Concreters in Chisholm, 2322
Chisholm did not exist as a suburb until 2007. Seven kilometres south east of Maitland and bounded by Raymond Terrace Road and McFarlanes Road, it has been built almost entirely since then as master planned estates: Waterford, which its developer is growing from 750 blocks to about 1,650 across 173 hectares, with Harvest Boulevard and Settlers Boulevard as its spines and a council sportsground coming to Billabong Parade. St Bede’s and St Aloysius sit at the middle. Just about every dwelling is a separate house, six in ten households are paying a mortgage, and the roads minister called Chisholm and Thornton the fastest growing area in the state. Block sizes run from about 500 square metres to more than 1,000, so there is room for the full list of concrete.
A low ridge above the wetlands
Chisholm sits on a low ridge falling to the surrounding floodplain and wetlands and on to the Hunter River. Council’s controls for Thornton North required constructed wetlands and basins, kept dwellings on the flood fringe half a metre above the 1 percent flood, and asked developers to investigate soil salinity, stability and acid sulphate soils. Every lot was benched and filled to make a level pad, which means the ground under a new driveway or shed is often builder’s fill over reactive clay. Chisholm appears outside every mine subsidence district on the state maps.
The list after handover
Almost every enquiry from Chisholm is a first pour. A double driveway in place of the builder’s single strip. An alfresco slab extended past the roofline. A path down the side where turf turns to mud. A shed or garage slab on the big blocks, poured to the kit’s engineering. On the earliest Waterford stages, a builder’s driveway poured on uncompacted fill has cracked enough that removal and replacement is the honest fix.
The estate finish
Chisholm’s design guidelines favour charcoal exposed aggregate from the garage door to the porch, and most owners carry it down the front path so the frontage reads as one piece. Plain broom finish does the work down the sides and under sheds. Maitland City Council keeps the layback plain and generally accepts a non-slip special surface across the footway.
What it costs in Chisholm
Guide rates per square metre, supplied and laid: plain driveways $95 to $130, coloured $115 to $160, exposed aggregate $130 to $185, paths $90 to $130, patios and alfresco $100 to $180, shed and garage slabs $110 to $150, with removal adding about $35. The price mover on a Chisholm block is the fill under the pour, settled at the site visit. Run the numbers through the calculator, read the cost guide, the Section 138 guide for Maitland’s $435 application, the Hunter clay guide for what filled clay does, and the specification for what the quote must state.
Nearby: Thornton, East Maitland, Tenambit, Morpeth