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Hi Chris Thank you for your answers

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Janis

Hi Chris Thank you for your answers. We are rebuilding with a TC3 Ribraft foundation consisting of a bottom slab and a jack slab on the top. Our original build was only 3 months old at the time of the 2010 earthquake and after the 2011 earthquake became up to 100mm out of level. We fought for 4 years to become a rebuild which we have organised ourselves with a building company. This is our reason for checking for what is considered normal for new construction and we also intend to put a zip level through the house when the rebuild is a little further on (windows and doors have just gone in at present). We went for TC3 ribraft so we would be able to relevel the foundation if necessary if there was a problem with further earthquakes.
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Chris

Hi Janis, Thanks for the reply, but a pity you didn’t explain any of this in your original post. Clearly in your case it’s not just a matter of discovering that your builder has constructed a house which is ‘out of level’, and wanting to know to what extent that is acceptable. If by ‘out of level’ someone meant that the whole house had been constructed to a different level to that shown on the Council approved plans by 100mm then that might create slight problems with height to boundary or drainage issues etc, but quite possibly not make the house structurally unsound or unusable. On the other hand if you mean a floor slab that is out of level by 100mm from one side to the other then I guess that not only would it be quite noticeable, but clearly would mean all sorts of tolerances on slab finish and framing etc would be exceeded. Also a house being ‘out of level’ due to a builders incompetence is a whole different ball game to a house being out of level due to an earthquake. By which I mean in the first case it’s a question of whether you can ask the builder to remedy defects at his own expense, and in the second case it may be just looking at whether the resulting house is structurally sound and habitable. But from your reply I suspect you already know most of this, so I’m not exactly clear why you asked the original question.
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