Browse Forums General Discussion Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 50Oct 23, 2011 8:06 pm Total Breeze Air Conditioning and Electrical - Based in Melbourne http://www.totalbreeze.com.au Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 54Oct 26, 2011 10:04 am That is true B STAR. The engineer could of recommended a whole bunch of countermeasures but (as an example) all it takes is for the concreter to step on the rio as he is pouring the concrete, therefore pushing the plastic cups down (it's what holds up the rio to achieve a 25mm concrete cover = distance between the top of the concrete to where the rio sits as per AS2870) therefore pushing the rio below the 25mm concrete cover. End result, 40% more flex in your waffle slab which translates to more house cracking then you ever wanted. What I wanted to point out is that the builder will no way under the sun admit to a faulty foundation straight off and will first transfer that blame to; in this corresponding order 1st You, 2nd Engineer, 3rd Concreter, 4th Act of God then ….. (n)th the builder. All in all, the builder is not going to own up to $30k to $250k in damages. Going back to page 1 of this thread that started of with going to VCAT. It will cost $3k just for the mediation alone, $30k - $50k when it gets to VCAT! In conclusion, builders have stuffed up more houses than you have bought houses. They are experts at this. IMHO, bring on a class action! Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 55Oct 26, 2011 11:20 am i reckon we should at least start a petition page for west side of melbourne to find out how many of us are actually affected and move froward from there. i believe with enough petition signed there will be possibility of class action, in the future. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 57Oct 27, 2011 3:25 pm Adam.M all it takes is for the concreter to step on the rio as he is pouring the concrete, therefore pushing the plastic cups down (it's what holds up the rio to achieve a 25mm concrete cover = distance between the top of the concrete to where the rio sits as per AS2870) therefore pushing the rio below the 25mm concrete cover. End result, 40% more flex in your waffle slab which translates to more house cracking then you ever wanted. G This could happen to any type of slab, the cover is far likely to remain more constant on a waffle slab if anything. I deal with many engineers, each seem to have thier own ideas on how to design slabs, some quite conservative and anal, others not so much, but all of them prefer waffle over raft, especially in highly reactive soils. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 58Oct 28, 2011 7:55 am Aiah Adam.M all it takes is for the concreter to step on the rio as he is pouring the concrete, therefore pushing the plastic cups down (it's what holds up the rio to achieve a 25mm concrete cover = distance between the top of the concrete to where the rio sits as per AS2870) therefore pushing the rio below the 25mm concrete cover. End result, 40% more flex in your waffle slab which translates to more house cracking then you ever wanted. G This could happen to any type of slab, the cover is far likely to remain more constant on a waffle slab if anything. I deal with many engineers, each seem to have thier own ideas on how to design slabs, some quite conservative and anal, others not so much, but all of them prefer waffle over raft, especially in highly reactive soils. As an engineer myself, it doesn't surprise me. Waffle slabs are much easier to design. Less customisaton. Other slabs are more original and unique to the job. Re: 3 Year old slab moving, now blamed on Landscaping 60Mar 02, 2012 11:38 pm Floating Boat = waffle slab. http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/investigation ... r-pressure All the fuss about Floating boats. Just stumbled upon this today. Cost involved in a Floating Boat are cheaper than conventional (raft) slabs therefore most builders go that way as they do anything to cut costs. I am building my own house I approached the engineer who has more than 15 year’s experience. With the plan to have a Floating Boat designed as I knew it would be easier on my budget and the thought that it is just as good as it has passed Building standards and is acceptable and all the builder are using this type of slab. He told me if you are planning on selling the house after a couple of years then well design a Floating Boat, if you’re intentions are to live there for a while then his clear recommendations were a Conventional slab (raft slab). A majority of the slabs he designs are Floating boats as a majority of his clients are builders . Everyone knows that water running into concrete slab being waffle or conventional isn’t ideal. But more so for Floating Boats as it is quite easy for water to get under the slab. These days Builders do everything to cut costs. No eaves (allowing rain to fall close to house footings), waffle slabs , F5 House framing… etc ALL Engineering to the bare minimum to save a dollar on your house and reap more profits. A lot of Pressure is put on Engineers to design to a bare minimum just a pass nothing above as it may cost the builder more. For the People buying the houses All research is input into whether to install ceaser stone or a granite benchtop, Soft close kitchen doors ……. the aesthetic side of things .... And no research or questioning into the structural Aspects of the house the Builder will build for them... Until things go wrong. But at this stage it is too late. Once they have your money it is all over. Tradesman will blame the engineer , Engineer will blame the tradesmen for not doing the jobs correctly, The Builder will blame the Client for not laying a concrete footpath around the perimeter of the house and the building commission will blame the Droughts. All going around in circles and in the end Nothing is done to resolve the issues. And this is the frustrating thing. I really blame the Building commission and Regulatory parties for allowing these things to happen whilst they stand and do nothing about it. My quote for a waffle slab was 20 – 30 % cheaper than a conventional slab and on $20,000 that is about $4,000 to $6000 that the builder would save. Chrisandkate. “If the path doesn't allow water through it and has adequate fall the fall will carry the runoff away from your slab. If you have a drain below that fall then you can carry that water further away again. The fall is not accurate in teh picture either.” 1:20 means that a 1m wide path would finish 5cm below where it started. Not a lot but more than enough to get water running away from the house. http://s1072.photobucket.com/albums/w36 ... =slabs.jpg With a Conventional slab the whole perimeter is Excavated deep and in cases of high reactive clay it can be more that 1.5 deep thus Even if there is no concrete path with a fall it would need to be raining heavily for weeks or so for water to go past the 1.5 ., meter mark and under the slab. Floating Boats : just don’t believe how this Principle has been provided with the Stamp of approval to be used on Any type of soil by Regulative Partises and commission. I suppose it will be reviewed again after the start of all the turmoil that has risen as of late and more that will be coming up in the years to come with problems with houses on Floating Boats. To all of you with House issues arising from Foundation. Deeply sorry and I can understand how you feel as i have been there once before. Hope your outocme is different to mine and everything is fixed and resolved in some way. Slater and Gordon may be doing a mass lawsuit. Google it. http://www.slatergordon.com.au/files/bl ... 0_doc1.pdf 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 10107 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 72313 9 24751 |