This thread will probably go into coma status pretty quick since I am probably still a long ways out, but thought I'd start it now because a few others have been building, who knows progress may happen quickly and I'm bored at the moment :P
So I got my lot corner points surveyed in while I was in Bonneville so now I know where they are. The next step is too mark out the boundaries so I know what area I have to play with. So today after work I broke out the 300ft tape, my brunton (fancy geologist compass) and the bundle of lath and ribbon I had bought a couple weeks ago. Turns out I had to go through some trees, and after sawing through two THICK branches by hand I unwound my 100ft extension cord used for my lawnmower to hook up my sawsall ;D for mass tree slashing.
The method I used was setting a lath up every ten measured foot to make a fence line around the area. Now I need to make a contour map of the hill to determine how much dirt I can remove from the high area and dump on the low area. There are two ways I see I can go about doing this (and I'm open to suggestions!). Method one is kinda math intensive, I would set up lines of lath across the yard (probably on the ten foot lines, and extra on key features), stand on the lowest corner point with my brunton and write down azimuth direction and angle from either my eye level or top of a lath (as long as it's a consistent point) to the top of each lath. Using that info I can build a 3D contour map of the hillside. Method two is I'm going to see about bringing home a surveying laser with data collector our department has (and I'm about the only one that knows how to truely use it), that we occassionally use to build contours from point data of slides and failing walls where we can't put surveyors. Basically the same method as the brunton, but the laser is just point and click and it automatically makes an AutoCAD dxf file with the points in 3D space. Simple From there I can determine how much dirt has to be moved and if I need to bring some in to make a reasonable driveway grade.
So for a few pictures of what I have to work with.
The north line. The City or County own the land on the other side of the lath line. This is the side I want to put the shop on.
The top of the south line. The neighbor on this side also owns the back lot, so they own the land on the other side of the lath line. I want to put the driveway on this side. Plus I apparently own roughly three feet of the yard on the other side of their fence.
The bottom part of the south line. That's a lot of hill :'( Those trees were pesky for my line of sight measuring. Every lath I set making sure my azimuth was lined up with the lath put out by the survey company next to the metal cap on the ground.
Here you can kind of see the perimeter of my second lot. Quite the hill :-\ It levels off a bit half way down so I hope that works for me and I hope I can get away with out having to bring in fill....
There is a dirt road that runs down the back side that goes both to the highway and to downtown. It's a pretty rough dirt road, I've taken the Jeep on it a few times.
Pesky trees :P
So I estimate there is about a 20ft drop from the house's yard level and the lowest point of the back lot. But it's not an even gradual drop, it slopes, flattens off for ~20 or so feet and slopes again. The upper part is steeper than the lower part (good!), so if I can terrace the second lot to be roughly six to eight feet lower than the house level I'll be good. If it's eight to twelve feet it's going to be close, if it's lower than 12ft I'm guessing I'll have to bring in dirt. I'm no engineer though :P Have to wait until I get done with the backhoe work. But I want to have the propane tank moved first because it's right where I want to put the driveway ramp. Also I'm pretty confident most the hillside I want to move is just fill from when the housing trac was built and the top of the hill leveled off.
I got my work cut out for me :P Sorry for the long post that may not amount to much, but I'll revive it when things happen.
So I got my lot corner points surveyed in while I was in Bonneville so now I know where they are. The next step is too mark out the boundaries so I know what area I have to play with. So today after work I broke out the 300ft tape, my brunton (fancy geologist compass) and the bundle of lath and ribbon I had bought a couple weeks ago. Turns out I had to go through some trees, and after sawing through two THICK branches by hand I unwound my 100ft extension cord used for my lawnmower to hook up my sawsall ;D for mass tree slashing.
The method I used was setting a lath up every ten measured foot to make a fence line around the area. Now I need to make a contour map of the hill to determine how much dirt I can remove from the high area and dump on the low area. There are two ways I see I can go about doing this (and I'm open to suggestions!). Method one is kinda math intensive, I would set up lines of lath across the yard (probably on the ten foot lines, and extra on key features), stand on the lowest corner point with my brunton and write down azimuth direction and angle from either my eye level or top of a lath (as long as it's a consistent point) to the top of each lath. Using that info I can build a 3D contour map of the hillside. Method two is I'm going to see about bringing home a surveying laser with data collector our department has (and I'm about the only one that knows how to truely use it), that we occassionally use to build contours from point data of slides and failing walls where we can't put surveyors. Basically the same method as the brunton, but the laser is just point and click and it automatically makes an AutoCAD dxf file with the points in 3D space. Simple From there I can determine how much dirt has to be moved and if I need to bring some in to make a reasonable driveway grade.
So for a few pictures of what I have to work with.
The north line. The City or County own the land on the other side of the lath line. This is the side I want to put the shop on.
The top of the south line. The neighbor on this side also owns the back lot, so they own the land on the other side of the lath line. I want to put the driveway on this side. Plus I apparently own roughly three feet of the yard on the other side of their fence.
The bottom part of the south line. That's a lot of hill :'( Those trees were pesky for my line of sight measuring. Every lath I set making sure my azimuth was lined up with the lath put out by the survey company next to the metal cap on the ground.
Here you can kind of see the perimeter of my second lot. Quite the hill :-\ It levels off a bit half way down so I hope that works for me and I hope I can get away with out having to bring in fill....
There is a dirt road that runs down the back side that goes both to the highway and to downtown. It's a pretty rough dirt road, I've taken the Jeep on it a few times.
Pesky trees :P
So I estimate there is about a 20ft drop from the house's yard level and the lowest point of the back lot. But it's not an even gradual drop, it slopes, flattens off for ~20 or so feet and slopes again. The upper part is steeper than the lower part (good!), so if I can terrace the second lot to be roughly six to eight feet lower than the house level I'll be good. If it's eight to twelve feet it's going to be close, if it's lower than 12ft I'm guessing I'll have to bring in dirt. I'm no engineer though :P Have to wait until I get done with the backhoe work. But I want to have the propane tank moved first because it's right where I want to put the driveway ramp. Also I'm pretty confident most the hillside I want to move is just fill from when the housing trac was built and the top of the hill leveled off.
I got my work cut out for me :P Sorry for the long post that may not amount to much, but I'll revive it when things happen.
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