? does fix price quote include unforseens

Hi All (particularly the builders amongst us)

I am doing a 100m2 extension over 2 storeys.

In integrating the extension back into the house we found a massive amount of termite damage and have had to replace every internall wall on the ground floor. Also have had to put in 2 structural steel beams and replace a fair few 300mm floor joinst between the floors.

I am just wondering with all the discussions about cost and OB doing work wether if abuilder had been involved all these extra costs would have been on top of the already steep prices discussed on various posts or is the steep cost just incase of this sort of problem being encountered?

We leveled the house as we built the new load bearing walls. This is now some months ago I now find that the upper story has settled again.

Drawing on the forum collective wisdom is this settlement likely to be due to shrinkage in the wood I used (oregon) or could there be some other reason that I have overlooked. As a lead up to this job we jacked up and underpinned the house where required down to rock and all the new steel structural beams have been projected back through to the foundation.

Cheers

I would say that any unforseen remedial work that had to be done would be well outside the terms of the contract. In other words, you'd be paying extra. Imagine the extreme situation where the entire house had to be demolished and rebuilt because of structural damage only discovered during a renovation. It would send the builder broke.

You can't quote on the unseen, so if a builder was doing the job and came across 'massive termite damage' it would most certainly be an extra cost. If it were very minor damage the builder may wear it, depends on the individual and how tight his initial price was.

How and where is the settlement showing itself, cracking, doors not closing ect ect..
Cause could be many different things but oregon will certainly shrink, 300mm joists would shrink around 10mm on average.

Re the settlement .... Maybe you should talk to the structural engineer who designed and inspected the footings, underpinning works and steel beams etc?

you would definitely have to pay to have existing damage rectified by a builder..... the alternative is that he could let you get someone else to do that part of the job, which no one would want to do. Regarding the movement in your structure - I would be concerned as you metnion you went to bedrock for the foundations. How far has it settled and where?

Hi All

I should have clarified the extent of the settlement that has happened.

As mentioned we inserted 2 steel beam into the mid floor area which going across the house covers about 2/3 of the the length of the house.

Between the two beams we did'nt have to put a steel beam as there was a supporting wall. So basically it a beam 4 meters a wall just over 3 meters and then another beam that is just over 5 meters.

The settlement which is only about 3-5 mm is in the area where above the wall. This wall was completely replaced so has a new top and bottom plate. I am told that it is across the face that wood shrinks thus I assume that it is just shrinkage but just not absolutely sure.

As far as new cracks are concerned I don't know as we haven't fix all the cracks upstairs that opened up when we jacked the house up. For the time being we are concentrating on the downstairs area and living in the upstairs area. If I started doing anyhting upstairs SWMBO would evict me. :D

Cheers

Hi again - A little unclear still from your description but I feel confident to suggest that the settling you are talking about sounds about right and could well be nothing to worry about. Timber has a ten to one ratio of shrinking so the idea that it only shrinks across its face isn't quite right, but near enough when talking about structural members, I guess. All structures settle over time and indeed continue to move slightly (unless there's a tunnel being built nearby) ..... in fact all buildings are falling down, just reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally slowly :D

It certainly sounds like enough structural support has been provided - what additional footings were done, if any?

The two beams have diffrent supports.

The first one we installed is a cut down UB making it a upside down 'T'. This is sitting on top plates with hardwood supports underneath which are connected directly to the side foundation and in the middile on steel pier and ultimately on a concrete pier through to rock 3 meters down.

The second beam is actually a full UB which is sitting on 3 steel supports as one end is over a window so we had to put a beam across the window.Somewhat like a three legged triangle. Again the window side two steel supports are directed through to the side wall foundations, the middle leg is steel, sitting on a hardwood bottom plate and then directly under this a steel pier down to the concrete pad.

Prior to starting on the house reno we spent 4 months digging holes down to rock, both for piers and under the actual strip footing. I have one photo of my son who is 6'2 standing under the strip footing with another foot to spare. From memory we poured something like 8-9 m2 of concrete into these holes and then still had to pack them out with grout.

The following photos show the termite damage and the main steel beam going in.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...rmitedwall.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...eamtemited.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...alldamaged.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...agekitchen.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...agelaundry.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/az1/upitgoes.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...mintohouse.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...gUbeamdown.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91...ainbeamout.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/az1/beamsup.jpg

The extension we are building was placed on rock and the engineer thought that with the existing house heaving it showed a lack of true solid foundations. As such he nominated that we should underpin the existing house before intergrating the two structures.

At that stage I wasn't aware of the extent of termite damage which let the house move.

Cheers

Has the house been pervoiusly treated for termites?
If not you could be just supplying them with more food.

Depending on the species of termites , i know Schedorhinotermes will go away very quickly when disturbed, rebuilding without a termite inspection could be risky