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

please replace sqm with cubic meters... *ahem*

Hello,

1. Swallow nests kept us from demolition for 2 months

It is generally known that breeding periods are protected.

2. The soil survey showed soft and inhomogeneous soil. Consequence: pile foundation
3. Pile foundation prompted aerial photograph evaluation for risk assessment regarding unexploded ordnance
4. A barn was bombed at a distance of 60m, so part of our property automatically belonged to the risk area.
5. Core drilling was mandatory... and behold... suspicious object at about 4.5m depth.

This is not so unusual in certain regions of Germany; around Cologne archaeologists will stop your construction if things go wrong.

Moving in was planned for the end of December. The living situation due to a fixed-term rental agreement only until the end of January 2017. Now it looks rather like June.

I do not understand that though – how do you come to the conclusion that demolition and new construction can be realized in the shortest time? It is already October…

What would you do? Surely the sensible option is to have the object excavated, right? The company advises that, because without 100% certainty there is no technical approval for this pile.

What a question :rolleyes:

Everything must be done so that the "object" deep down is removed. Otherwise, not only will there be no approval for the required pile, but also your preferred contractor will not build without guarantees of the property’s harmlessness.

Unfortunately, the previous owners have already passed away and the children know nothing about structural measures on the old house.

If they even lived there during wartime at all.

Does anyone have prices so I don’t get ripped off?

Where does the assumption come from that all craftsmen are evil and _only_ all builders are nice people? Ever heard that a person can only think as badly of others as he is himself?

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

He calculated with 120 m³. That would be €25 per m³, which is quite expensive compared to the above prices. But then I calculated what volume actually needs to be moved.
Approx. 4m deep and roughly 5x5m surface area to excavate. 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, however, calculated approx. 5x5m surface and 5m deep on all sides = 125 m³… a bit unrealistic and a lot.

If he charges me 40 m³ and €20/m³, then with site setup I would be at €1150.

Why don’t you do the excavations yourself? You can buy/rent a bit of construction fencing and a toilet cheaply over the internet. Then you would undercut your own calculation ;)

Does a builder’s all-risk insurance accidentally cover this kind of financial damage?

No, but if a bomb is found, the federal government covers the costs.

Rhine greetings

Hello everyone,

thank you very much for your contributions.
After consulting with the explosive experts, it turned out that we only need about 20 m³ of excavation.
The earthworks contractor agreed to that, but his calculation is now completely different:

Before (125 m³):
- €350 site setup
- €1,000 excavation + storage = €8/m³
- €2,000 backfilling and compaction = €16/m³
= €3,400

Now (20 m³)
- €200 site setup
- €340 excavation + storage = €17/m³
- €340 backfilling and compaction = €17/m³
- €860 excavator operator and supervision
= €1,740

His arguments were that now much less material has to be moved and that for him usually no excavator leaves the site for less than €1,600, meaning he has this daily rate for his excavator.
Is this usual? Of course, we will have him do it because he is very flexible timing-wise and can start directly on Wednesday, but it seems strange to me that the calculation is different.

I’m not very familiar with the construction industry, so the daily rate surprises me.

Regards
Tito