Sewer Pegout!

When building a home (in Sydney for example), Sydney Water (SW) Assets are basically Sewer, Gas and Water mains.  More often than not, Sydney Water will require a Sewer Peg Out if any of these items are potentially at risk of the new home construction affecting the specific asset(s).

What is it?

Basically when the load of the building being transferred through the foundations “may” have an affect on the particular asset, a Sewer Peg Out may be required.

In existing knock-down-rebuild suburbs, generally these “asset” positions are not exactly known in relation to Lot boundaries and as such are only approximate on sewer diagrams.  So if there is any chance that they may be affected then Sydney Water will require a Sewer Peg Out.

Sydney Water will, after the builder makes application for SW Approval, either approve the application or require a peg out survey to be completed by a Sydney Water Services Coordinator.

Sydney Water Options

Once the peg out is completed Sydney Water will either:

ONE

Confirm that there is no effect on the SW Asset so no additional requirements or costs OR

TWO

Confirm that there IS an affect and will nominate what must be done

• sometimes it is a simple as extending the depth of the house piers adjacent the asset to a nominated depth by SW.  Extra cost will apply.
• in other circumstances, SW will require a sewer encasement or bridging when the building is very close or over the asset.  There will certainly be additional costs for this.

What does it involve?

The Sydney Water Services Coordinator will visit your site and confirms the exact location of the asset(s).  They use various equipment such as CCTV imaging and radio electronic detection equipment.

Once they conduct their inspection, they will check Sydney Water records and provide a site plan outlining where the services are in your lot.  This will include the location, depth and size of the Sydney Water assets & the type of soil the asset is in.

Your Builder

Builders generally include the cost of a Peg Out when they believe that a Peg Out will be required.  However there are instances where they cannot know and SW will require one and builders must then charge the owner.

Builders has no control over whether Sydney Water will or will not require a Sewer Pegout however where the Asset is obviously close enough; builders will include the cost in the tender.

This doesn’t mean that if not included in the tender that SW won’t request one and being an Authority, the builder has no choice if/when required to do a Sewer Peg Out and must pass on these costs to the client.

Finally

If the builder is tendering for your job and they have not included Sewer Pegout (for whatever reason) and they found out later that they needed it; then they should not be charging the client for it.

As part of the builder’s investigation stages, they should identify whether a Sewer Peg Out is required or not.  So it’s on them to make sure they do account for it properly otherwise, they must wear the cost.

Granted they may not know if they will need it or not, hence as part of their investigation stages, they should be checking with their Sydney Water Services Coordinator to make sure they are flagging everything upfront with you, the client.