Local Casey trades we coordinate with.

Slab and frame builders — pad handover.

On every Officer, Clyde and Cranbourne East new build, the slab crew arrives the day after we sign off the pad. They’re working to a fixed program and they need a certified-flat, compaction-tested pad on day one. We hand over with documented test results (95% standard maximum dry density on driveway sub-base, 98% on the slab pad), dump dockets and before/after photos. No mystery, no remediation, no “come back and fix that corner”.

Retaining-wall builders — cut and fill batters.

On sloping Berwick and Endeavour Hills blocks, a 1.5–2.5m cut on the high side usually needs a retaining wall to hold the neighbour’s ground. We cut to the wall engineer’s line, batter the cut face to 1:1 stiff clay or 1:0.75 sandy, hand a clean face to the wall builder, and come back to backfill behind the wall with free-draining gravel and an ag-line behind it. We need the wall engineering drawings before the cut goes in — we won’t cut to a face that doesn’t match the wall design.

Plumbers and electricians — service trenches.

The single most common in-network job is digging the sewer connection trench while the plumber stands by, laying and jointing as we go. Same for electrical conduit from the meter to the pool equipment pad or outbuilding. We dig the trench, lay the bedding sand, the licensed trade lays and joints the pipe or conduit, we backfill and reinstate. Council sewer tie-ins get inspected by the water authority before backfill — we don’t close the trench until that sign-off is in.

Pool builders — dig spec to shell.

We work with the major Casey pool builders (Aloha, Compass, Narellan and local installers) and dig to their published spec sheets — dimensions, tolerances, base depth, plumbing over-dig. Dig is finished 3–5 days before the shell arrives so the pool builder can drop it straight in. On Cranbourne West shallow-groundwater sites we keep the de-watering pump running until the shell weight holds against the water table.

We point owner-builders, project managers and homeowners to these resources constantly. AS 3798 and AS 2870 are the two standards that decide whether a Casey pad stays flat for 50 years or starts moving after one wet winter.

• City of Casey Council — building permits for slabs and footings, planning permits where a vegetation protection or significant landscape overlay applies, the bushfire-prone area map and the stormwater point-of-discharge layer. casey.vic.gov.au
• AS 3798 — Guidelines on earthworks for commercial and residential developments — the Australian Standard for bulk and structural fill, compaction testing, lift thickness and supervision levels. Mandatory on commercial jobs; best-practice on residential and how we run every job. Standards Australia
• AS 2870 — Residential slabs and footings — the standard that classifies sites by reactivity (A, S, M, H1, H2, E, P) and dictates footing depths and pier specs. Every Hampton Park, Endeavour Hills and eastern-Cranbourne block we work on is Class M or H1. Standards Australia
• Worksafe Victoria — Excavation Compliance Code — the binding code for trench shoring, benching and battering, edge protection and Dial Before You Dig procedure. Every trench over 1.5m on our jobs gets a written SWMS before the bucket starts. worksafe.vic.gov.au
• Dial Before You Dig (BYDA) — the free service that delivers utility plans 5 working days before any excavation. Mandatory for every job. Strikes on unmarked services follow the Worksafe protocol — stop, photo, contact the service owner, make safe. byda.com.au
• South East Water — the retail water authority for the City of Casey. Sewer tie-in inspections, stormwater legal-point-of-discharge applications, recycled-water connections. southeastwater.com.au

Earthworks first or surveyor first?

Surveyor sets the boundary pegs and rough levels. We come in next, strip topsoil, cut and fill the pad. Once the pad is in, the surveyor returns to peg the slab corners against the engineering drawings. Skipping the second peg job leads to slabs being poured off-line — expensive.

When does the geotechnical supervisor get involved?

Before the first lift on any commercial job — AS 3798 requires Level 1 supervision (full-time on site) for commercial fill, and they sign off every lift. On residential it’s usually Level 3 (witness testing only) or none. We coordinate the inspection schedule so the geotech is on site for compaction tests, not waiting half a day.

Do we need a building permit before the cut goes in?

No — site preparation can usually start once the planning permit is approved, before the building permit issues. But we don’t cut for slabs or footings without the engineering drawings, because the cut depth depends on the footing class. On Class M/H Casey clay sites that’s typically 300mm topsoil strip plus an engineered sub-base build-up.