Hello everyone!
I have been in the planning phase for our single-family house for some time now, but it is proving to be very difficult and complicated due to the characteristics of our plot.
Here is a brief description of our plot:
Orientation: South - North
Dimensions: 20m wide and 40m long (approx. 66 feet by 131 feet)
The access road is located on the south side. Therefore, our plot slopes upward about 3m (10 feet) from the south (access road) towards the north.
See attachment below:
We do not have a preferred layout for the floor plan of the single-family house. I am open to all ideas and would appreciate any suggestions or layouts that could help us realize our dream home. We have already considered all variants (basement & ground floor, ground floor & upper floor)…
What we want:
- Double garage and barrier-free access through a utility/mudroom into the house & a technical room for the building
- Basement / Ground floor:
Living room
Dining room
Kitchen & pantry/storage room
Office
Bathroom
Toilet
Entrance hall & cloakroom
Access to the next floor via stairs
- Ground floor / Upper floor:
Master bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Bathroom
Toilet
Roof type: Gable roof
South orientation is not a must, as we are not sun worshippers and summers are getting hotter. We want nice, open, and bright rooms, as well as a garden on both the south and north sides with small terraces.
I would be very grateful for your help, thoughts, and experiences, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Best regards from beautiful Austria!
I have been in the planning phase for our single-family house for some time now, but it is proving to be very difficult and complicated due to the characteristics of our plot.
Here is a brief description of our plot:
Orientation: South - North
Dimensions: 20m wide and 40m long (approx. 66 feet by 131 feet)
The access road is located on the south side. Therefore, our plot slopes upward about 3m (10 feet) from the south (access road) towards the north.
See attachment below:
We do not have a preferred layout for the floor plan of the single-family house. I am open to all ideas and would appreciate any suggestions or layouts that could help us realize our dream home. We have already considered all variants (basement & ground floor, ground floor & upper floor)…
What we want:
- Double garage and barrier-free access through a utility/mudroom into the house & a technical room for the building
- Basement / Ground floor:
Living room
Dining room
Kitchen & pantry/storage room
Office
Bathroom
Toilet
Entrance hall & cloakroom
Access to the next floor via stairs
- Ground floor / Upper floor:
Master bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Child’s bedroom
Bathroom
Toilet
Roof type: Gable roof
South orientation is not a must, as we are not sun worshippers and summers are getting hotter. We want nice, open, and bright rooms, as well as a garden on both the south and north sides with small terraces.
I would be very grateful for your help, thoughts, and experiences, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Best regards from beautiful Austria!
K a t j a schrieb:
Where? How much?
A slope remains a slope. Excavation or filling usually costs more than you think. The resulting walls need retaining walls, and rainwater drainage often adds extra costs. To achieve an effect with two terraces (south and north), you’re looking at massive earthworks. With a total budget of 650,000 and requirements for 3 kids’ rooms, an office, and so on, in my opinion, that’s unrealistic. Also, my focus wouldn’t be on a direct connection between the garage and the house, but rather on minimizing the costs of earthworks and including the necessary rooms inside the house.
I would recommend choosing one terrace, either south or north, and orienting the house accordingly. The north terrace offers the benefits of shorter paths (every square meter costs money), summer shading (exactly when you want to be outside), and screening from the street by the house. Then you can see where the garage could fit.That’s exactly why I reached out to you on this forum—to gather opinions from others. It definitely helps me with the decision-making and planning of our house. We are open to everything and grateful for any alternative ideas!
hanghaus2023 schrieb:
@K a t j a and @ypg, that’s a maximum 8% slope. You can easily level that within the house area. Of course, all without retaining walls. But if you want to level the entire lot, that becomes really expensive. Which the original poster clearly does not want.Exactly. We want to level the garden around the house. The rest will be terraced or created on different levels.
hanghaus2023 schrieb:
You can also raise the house and garage a bit and then balance the cut and fill. However, that makes the driveway reach about 15%.
The problem is the ground-level garage.
I have 3 steps to the garage—that’s just manageable for me. Something like that would make things much easier.If the house and garage are raised, that doesn’t bother us. As mentioned, having the garage connected to the house is a wish, but if it causes problems, it can of course be adjusted to ease the situation. A steeper driveway that doesn’t meet standards is also acceptable to us.
K a t j a schrieb:
I think the OP is imagining something like this:
[ATTACH alt="john5.jpg"]91520[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH alt="john4.jpg"]91521[/ATTACH]
You can see the volume of earth that would need to be moved and how incredibly long the walls would be. I don’t know about local prices, but for 650,000 with the house requirements of 3 kids’ rooms and an office—I see it as impossible. Even if you leave out the upper excavation, it’s still a big chunk.WOW! Thanks for showing this! I wouldn’t have expected that. But it matches what we had imagined. If the problems outweigh the benefits, the garage will not be attached.
What do you think about placing the garage behind the house? This way, you could overcome a lot of height difference with the driveway, and level access from the garage to the house would happen at the back. Also, the house could be set higher.
hanghaus2023 schrieb:
I’ll show you what the 3 steps mean:
Much less earthwork,
Balanced cut and fill,
Much flatter slopes.
Nice approach, thanks!
haydee schrieb:
Barrier-free access is not easy. We faced and still face the same problem. Our driveway doesn’t meet standards—it’s too steep. From the garage, we have direct barrier-free access into the house and also through the yard to the front door. The latter isn’t ideal and doesn’t exactly meet standards either, but it works and was feasible. By now, the front door is used for wheelchair, walker, and similar access—even though the slope isn’t ideal, the route to the dining area is more direct.
I wouldn’t level the entire lot. Besides the enormous costs, you also have the problem with water during heavy rain. As 11ant already wrote, water always flows downward. If you’re unlucky, it also drains from the neighbors’ hill.
Costs, heavy rain, and the desire for a completely level site is a square circle problem. Our property is not completely flat, and we still spent a lot of money on retaining, filling, and excavation. Part of the lot can only be accessed from the upper floor or from the road above.Do you happen to have any plans showing how you solved this exactly? It sounds similar to our described situation above.
We also don’t want to level the whole lot! We want to terrace the northern garden and create different levels. The water issue of course remains, so no basement (that just saturates the house more!). We would address the water problem with drainage channels in the garden.
Do you perhaps have pictures of your situation? I’d be very interested.
W
wiltshire23 May 2025 12:18Building on a slope is definitely not simple. Moving soil costs a significant amount of money. If you move an average of 1 cubic meter of soil across an area of 14 x 30 meters (46 x 98 feet), you end up with about 420 cubic meters (550 cubic yards) of soil. If everything goes very smoothly, you might pay just under 50,000 euros. If the ground is somewhat challenging and you need to stabilize or retain certain areas, costs can quickly rise to 100,000 euros or significantly more. Depending on how flexible your budget is, I would recommend quickly verifying the costs when planning your ideas. Ask your architect or a local contractor for an estimated price per cubic meter (cubic yard) of excavation and add about 20%. Otherwise, the earthworks will consume your budget long before the first wall is built.
H
hanghaus202323 May 2025 13:23Here is a visualization. It shows that no major problems will occur.
If the garage is built higher, the driveway will become steeper, and you may need to install L-shaped retaining walls along the boundary.
If the garage is built higher, the driveway will become steeper, and you may need to install L-shaped retaining walls along the boundary.
John2122 schrieb:
What do you think about placing the garage behind the house? This way, the driveway could handle a significant elevation change, and the level access from the garage into the house would also be located at the back. John2122 schrieb:
We don’t want to level the entire plot anyway! We plan to terrace the garden on the north side to create different levels. John2122 schrieb:
We would solve the water issue with floor drains in the garden area. You are currently planning to spend a six-figure amount of your house budget on the landscaping based on these statements.
John2122 schrieb:
A steeper driveway that does not conform to standards does not bother us either. You either have or plan to have three children, and you are considering a potentially hazardous driveway.
These are just two points I wanted to mention briefly. I’m not deeply involved in your plans here. But you should at least think about them.
John2122 schrieb:
What do you think about placing the garage behind the house?It’s best to create a sketch. “Behind the house” can mean many different things.H
hanghaus202323 May 2025 21:10John2122 schrieb:
What do you think about placing the garage behind the house?Nothing.
John2122 schrieb:
That way, you could gain some height using a driveway, and the level access from the garage to the house would be located behind the house. Additionally, the house can be set higher.
Try drawing that into my latest section. Don’t forget to leave about 5 m (16 feet) between the house and the garage. You probably want to use both garages, after all.
Then you’ll see how deep you can cut into the driveway and garage area.
Alternatively, you can make the house, as I suggested, only 11-12 m (36-39 feet) wide.
I have put quite some thought into why I design the house now as only 12 x 9 m (39 x 30 feet).
If the house is intended to be centered on the lot, then in my opinion 1.45 m (4.75 feet) above the southeast corner at the street is optimal.
You can then cut further back and fill in the front until it suits you. Always keep in mind that no slopes are steeper than 1:2 (vertical to horizontal) and that the earthworks balance out.
Terracing as you described will be expensive.
Water drains are nonsense. At least here in Germany, they are not allowed. Rainwater usually must not go into the sewer system. This is typically solved with proper planning.
Similar topics