Help You Find Land & Land Information

Earthworks and site preparation

Siteworks is the work that needs to be done on the building site to ensure that your home can be built properly that it will be stable and secure.

This part of the process includes:

• demolishing any existing structures (which also includes cutting off existing electricity or water supply and drainage services, protecting adjoining properties and removing waste)

• testing the soil and structural engineering assessments

• clearing the land

• stump removal and grubbing

• termites and other soil treatments

• levelling or grading

• cutting and filling the land

• installing retaining walls if they’re needed

• surveying and setting out where building area

• connecting water supplies, drainage and other necessary services

• Preparing trenches for slab subfloors, or holes for pilings or stumps

How to choose a block of land

There’s a surprising amount you’ll need to consider when choosing a block of land. On initial inspection there’s usually little to suggest that one piece of land is different from the next. There is several items to consider including whats below the surface of the land? What council approvals or restrictions are there. The land you choose could be tens of thousands of dollars’ difference in construction and maintenance costs, and could also determine whether or not you can build the type of home you’re after. Its important that you have an expert to help ask the right questions upfront to get the answers the agent will probably not bring up till you are pen in hand. If land and site works are handled in an informed and educated way the process is quite rewarding. If you don’t get the answers correct you can feel

What do I need to consider?

There are a lot of things to take into account. Some not all of them may be relevant, others may determine whether you can build at all. Many of these issues will be dealt with by builders, developers, solicitors or conveyancers, but it’s still worth understanding 100% what’s involved upfront.

Size, shape, orientation and slope of the block of land

Got a particular house style or design in mind? It’s not normally a problem on bigger plots, but in suburban and urban areas, the width and depth of the plot will determine what sort of house you can build. Likewise, if the plot is on a significant slope, either the land will need to be cut and filled, or you’ll need to build a house that takes that slope into account. It’s worth remembering that while these things might make your house more spectacular, they’re also likely to cost a fair bit more. Depending on the angle of the slope and what’s built on neighbouring properties, a slope can also reduce your exposure to sunlight – which in turn can affect how much light you get in living areas, and your potential to harness the sun both for passive solar heating and for collecting solar power. Where we live in the southern hemisphere a north-facing slope is ideal for solar access – a steep south-facing slope not so much.

Another thing to remember about sloping land or land at the top of a hill is that in bushfire prone areas, it’s likely to increase your BAL (bushfire attack level) rating (fire moves faster up a hill). This in turn has the potential to affect the materials you can build with, or force restrictions on how you build.

Soil type

Different blocks will have different types and compositions of soils. One of the most important things to consider when you’re building is how ‘reactive’ the soil is – i.e. how much it’s likely to move, particularly in response to increased or decreased moisture content. This is called the ‘site classification’. It’s normally more expensive to build on more reactive soils, simply because special measures like deep pilings or specially engineered slabs are required to keep the house stable. When you’re choosing a plot it also pays to investigate what the land’s been used for in the past. Nobody wants to buy a plot only to find out the soil’s loaded with DDT or some other noxious pesticide from a farm that existed there decades earlier.

What to do , a geotechnical report on the plot will determine the composition and reactivity of the soil, and allow you to determine what sort of footing and support is required.

Easements, rights of way and access

An ‘easement’ is defined as a proprietary service that exists on someone else’s land – like an access road to a neighbour’s house, or an underground cable or pipeline that runs through your yard. If an easement exists only to service your needs (i.e. an access road) it’s said to be a benefited easement, while other easements that run across your property are called burdened easements.

Noise Regulations

These can be required where you are building close to busy roads, railways, trucking routes etc. This can require upgrades to insulate your home from protruding noise. Ask your building consultant to investigate these on the land you are considering.

BAL and Bushfire Attack Regulations

BAL is a rating to determine what level of protection of specification your home should have. A BAL 19 may only have minor upgrades where as a BAL 40 can mean thousands in upgrades to the build.

Restrictions on how you can build

Different councils and land developers can have very different stipulations , which can limit how you build. Depending on the council, there may be rules about what style of house you can build, what colours and materials are appropriate, where on the plot you can situate your house and even what kind of fence you can have amongst many other items.