Here is a summary of what I was told:
- House was dropped by 200 mm as the original drawings did not have a Term Bench Mark (TBM) for the road. After the land titled and the second soil test this information was given to the builder and they automatically dropped the house level to align with the street height (100 mm higher as opposed to 300 mm higher).
- There is a note on the drawing that the site needs to be scrapped to a minimum of 9.6 RL in order to remove surface vegetation and provide a level building platform.
- The slab is 385 mm high so 9.6 RL + 0.385 = 9.985 RL which was the level used for the house floor
- The only way for the house level to be raised would have been to use fill under the slab. This is not ideal and I really did not want to go down that path.
So given the situation our best way forward was to do the following:
- Raise the portico level and reduce the step down to 63 mm to match the garage. This means that the fall from the footpath will only be about 0.018 which is equivalent to 1.8 cm.
- Keep the remainder of the house levels as is.
Even though this is not ideal and we would have liked the house to site higher, unfortunately given our land contour the way Porter Davis has set-out the house is the best regarding a solid foundation. Adding compacted fill would have been silly on highly reactive soil IMO.
I made it very clear that the lack of communication to this change is disappointing and that it should have been made apparent to us through a Building Variation (BV).
A massive thank you to all three members involved in today's discussions for a quick reaction to my concerns and fast turn around for a response and potential solution(s).
