House purchase, demolition, and building a two-family house

Hello everyone,

I'm somehow just catching myself falling into self-pity. We bought a house which we wanted to demolish and then have a new two-family house built. From the start, only problems: 1. Swallow nests delayed the demolition for 2 months 2. The soil survey revealed soft and inhomogeneous soil. Result: pile foundation 3. The pile foundation led to an aerial image evaluation for risk assessment regarding unexploded ordnance 4. A barn was bombed 60m away, so part of our property automatically belonged to the risk area 5. Drilling sounding was mandatory... and lo and behold... suspicious object at approx. 4.5m depth.

Move-in was planned for the end of December. The living arrangement is only valid until the end of January 2017 due to a fixed-term rental contract. Now it looks like it will rather be June.

Basically, there could be all sorts of things in the ground... an old pipe, an old garden fence, a piece of steel beam... What's striking is that the suspicious point lies on the imagined connection between the house connection and the then mounted high-voltage connection at the house, about 1m below the then basement ceiling. To top it all off, everything has already been completely filled in, so now we don't just have to dig 1m but 4m.

What would you do? Surely the reasonable option is to have the object excavated, right? The company advises this, because without 100% certainty there is no technical clearance for this pile. Unfortunately, the previous owners have already passed away and their children know nothing about structural measures on the old house.

Currently, it looks like our earthmover will excavate the object under the supervision of a pyrotechnician (weird name). This supervision costs me roughly 500 €. What is a realistic cost per m³ for excavation, storage on my property, and subsequent compaction of the excavation? We would need to excavate about 1.5m x 1.5m at about 4.5m depth. Of course, a slope will be factored in, so maybe about 5m x 5m will be excavated at the top.

I'm curious what you have to say about this. Anyone with experience? Does anyone have prices so I don't get ripped off? Does a construction performance insurance happen to cover this kind of economic damage?

Best regards Tito

Hi,
I had various offers for excavating, storing, filling, and compacting, which together amounted to 12-16 € per m^3 plus tax. But that doesn’t really help you concretely because it’s not really comparable. However, if it’s over 20 euros per m^3, you should start to wince...

You definitely have to do it, nobody wants to live on such a bomb anyway. Unfortunately, unexploded ordnance still detonates from time to time because the fuzes rot away. I saw a report some time ago claiming that this actually happens quite often, between 10-20 times a year across Germany. Barely anyone would notice because most of the unfound unexploded bombs are lying somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

If they really find a bomb, that would be a stroke of luck, then the state/federal government pays for the whole thing. Or has that changed in the meantime?

Best regards,

Andreas

We are currently building a single-family house. For the excavation of the cistern 50m³, my structural contractor offered me 5.65 + tax, but only the pure digging out, storing the material, without backfilling

Regards

Michael

Edit ... per m³ of course ^^

Hello guys,

I just got the call from the earthworks contractor... he seems pretty laid-back to be calling at 9:15 pm :-)
He would charge €3400.
- €350 for site setup, although he only has to travel 4 km and set up the excavator and compactor.
- €1000 for excavation
- €2000 for backfilling + compacting

He calculated with 120 m³. That would be €25 per m³, which is quite expensive compared to the prices mentioned above.
But then I calculated what volume actually needs to be moved.
About 4m deep and roughly 5x5m surface area to be excavated. Since there will be a slope on all sides, I simply take the volume of a pyramid: V = 1/3 a²*h = 33.3 m³.
He, on the other hand, calculated about 5x5m surface and 5m deep on all sides = 125 m³... a bit unrealistic and a lot.

If he calculates 40 m³ from my side and €20/m³, then with the site setup I would be at €1150.

Is my way of thinking correct?

Regards
Tito

If I have such questions, I also ask the provider directly. Often, as a layperson, you don't consider something. On the other hand, you might also be able to persuade him to do something about the price.

We bought a house that we wanted to tear down

How cute, someone is sending their house on a journey :D:):D

Sorry, had to say that, I'm just wiping a few tears of laughter from the corners of my eyes...

Otherwise, of course, it’s annoying. And I would rather calculate more than too tight. If it costs less in the end, that's better than the other way around. So don’t do wishful thinking.
The earthworks contractor has experience in such matters, so I would trust the expert knowledge. So calculate with the mentioned 120 sqm.
Maybe you can get a comparison offer? Then you’ll see if the 25€/sqm is realistic. I don’t know if you can compare it to "normal" excavation work.
The thing is: apparently you are pressed for time. Do you have time for comparison offers? Could you extend the rental contract for the time? What does it ultimately cost you more? (if you lose one month that way, that costs rent for that month)
I’ll just take the 120 sqm that the earthworks contractor is calculating (I believe the expert more here) and do the math:
You get a better offer at 15€ (fantasy price from me): 120x15=1,800€
So you save 1,200€, but you might have to accept a delay and pay rent longer as a result. Calculate what you ultimately save...

And to be honest, even if we assume the site setup costs 200€, then you would save 1,350€; relative to the total costs, that is probably not such a huge item.

So, long story short: getting a comparison offer is always possible. In your case, you obviously have to pay a lot of attention to time; you shouldn’t neglect that. You just have to reflect on whether the delay will ultimately cost you more than if the earthworks contractor could start immediately for maybe a few hundred euros more.