Monday 14 July 2014

Building a house or 2, Soil Tests

ask all the right questions. Fact finding is crucial for your developments success.

In this blog I pose the question - 
Do I need a soil test before committing to a block of land purchase or can i get one afterwards? 

Ok so in my first blog called, Building a house or 2, block buyingI really did forget to reinforce something so important to buying your block/s, so scratch the info i was going to share around planning phase as more of that is yet to come. Today i need to answer this question for all you building first timers.

What does your soil test determine?

I was only speaking to a bloke today while in my other role as a business consultant and he told me he had just sold his block of land which he never built on because the soil test (after the block purchase) returned findings that his block was in "fact" a swamp waiting to basically engulf anything established on it. Opppps!! Fortunately he has now been able to sell off this land again. 

Certainly not the result you want! and before buying our block we never knew the importance of a soil test. 

When do you ask for a soil test? 
well we waited until after the purchase of our block because you can gather fairly substancial and free information up front from your local council or planning consultant- which we made the most of both,  So we had a good indication going into our block purchase that a soil test for us would then result in such things as end- result materials costs and structural implications for the house - steel and concrete- the foundations

Ask the vendor prior to purchase if a recent soil test has occurred! but please note even if it has and it seems all viable for your building vision, you are still according to launceston city council planning regulations have to obtain your own soil test- now thats head shaking worthy! 

it does cost 

we had to get two soil tests on our recent development plans as we are building two houses but literally next to each other (on seperate titles however) and were very impressed with the service from Geo strata who rocked up on their day off to get the test done! The price we paid is our building IP but we will say - never pay full price for anything!!


Our growing pile of documents related to our building project!!!

I hope when you buy your block that you consider the soil testing question at the right time and that you use the results to your advantage - which is making the most informed decision 

The soil testing guys will send you a hefty report and to be honest I was very time poor in reading this so I got on the phone to them for the verbal run down. 

In summary- a soil test can determine viability of building on your block and will determine material cost and Qty for your build. 

Thanks for reading
Matt and Sarah - Launceston Plumbing and Gas PTY LTD - 0438 274 269

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