Site Variables
Advanced Living Homes provides advice on how much your new home design and construction may vary depending on your specific site characteristics.
There are a number of factors that need to be considered in order to convert a Construction Plan into a Council-ready plan, and they will also be considered in a Custom Design. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are not sure about anything listed below.
Note that some of the factors outlined below apply to every house, while others will depend on your particular site and the district in which it is located. For ease of design from the beginning, we need to have information about your site. This allows us to add in considerations such as:
- flat or hill site (and how steep)
- opportunities or constraints for sun and views
- size of the section, and any constraints on location of your new home on the site
- neighbouring property aspects and proximity, such as any windows overlooking areas of your site, etc
Information we will need about your site:
- Photos, to enable "context" for us. We also use Google Earth and its Street View tool, where available, to get a relationship between the site and other physical components in the surrounding area, but unfortunately those pictures are sometimes quite out of date. We will issue instructions on where we need photos taken from once we have a copy of the site plan.
- Site Plan. This can range from being a hand-drawn sketch of the site, that you have created, to a surveyors detailed diagram. We prefer the latter, as accuracy in boundary dimensions and cartesian bearings make the location of your new home on the section a lot easier, and most importantly, ensure that town planning constraints such as boundary setbacks and height to boundary, etc, are clear from the very beginning. The site plan available from the Land Information New Zealand is the best, and we can download it if required from a bureau we use, for a small fee, which we pass onto you at cost. We also need to know of any easements on the section, and what setbacks are required, as these alter the "building envelope" size of land available for construction. As well, specific town planning rules are required to be checked, to ensure compliance with the District Plan prior to lodgement of the Council-Ready Plans.
- Topographic Data. If your section is sloping, we need to have accurate information so we can start the design knowing where all levels are. The most reliable source for this information is from a surveyor. They do charge (upwards of $500.00 + GST generally) for going on site, doing measurements, and creating the diagrams and associated documentation, but that information may already be available to you from the previous owner of the site, from the surveyors involved with the development of the site, or from Land Information New Zealand. We add a charge to any designs that are on a slope. The charge reflects the complexity of the site, so in some cases we don't charge anything if the slope is of a minor nature, but in the worst case, we would charge up to $1,000 + GST in addition to the design fees listed in the Prices section. This is because there is a lot more time spent on hill site concept and Council-Ready plans.
- Soil Information. This data is often asked for by councils as confirmation that the soil is stable and strong enough to support the new dwelling. This information is usually not available from council records, and generally a civil engineer is engaged to provide a soil report and any special design considerations for the foundation, if needed. The engineer will generally charge upwards of $500 + gst for this service. In certain ground conditions, they may determine that piles are required, rather than a standard concrete foundation or timber subfloor, in which case they would deliver a piling layout as well as all structural requirements (reinforcing, etc), which would increase their fees to you.
- Regional Information. We generally talk to the council about what they have indicated as their design needs. There is no charge from us for researching this information, but occasionally councils will impose search fees, which we will pass onto you at cost. Items we discuss include, but not limited to:
- snow load
- wind zone
- corrosion zone (for salt spray, geothermal, etc)
- earthquake zone
- acoustic zone (near an airport for example)
- sewer line location or septic tank requirements (if applicable)
- stormwater discharge location
- water supply location and facilities
- Civil and Structural Engineering. Every new home design has some form of structural engineering built into it. In most cases the framing designer, working from rules and system which have the backing of an engineer, perform the task of ensuring that their design will meet the requirements of the Building Code, and satisfy the council authority who administers that Code. There is no direct cost to you to do this work, as it is generally done through your builder's precut framing supplier provided he purchases the framing from them. However, sometimes, because the design is more complex, or perhaps the slope of the site requires specific design of the foundation or retaining walls, a Civil Engineer and/or a Structural Engineer will be required to be engaged to design one or more specific components in your new home. Their deliverables, reports, designs and Producer Statements (signed documentation confirming that the design will meet requirements) will generate fees to you which will vary, depending on the complexity of the design or site topography. It is not possible therefore to provide accurate pricing in this section, but suffice to say that it may be upwards of $1,000 + gst and in some cases quite a lot more. For example, a specific design for a two storey home on a hill can generate Structural Engineering fees of $7,000 + gst or more.
Design Fee Implications. Several of the items listed to the right could be applicable to your site, in which case one or more third party consultants would be engaged to undertake work for you, so that you could then supply us with the data they have delivered.
The list above is not exclusive, as the golden rule in design and construction is that there will be some "gotchas" which nobody anticipated, and which add complexity to the design. An example is a recent request from a council for an inspection of the existing drainpipe on a site. This required engagement of a drainlayer to provide a report and resulted in a Resource Consent application to be lodged at the council, so the client received invoices from both the drainlayer and the council that were not anticipated. This was despite our design work being fit for purpose and detailed adequately.
So, while we try to cover all eventualities in determining where third party costs may lie, you can see, from the information above, that it does take quite a bit of effort to ensure all is captured. Our experience in gathering this information is good, and we have contacts in most councils around the country, so we are able to assure you that we will make every effort, once engaged, to streamline this information gathering and apply it as required for the design, as well as providing you with as much information about each specific requirement. In many cases there are very few such additional fees, but they are worthy of mentioned, nonetheless.