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Excavation Dilemma <!—-><!—->
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My wife and I bought a building lot over 2 years ago, a 9 home subdivision about ½ a mile from LI Sound here in CT. We loved the area, wanted to build, and since land is hard to come by in this town we bought it prior to the road going in, and now we are at a crossroads on what to do with the foundation. <!—-> <!—->
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It turns out that the drainage for the footings, which are allowed to go into the storm drains in the road are not as deep as they should have been. When I put a tape in the<!—-><!—->
pipe that is for this use, it only goes down about 4 ½ from the current grade. Our plans<!—-> <!—->
call for a minimum of foundation to be visible after the final grade is completed. With the depth only at 4 ½ deep my finished first floor height is going to be quite high. I do not have any other means to use for my drainage system other than what is already set.<!—-><!—->
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3 other homes are completed in the development. 1 person elected to dig deeper and pump up to the drainage piping. A builder who was spec’ing a house (which sold for 609K)) elected to dig at the drainage height determined his depth to the storm drains.<!—-> <!—->
He had way less than me, It is a nice house but it looks like it is on stilts. He is only 45-50<!—-><!—->
Feet from the road and minimal grade was brought in, he had 8 steps to get to the front door and 8 to get from the garage into the house. We want no part of that. The last person was so far set back he brought in 15K worth of fill to grade things up, and you can’t even tell his foundation walls were about 4 feet off the original grade. We’ll we will only be about 60 ft from the front, so we won’t be able to bring to much fill in to raise the final grade.<!—-> <!—->
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I really do not want the majority of my foundation exposed, even if I was to apply stone veneer, it still would like to elevated.<!—-> <!—->
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Sorry for the long briefing, but I was told that pumping up was not a good idea. Any thought out there on the matter<!—-> <!—->
Thanks in Advance <!—-><!—->
Replies
Pumping should not be a prob. there are millions of houses that have pumps for their storm water and it usally works like a charm. Luck.
Thanks, if we encounter a lot of water digging (other than storm water) would that change things, also will one pump be ok, or should i have 2
Thanks for yout response
And when the power goes out during the storm ...
I will have a generator if I go that route
Depending on the ground water you may need two pumps, one tied into the electric system and one that is battery powered in case the electric goes out, you should be o.k. unless you run into a spring.
Thanks for your time in responding
Alot of times when we design houses in areas with higher water tables we raise the house a little then bring the grading up using fill and retaining walls. If you go with some nice stone retaining walls and a scheme designed by a good site designer with a keen eye to the aesthetic, the results can be more dazzling than a plain ol flat lot. ....of course the walls and fill can run you about an arm and a leg.
I thought of that, I might have to spend some $ on a mock design before deciding on the foundation. If I could get the front steps and rear veranda to a step grade to the lawn, I would consider.
The funny thing is, I'm not sure if I have a high water table yet, the test holes seemed OK, it is just the drainage installed in the subdivision is high, my future neighbor went deep, his pump has only gone on when we have multiple days of rain like 2 weeks ago in the Northeast, in fact he is putting in a pool and said there was very little water in the hole dug after the last rain
Thanks
SAP