Browse Forums General Discussion Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 6Oct 16, 2011 10:43 pm Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 10Oct 17, 2011 8:54 am Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 11Oct 17, 2011 9:14 am JimmyL According to the builder i should have installed a 1m concrete path around the house that would have stopped water getting under my slab.......At the back of my contract they included a doc from the CSIRO that states what they recommend should be done with landscaping. There is no signed reference to this inside the contract. For the record I just checked out build contract and we had to initial that same document in our contract to acknowledge that we understood that landscaping provisions were necessary to prevent water damage weakening the soil around the footings. This is at the "back" of our HIA contract as it is in yours, but it is still part of of the contract booklet and as I mentioned we still had to initial it to acknowledge that we understood it (not sure how that tees up from a legal standpoint, but they did take the time to explain the basics to us which we appreciated). Lex That doco is so generic and it only confuses people. IMO, builders should "gain" the responsibility to advise the best course of action according to the site, house and soil, just like they do the surveying and all the other prep things. Things like correct landscaping in order to protect the foundations should not be left to the owners, as many of us may think that we are doing the right thing, only to be actually doing the wrong thing. Not from negligence but from not being able to "engineer" the correct landscaping for our houses. Employing an engineer privately is the only option, but where do we start and which field of engineering should it be? This is not covered anywhere in "the docs". And some sites are trickier than others. Add the 'charged system' into play, especially on wrong-way-slopes (land slopes to where there is no council stormwater discharge), and you have even more issues. I think that regulations should be changed and each newly built house should be handed over with at least recommendations of the most appropriate landscaping/drainage needs - and this should be designed by engineers. Totally agree with Lex on this one - like a lot of business regulations far too much onus is placed on the purchaser to be fully aware of things such as preventative measures like these (while at the same time they are being inundated with a multitude of other things in the contract signing), when there is really no reasonable expectation for them to have even a rudimentary understanding of such issues. This leaves the purchaser open to issues with poor workmanship even if they do try to do the right thing and get a licensed landscaper to design their landscaping only for them to not follow said guidelines (damage to your house is an unpleasant thing to have happen, no matter who has to pay to get it fixed). It happens everywhere in pretty much everything we hand over our hard earned $$$ for - hopefully regulatory bodies will one day get off their backsides and embed provisions for for full disclosure regarding purchaser responsibilities in terms they can actually understand into sale contracts, instead of just leaving it in the "too hard" basket (we can only hope). Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 12Oct 17, 2011 9:27 am At the end of the day the recommends state that you "only should" place 1m of concrete around the house. They do not say must. Either way after 3.5 years it would be unacceptable. I am sure any judge would see this. If it was such a problem then why don't they included it in the building of a house as standard?? Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 13Oct 17, 2011 9:51 am B STAR At the end of the day the recommends state that you "only should" place 1m of concrete around the house. They do not say must. Either way after 3.5 years it would be unacceptable. I am sure any judge would see this. If it was such a problem then why don't they included it in the building of a house as standard?? Are you a VCAT judge or a solicitor experienced in resolving such matters wrt building regulations? If not then sorry, but it is not prudent for you to be making such expansive statements. The op needs to discuss his issues with BCAV, not have someone on H1 pass an arbitrary judgement when they are neither qualified to make such a judgement nor are in possession of all of the relevant facts. Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 14Oct 17, 2011 10:04 am cmhamilton B STAR At the end of the day the recommends state that you "only should" place 1m of concrete around the house. They do not say must. Either way after 3.5 years it would be unacceptable. I am sure any judge would see this. If it was such a problem then why don't they included it in the building of a house as standard?? Are you a VCAT judge or a solicitor experienced in resolving such matters wrt building regulations? If not then sorry, but it is not prudent for you to be making such expansive statements. The op needs to discuss his issues with BCAV, not have someone on H1 pass an arbitrary judgement when they are neither qualified to make such a judgement nor are in possession of all of the relevant facts. I am not a judge, If your a judge you are not allowed to comment in the public forum about any topics what so ever I am an engineer. However I have read 100 of cases and outcomes like this. They are all available publicly for you to read. Anyway what i would be doing is getting my own engineers report to determine the true reason for heaving. There is more likely another issue. The op talking about shear movement as well. I would love to get an Xray of the slab to ensure that the steel reo is all in the correct place. What needs to be established first is what actually failed. Then what was the likely reason. There is a possibility that even if the 1 meter concrete was placed around the slab that this would have still happend. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 15Oct 17, 2011 10:16 am That is exactly what I was suggesting - the OP's case needs to be fully investigated to determine the root causes of the problems and/or whether the builder has been negligent before any sort of judgement can be passed. The BCAV is where the OP should start his process as they'll be able to point him in the right direction in terms of what course of action needs to be followed from this point (he has already raised it with the builder and gotten their response so that is step one ticked off), rather than taking off-the-cuff advice from someone on a discussion forum who is not in possession of all of the facts. Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 16Oct 17, 2011 10:23 am anything in this forum is just an open discussion. It gets people thinking and spreading ideas its always upto the individual to make sense of it all and determine which process should correct. Lets face it if anyone here was that good we would not be spending all our time on here you would be out in the real world getting paid for your words. We are all "wannabes" to some degree. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 17Oct 17, 2011 11:23 am “Wannabes” is such a harsh label IMHFO. I would like to think “people with either experience or just an opinion” is a better term. Have you heard of the saying “The difference between a smart person and a genius, smart person learns from their mistake, genius learns off a smart persons mistakes”. Under no circumstances should opinions or even fact should be taken as gospel and professional opinions should be rendered. But then again I have received professional opinion on housing matters that have been as equally as inadequate. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 18Oct 17, 2011 11:54 am I would certainly be getting an engineer to make an evaluation on what when wrong and why. I don't have an understanding of your drainage, but it sounds like you paid for something extra to do something, but didn't get it. Putting a 1 metre path all around the house is not possible in many cases. My Council requires 35% permeable land on my block. My house, driveway and paths have used up this entire quota (as I suspect is the case for many others). So, I'm not allowed to put a 1 metre impervious path around my house. If a builder hands you a CSIRO document at the start of a build and expects you to find it, let alone follow it, at the end of the build then good luck. If it's important the builder should hand another copy at the end of the build and get you to sign that you have read and undersood it. Even better a 3-month follow-up courtesy visit to check that everything is OK and discuss the importance of any issues would be good. We're not talking about buying a $20 toaster that requires very little follow up, but several hundreds of thousdands of dollars of blood, sweat and tears that, if it does require maintence to ensure it is not damaged, should be conveyed by the builder to the owner. It's in both the builders and owners interest. I'd love to run a business in which I bombard customers with all sorts of onerous warnings and request and when something goes wrong... Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 19Oct 17, 2011 11:57 am I found the following in my contract - you might want to check if you have something similar in yours. First, in the generic section for construction of brick veneer homes: Quote: 28. SITE CLEAN 28.2 Earth (Soil) to be graded away from the perimiter of building to avoid water ponding against building Additionally, the soil test stated this (my emphasis): Quote: * Surface site drainage is generally poor. It is recommended that an agricultural drain or similar be installed prior to commencement of construction along base of cut or around the high sides of building, and connected to a legal point of discharge. Do you think my builder did this? Of course not - they left the house with water ponding on nearly every side, and said "You're supposed to fix it with landscaping". If we were supposed to fix it with landscaping, how did they handle drainage during the 9 months that the house was being built? They didn't. You can ask your builder how they prevented water getting under the slab during construction. Guess what else my builder told me - they said that it's actually no problem at all for water to pond against the house and sink into the clay underneath. They said it wouldn't cause any problem with the foundations. Never believe what the builder tells you - all they want to do is avoid any extra work and get onto the next house. Metricon Riva 33 - http://herlihy-riva.blogspot.com Site start 15/03/2010 - Handover 23/12/2010 9 months and 8 days (284 calendar days) from site start to handover Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 20Oct 17, 2011 12:15 pm Adam.M “Wannabes” is such a harsh label IMHFO. I would like to think “people with either experience or just an opinion” is a better term. Have you heard of the saying “The difference between a smart person and a genius, smart person learns from their mistake, genius learns off a smart persons mistakes”. Under no circumstances should opinions or even fact should be taken as gospel and professional opinions should be rendered. But then again I have received professional opinion on housing matters that have been as equally as inadequate. wanna be's in the sense we are not paid professional. I put my self in that basket as well dont worry. Your house roof does not show rusting other than some surface rust on the flashings. In my opinion you dont need to replace or paint the roof other than treat surface rust… 1 10737 Hello everyone, I have a question regarding moving a chandelier after it has been mounted. The chandelier in question is quite large, measuring 4 meters… 0 72718 9 26044 |