Hi. I'm building with a project builder - standard house but with changes to the design (mainly made the house bigger). We signed off on the architectural plans 12months ago and recently signed off on the structural, hydraulic and updated architectural plans. Now they have started building they found the steel columns don't actually fit in the wall like shown on the architectural drawings so they want to box out around them (no charge).
The columns are to the area added to the house so was an extra which we signed off the cost. The designed columns are standard steel UC columns but we weren't happy with changing the design of the house to accommodate them so we spoke to the engineer and he said custom steel columns would work (ie 3 flat plate pieces welded together -so a custom UC column). The builder wants to charge a variation of almost $4k to change the columns (about $45,000/t).
Can they charge me for this? Or should they wear this cost to provide the architectural design as per the contract (with no boxing out)?
The columns are to the area added to the house so was an extra which we signed off the cost. The designed columns are standard steel UC columns but we weren't happy with changing the design of the house to accommodate them so we spoke to the engineer and he said custom steel columns would work (ie 3 flat plate pieces welded together -so a custom UC column). The builder wants to charge a variation of almost $4k to change the columns (about $45,000/t).
Can they charge me for this? Or should they wear this cost to provide the architectural design as per the contract (with no boxing out)?
