Hello everyone, this is my first topic here:
We are planning to start building our house this year with a general contractor. The position of the building on the plot is fixed, and we are currently waiting for the building permit / planning permission.
Our plot is approximately 20m by 41m (66 feet by 135 feet) in size, located in a gap between buildings. The shorter side faces the street. The land slopes downward by 3m (10 feet) over the 41m (135 feet) length towards the back, with the steepest slope in the middle of the plot. The neighbors on the left and right have filled their land, which can be seen clearly by the height of the neighbor’s wall on the left side of the photo. The neighbor to the left has built a basement into the slope, the neighbor to the right has not.
According to the soil report, about 50cm (20 inches) of topsoil needs to be removed. Beneath that, the soil is stable. Frost protection material will be used to fill up to the average street level, so that the finished floor level will be about 20cm (8 inches) above the street. Due to the slope in the middle part, the backfill behind the house will be approximately 1.8m (6 feet) above the current ground level. According to the soil report, the fill should be either sloped back at a 45° angle or retained with a retaining wall.
In the rear area of the plot, we want to create vegetable beds and a wildflower meadow. We already established and harvested a small potato patch last year to pass the waiting time.
What do you think would be the most sensible and cost-effective solution in this situation?
I am looking forward to your suggestions and ideas!
We are planning to start building our house this year with a general contractor. The position of the building on the plot is fixed, and we are currently waiting for the building permit / planning permission.
Our plot is approximately 20m by 41m (66 feet by 135 feet) in size, located in a gap between buildings. The shorter side faces the street. The land slopes downward by 3m (10 feet) over the 41m (135 feet) length towards the back, with the steepest slope in the middle of the plot. The neighbors on the left and right have filled their land, which can be seen clearly by the height of the neighbor’s wall on the left side of the photo. The neighbor to the left has built a basement into the slope, the neighbor to the right has not.
According to the soil report, about 50cm (20 inches) of topsoil needs to be removed. Beneath that, the soil is stable. Frost protection material will be used to fill up to the average street level, so that the finished floor level will be about 20cm (8 inches) above the street. Due to the slope in the middle part, the backfill behind the house will be approximately 1.8m (6 feet) above the current ground level. According to the soil report, the fill should be either sloped back at a 45° angle or retained with a retaining wall.
In the rear area of the plot, we want to create vegetable beds and a wildflower meadow. We already established and harvested a small potato patch last year to pass the waiting time.
What do you think would be the most sensible and cost-effective solution in this situation?
- Slope everything back, add stairs and a natural stone wall later
- Build stairs and a wall directly on the right side, slope back the rest
- If building a wall: formwork blocks would be much cheaper than L-shaped blocks; regarding the earth pressure, a structural engineer would probably need to be consulted.
I am looking forward to your suggestions and ideas!
E
Eifelbau20237 Feb 2023 17:50hanghaus2023 schrieb:
The building permit application has been submitted. In my opinion, hardly any further changes to the floor plan make sense now. But some are absolutely necessary. At least the height was not indicated in that section.The heights were just cut off because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to fit the entire elevation profile of the plot into the image. I have attached them again. By the way, the building permit was approved today! 🙂
H
hanghaus20237 Feb 2023 17:53@Sunshine387 the 450 m3 (15,900 ft3) of excavation, plus an additional 350 m3 (12,360 ft3) to be disposed of, and building with a basement in direct contact with the ground? Who would want to deal with that unnecessarily? Also, the desire for a single-story layout can hardly be accommodated.
I stick with my design from post #24 as the cost-effective optimum. I hope for the original poster that the height in the plan hasn’t been fixed anywhere. With that view, the basement is not an option for me.
I stick with my design from post #24 as the cost-effective optimum. I hope for the original poster that the height in the plan hasn’t been fixed anywhere. With that view, the basement is not an option for me.
H
hanghaus20237 Feb 2023 18:11OK, have fun with the building process. I would reconsider the option to significantly simplify the site and save several tens of thousands. You are getting a much larger area in the southeast that will then be level with the house.
E
Eifelbau20237 Feb 2023 18:20hanghaus2023 schrieb:
OK, then have fun building. I would reconsider the option of significantly simplifying the site and saving another tens of thousands. You will get a much larger area in the southeast that will be level with the house. The terraced grading is not excluded in the building permit / planning permission, so I would try to lower the house’s starting height by a few centimeters (inches) and also reduce the amount of fill a bit. Part of the fill around the house can be replaced with the excavated soil.
I will report back on any unexpected issues and how accurate the cost estimation was. 😀
Eifelbau2023 schrieb:
I definitely wanted to avoid using sandbags. While in Cuba, we always wondered why the curbs were so high—about 20-30cm (8-12 inches).
After the first heavy rain, we understood: they serve as channels for water drainage.
Whoever builds the lowest will have water coming in from the street, cross streets, neighbors, and everywhere else.
Plan for surface water management—
we had to do that too.
For us, the water flows about 10cm (4 inches) deep along the street.
W
WilderSueden7 Feb 2023 22:06Eifelbau2023 schrieb:
The frost protection gravel is available at a discounted rate, I don’t have the exact amount yet, but I’m estimating €20 per ton (including delivery). For my design, I had calculated 700 tons, which is probably too much.€14,000 for gravel. Or 14% of the basement cost. Installation costs are additional, and you will definitely need larger machinery for that 😉I just did some calculations for our site, and we have a 5.5% slope diagonally across the entire plot. It’s possible to build without a basement with this, although we initially assumed a much gentler slope (surveying was done only after we had signed contracts and secured financing...). However, this is not entirely straightforward. For a proper hillside house, this is actually a bit too little. The ideal slope would allow for a daylight basement, such as a study or hobby room, which could be implemented without a light well.
Similar topics