The MASSIVE footings cost.

So several things I suppose since the last update.

Where to start.....

The first footings report came in at $16,000 with an added $11,500 for soil removal. We where like WTF! So we went in to Hickinbotham/Statesman and talked to the Engineer guy who does all the pricing for them and what not.

He said if we lower the garage by 600mm this will raise the level of the house and the soil removal should drop down to about $2000. So we said "Ok lets do it"

We got a variation cost of $5000 to drop the garage down 600mm, but we figured since we would get $9000 back from the soil removal we would be $4000 in front.

We got the second Engineers report $28000 for footings, and $2800 for soil removal !!!!! !!!!

I can't put in enough !!!! I was depressed, angry, upset, despondant, frustrated you name it I felt it. I almost felt like laughing manically. It couldn't be true could it!!

So we went in to see Tom the engineer at Statesman. He outlined that they had to put mesh in here, had to pour extra cement for the steps in the garage, had to do two concrete pours, one for the top layer and then one for the garage. They had to put in extra mesh around the garage and that because the front of the house is now slightly higher then before there is more fill so they have to put in these 900 deep piers that cost about $1000 each and we need 9 of them!!!

And we still need massive retaining walls around the side and back!

So what retaining walls do the neighbours need? are they up against our block? says she who knows the neighbours are also building with Hickinbotham. Oh they don't need any retaining and there footings are $16,000 total. They have a perfect cut and fill, there house sits pefecting on the block, couldn't have picked a better house design if they tried!!! ARRGGHHH they have a two storey house, seems that we would have been better of building a 'squat' two storey house. So we toyed with this idea for a moment........

Since two storey houses start at around $200k and we would have to sign a new contract and start all over again with council approval etc that wasn't really an option.

So we *sighed* and signed.

I bet you anything they hit rock :(