Geotechnical reports are standard practice in Integrity New Homes. These reports are a part of the early preliminary process that we go through with a client, alongside drawings, costing and other reports.
Yet, some builders refuse to get a geotechnical report of the land you have bought or looking to purchase. This is a mistake on their part.
The reason we do it every time is evidence of our happy clients. The report tells us what's going on under the ground. You can imagine when you're building a new home, what's under the ground is critically important both to the long-term stability and performance of the foundations of that home, but also to the cost of constructing it.
If you're trying to enter a fixed-price contract with a builder to help get some certainty about the cost and the builder chooses not to have a Geotechnical report completed, you're flying blind.
A builder might go to enter a contract without a geotechnical report and fin that when it is time to build that there is $10,000 to $50,000 worth of costs that haven't been anticipated.
No one wants to add an extra $50,000 to the cost of their new home.
Suddenly this puts both you and the builder in a difficult position.
For example, on a recent Geotechnical report we completed the report came back with a P classification. This classification means that there is approximately 500 millimetres to 3200 millimetres of fill was encountered.
That's three meters of fill identified on this site that the homeowner wasn't aware of.
Imagine if the builders went to that site and found three meters of fill unexpectedly.
You cannot build a home with standard foundations on that amount of fill. It would add significant cost to the home build due to the need to fill having to piered through with concrete piers or often steel screw piers.
Having this kind of information upfront is essential for you to know what the cost will be of your new home so the builder can build your new home properly.
A geotechnical report is an essential element of the early planning phase of any new home project. If you build with us, you know that this report will be completed to ensure you have no nasty surprise costs further into the build.
