Costs Ready Reckoner | H1 Addiction Medical Advice | Château TDL: The Backyard Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 11May 07, 2008 10:14 pm mmm....donuts Homer Simpson 1956- Links: Site Costs Ready Reckoner | H1 Addiction Medical Advice | Château TDL: The Backyard Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 15May 08, 2008 9:32 am Thanks everyone for your comments and postings re: slab vs timber sub floor. Its interesting that some people have commented that a timber sub-floor requires a quality builder with greater skill.
In our subdivision of only 11 new homes, the 2 most expensive, quality built houses have built on timber sub-floor while all the others have built on concrete slabs. We are building a quality, 2 storey custom home, and the choice is not necessarily a financial one, but what is best from a building and longevity point of view. It seems that timber sub floor is leading the way. We may just have to live with some steps on our laundry exit, although our alfreso side will end up level with the land. Any other comments would be much appreciated. Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 16May 08, 2008 9:40 am I built on "stumps". A lot of brick piers and concrete piers. My house is a split level design in inner Melbourne.
The good things that a house on stumps are listed above. Also with stumps you can have a cellar. My cellar is huge, and have told my partner that it is where he can keep his tools of the trade, and having more room in the garage. So extra storage is great. Also my partner is very into firearms, expensive one too. As the cellar is double bricked, he is going to install a steel door in a section under the stairs in the cellar (and that is concrete). I like this idea as the firearms wouldn't be in the "house". As a chippy/builder, my partner thinks that stumps are better. He has seen slabs slapped together, happy slappy styles and as a result as noted her in homeone, you get frame overhang etc. Also from a builders perspective, if you have a problem with say plumbing with th pipes, fixing it is an expensive excercise with some slab damage which he saw on one job. From my understanding, project builders will not do stumps, only slabs though. Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 17May 08, 2008 9:53 am vetro Its interesting that some people have commented that a timber sub-floor requires a quality builder with greater skill. I kinda made that comment but wasn't exactly what I meant. Timber subfloor construction requires carpenters which IMO is perhaps a higher skilled trade than that required for slab construction. It's not dissing those guys who are able to lay a slab in a day - when I started my career I started in the ye olde public service where they expected engineers to know what the tradies were doing. I worked on a construction site for a couple of weeks - tying off vast quantities of reinforcement and pouring concrete quickly is not an easy job - frankly I was stuffed by the end of it....but by the end of it I was relatively useful. Put me with a carpenter and by two weeks I'd probably be at the point where I could successfully staple gun by hand to a frame. So you need tradies which have the skills which are in shortage, and therefore waiting for those tradies will slow down the construction progress, and then actually build the sub floor is time consuming. Like everything it comes back to $$$, and I think that dictates the popularity of the slab. What is the first major payment that you make on a house? Generally the foundation stage - the quicker the builder can get down the slab the earlier his cashflow improves on the job. Most peoples experience with building will probably be that the slab goes down extremely quickly. Makes perfect business sense to go with a slab when you can and to convince the buyer its the best choice (sometimes it is), gets the $ in the door ASAP. mmm....donuts Homer Simpson 1956- Links: Site Costs Ready Reckoner | H1 Addiction Medical Advice | Château TDL: The Backyard Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 18May 08, 2008 7:03 pm Putting down a timber sub-floor is fairly straight forward provided the piers are reletively level. These days bearers and joists are termite treated LVL timbers - not the old green hardwood of yester-year. They are gun-barrel straight and need only to be put down 'square' for the frames to go on top. Generally the particle board flooring (termite treated too) goes over the joists before the frames are stood up. Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 19Jan 29, 2009 12:11 pm Myself and my girlfriend are going to build a house. I would like to get a house built on stumps for the reasons stated by everyone else. However it seems a lot if not all of the major builders only build on a slab. Does anyone know any major builder that will build on stumps instead of a slab?
Glen Re: Concrete Slab vs Timber sub floor? 20Jan 29, 2009 12:45 pm Slab by far and away the better option - I agree wholheartedly with the drumming comment as well - timber is noisy
Don't forget you could go with a suspended concrete slab suported with piers if you want to get access to pipe underneath it - good for storage of large items like ladders as well. By the way, yep its exy!! As for termites - this one is the no brainer of all no brainers - if you specify a "treated" softwood frame it will not be eaten by termites and never requires inspection. By the way, yep it costs more but have you ever priced pest control or considered the cost of patching a house that's had termites and the resale consequences.....very ugly. As a rough guide you can add about one third the cost of your frame if you want it treated. JB Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1. optional, you can but normally just use the earth from the main switch board 2. should be enough but the distance determines voltage drop - sparky should work it… 1 29430 Engineering timber is certainly a less fuss option, times cheaper to supply and install and better withstands humidity. 1 16756 The concreter will take and reuse. In my case I bought structural LVLs and scraped them back and used them as joists. 1 5844 |