What kind of land should I get to achieve this basement??
So I am here in hopes someone can please help me!! Me and my husband bought a piece of land back in January. Unfotanately due to the slope alot of builders said the look we wanted would be hard and expensive to achieve because the land had a front slope. We were luckily able to sale that land and are now in the process of looking for new land. What I dont want is a porch sky high off the ground in the front or the back. Which really only leaves us with a side walk out or walk up. I have attached a picture and we love the way this land looks so its still generally speaking flat in the front, flat in the back, but has that dip in the land that makes it achievable to have doors for the basement entrance on the side.
Now my question… what kind of land should we try to get to make this possible? The odds of us finding land that is flat and has a dip like that already is probably slim. Is it possible to just buy a generally flat piece of land then get the builder to dig out the dip? Please help! as we don’t want to make the same mistake and buy another piece of land that makes it difficult on us.
Replies
Look at the picture. The land slopes off to the rear, and the left side, relative to the picture, is higher than the right side. If you have that basic layout then the little "gully" in the bottom right is fairly trivial to achieve (much of it was done by simply grading up to the house along the front.
Uh, duh
You want a large dirt lot vs something that has ridge or ledge rock......
something a dozer can push around without having to blast.... ..
big difference on area of he country, etc, thusands of soil types.
From the pic, that is at least 2 acres ?
The indigenous peoples did the same thing in the flat midwest with millions of baskets full of diggable dirt. Highest part of Illinois is the top of an indian mound, not counting buildings.
You are going to have to find a lot that has a gentle slope that allows you to site the open side on the downhill slope. A good excavator can move dirt from the downhill slope to the "front" and "back yards to level them out while creating the walk out you want. The width of the house will likely determine if you can accomplish what you want without retaining walls like you see in the picture....but you should note that in that picture there is no walk out as far as I can tell (if I could blow it up I could count the rows of bricks and tell you). Looks like that side of the yard is sitting maybe six feet below the first floor. If you were to dig that out another couple of feet. the slopes would likely be too steep and require retaining walls unless all you desire is a single 36 inch door. I am imagining you want a slider and some sort of patio on that side.
If you get a yard with a steeper slope, you are going to have more work to get a level front and back yard and you will likely need reatining walls unless you want to haul dirt in.