Every American’s dream of one day owning a house of their own on a spot of ground that they can call home. Many hours are spent picking out the design, how many bedrooms, what flooring will match the paint; but few every give much thought to what must happen before the first board is cut. Let’s dig into what it takes to provide the infrastructure of a home site. The perfect site means something different to everybody, but a few must haves are:
1. Proper Drainage: A house pad should sit high and dry. If the area is low lying it will be susceptible to mold, water damage, and rot. If the area is flat then fill will need to be brought in to raise the house pad approx. 12 to 18 inches and gently taper beyond the yard.
2. What lies below: Core samples should be taken where house will sit. If the dirt is found to be unsuitable then the bad dirt must be dug out and new compactable fill be brought in and compacted in layers. This is usually an expensive process costing $5,000.00 and going upwards. The core samples can be dug with conventional auger or post hole diggers in various corners of planed house to a depth of 4 feet to get a cross section view of what is below a site.
3. Home Orientation: Many people forget about orienting their house in respect to the sun. Do you want the morning sun coming in your bedroom window at 530 am? If not try to put the master bedroom windows facing the west to evade the morning sunrise. Are you planning to spend a lot of time on the back porch entertaining guest? If so you might consider putting it on the east side of the home so it doesn’t catch evening sun when it’s the hottest. Is the main entrance into the home on the north or west side? If so may move it or put a foyer to come into to escape the cold winter winds. Take some time when designing your home from the elements of mother nature.Once you see you have a great site with good drainage, good foundation dirt, and you have the home oriented to take advantage of mother nature; let’s talk about how you’re going to get to this dream home. A rural home’s greatest appeal to me is escaping the outside world. The way you do that is build it as far from the nearest road as you can. Let’s look into that a bit.
1. Roads are expensive so remember this when you’re picking the perfect home site. Can you afford to build and maintain the road? A typical road that doesn’t have any major hurdles to overcome will cost approx. $5.00 a linear foot. That doesn’t sound too bad, but that’s a little over $26,000 for a mile. If there is a need for a bridge, stream, steep terrain, or bad soil the cost will increase.
2. If your road is over a few hundred yards long and you will have multiple vehicles coming and going do you want to build it wide enough for people to pass or in order to keep cost and maintenance down have a few pull off spots to meet and pass.
3. Do you want your road to be straight as possible to keep it short as possible or have it wind and turn to show beautiful features the property has to offer? Maybe going by a stream, pond, or field
4. Don’t make the mistake of clearing too little when laying out a road. The ability of a road to dry after snow or rain is determined by the “daylighting” it receives from the sun. This means if you want a 12 foot, 2 foot ditches on each side, and 10- foot right of ways you will have to clear a total of 36 feet to allow enough room.
5. In gentle curves allow 1.5 times or sharp curves 2 times the width of the road surface. Example if you have a 12-foot road and a gentle curve the layout for the curve needs to be 18 feet to allow for “cheating” of long trailers to keep them out of the ditch.6. Almost every road will have culverts. The minimum culvert sizing should be 15” anything smaller will have tendency to clog with leaves and debris. Culverts need 1.5 time their diameter of compacted fill placed on them to prevent heavy supply trucks from crushing them. At the main entrance the minimum length should be 30 feet to allow long trucks access to the site.7. Gravel is a must for any road; using what local and logical will dictate cost. I would recommend the bare minimum during the construction stage of a home. A road during the first year is tested the hardest. Concrete trucks, truss trucks, an army of contractor vehicles will storm in and out, rain or shine for six months to a year during the construction. Don’t waste money or ornamental rock until the building is over with and your preparing to landscape and move furniture in. Well you have the house site picked out, road is built, and you’re ready to start building. Not quite…. You’ve got to get water, sewer, power, and other utilities brought in. Let’s hit some high points.1. Water: Two basic options on this one. Dig a well or connect on to the county main water line if available. A well starts at $5,000.00 and up depending on how deep and what filtration equipment is needed to make it drinkable. If local water is available its generally cheaper on the front end at least. Most counties will set a meter for $250.00 to $400.00. The cost to run the line to the house can vary wildly depending on how far, what size, and what kind of base material there digging in. Sit and make a list of what water requirements you will have before you decide on a well or line. How many outlets in the house, will you have a barn with animals to be watered, swimming pool, garden, lawn sprinklers? All of these things affect how many gallons per minute you will need and what size well pump or what size line to feed your house. 2. Power: Two ways to get power to a home; the typical power pole method and going underground in conduit. Go ahead and give up on the idea the power company will give you a mile of remote access for free. Most utility companies won’t go past setting 2 poles for free. After that you pick up the tab. Overhead is cheaper but you have to deal with clearing a right of way, unsightly view of power poles, and if you have storms sometimes you will have power outages. Underground is more expensive but gives an ambience of “off the grid” living, and don’t have to worry about trees causing service interruption.As the home gets blacked in and starts to resemble the finished product the septic tank and lines will need to be installed. Although this is one of the later civil procedures it should be considered even before the property is selected. How the ground “perks” or dissipates water will make a big impact on how much you will spend on septic installation. The system will be configured by an engineer that takes into account if this is just a vacation home with occasional use or a family of 5 dwelling with 3 bathrooms. It’s all about handling the volume of waste water. Systems start at $6,000.00 and go up. There are options if an area doesn’t perk but they are rather expensive .Most rural dwellings are going satellite with their T.V. and internet and who needs a houses phone anymore when we all have one in our pocket. If a local cable or phone supplier is available the cable can be trenched in on the road right of way. On a side note concerning any of the utilities mentioned above I highly encourage placing them in the right of way and NOT in the road bed. I see on several occasions people run utilities in middle of road and years later those services will need to repaired and the road has to be blocked off and dug up. The cost to repair the road will be much more than if the repair was made on the side of the road in the 10- foot right of way we talked about earlierLast but not least as the last contractor pulls out, get the landscaping done. Most home sites will look like a disaster after the construction stage. Yard will be full of old building materials, nails, and half burned piles of contractor debris. All of this will need to be cleaned up and hauled off site. A great idea that helps prevent some of this is to have a roll off container onsite during the construction phase and make everybody keep things clean and tidy at the end of the day. Most ladies love a lot of landscaping and guys hate it because they know they will be the one toting the weed eater. The most important area to landscape is that surrounding the house. Next to the house where rain will splash will need at least sod or mulched flower beds. Although beautiful they serve a function of keeping the stain from the red base dirt the house was built on from staining the brick or siding. Yes, the red clay will stain the siding and it takes a lot of elbow grease to scrub it off. A lot of builders put hay or pine straw in the construction stage a few feet around the perimeter to prevent this from happening until the landscaping can be completed.
Chris Bowles
Owner, Bowles LLC
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