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  • The Silver Buick wants a garage.

    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.
    Escaped on a technicality.

  • #2
    Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

    Looks like you got quite the project there, Randall. That could be allot of fun for ya. I hope your 'jurisdiction' out there doesn't restrict your creativity and allows you to build a TAJ MAJ Garage.. save enough coin for that fancy floor epoxy stuff. with sparkles. :D Cooool. Good Luck.
    Mike in Southwest Ohio

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    • #3
      Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

      It's Ely, near as I can tell, I can put a seven story parking structure there legally :D :P
      Escaped on a technicality.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

        you might have to then you can build the garage on top of the it ;D


        hey it would be level then you could charge for parking

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        • #5
          Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

          I've thought about going the Bat Cave route too. Take the land down to the point the roof of the building would be level with the upper yard, then build structurally enough to put grass, etc. on the roof of the shop, so my whole yard is level then the garage would essentially be underground but still open in the back taking the driveway grade all the way to the rear of the lot. :D Underground passage from the house? Awesome theme music? Fantastic tights? And a spetacular dirt road exit onto Highway 6! Crime in Ely would never know what hit it! :D

          Oh and to keep it relevant, I'm more than likely taking the laser/data collector home today, I've asked to have it ready for me to take home.
          Escaped on a technicality.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

            Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
            I've thought about going the Bat Cave route too. Take the land down to the point the roof of the building would be level with the upper yard, then build structurally enough to put grass, etc. on the roof of the shop, so my whole yard is level then the garage would essentially be underground but still open in the back taking the driveway grade all the way to the rear of the lot. :D Underground passage from the house? Awesome theme music? Fantastic tights? And a spetacular dirt road exit onto Highway 6! Crime in Ely would never know what hit it! :D
            After describing the Bat Cave option, I can't see why you would build it any other way :D

            Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
            Oh and to keep it relevant, I'm more than likely taking the laser/data collector home today, I've asked to have it ready for me to take home.
            Sweet! it's always good when toys tools from work can make their way to your home. The "direct to 3D" points in AutoCAD sounds pretty cool, it's a like a 3D scanner... but can help build garages, awesome!

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

              Hey that building underground is no joke. Search around on Google for it. It will do a bunch to cut down your heating and electric bill. I good friend of mine built a "Hobbit Hole" of sorts in his back yard. He dug a 15' x 8' hole in the ground then built a scaled down 1 room house. The whole thing is only half underground. Then he covered it over with the dirt from digging the hole plus some fill dirt. With no cooling or heating units, this place doesn't get colder than the 50's in a 30 degree winter and doesn't get hotter than mid 80's during 100 plus heat. Turns out the ground is an amazing insulator. The "Hobbit Hole" is a great playhouse for his kids.

              Not to mention the cool factor. X2 for underground garage.
              Bakersfield, CA.

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              • #8
                Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                why not just build it on the hill. and in the back under the garage part you'll have a storage shed
                you get a place to put stuff, and less yard(dirt)movement.. and you'll get a garage and a shed(or workshop) all in one..

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                  Originally posted by IRONHEAD
                  why not just build it on the hill. and in the back under the garage part you'll have a storage shed
                  you get a place to put stuff, and less yard(dirt)movement.. and you'll get a garage and a shed(or workshop) all in one..
                  Huh?
                  Escaped on a technicality.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                    Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
                    Originally posted by IRONHEAD
                    why not just build it on the hill. and in the back under the garage part you'll have a storage shed
                    you get a place to put stuff, and less yard(dirt)movement.. and you'll get a garage and a shed(or workshop) all in one..
                    Huh?
                    picute a house foundation.. on a hill with the back wall longer because of the hill..
                    you build the garage and the shed(workroom) would be like a basement.. under the garage floor..
                    so the garage door is in the front and the shed door is on the back but because of the hill the room is under the garage..
                    they do this all the time here, some even have a 1 car under the 2 car garage..

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                      Yeah, but I want to build a six to twelve car garage. It has to run the long axis of the lot. Plus I don't want it really visible from the front of the house nor block my view of the hills from the house windows. If I can get away with it and afford it, I want to build a 40'x60' ;D
                      Escaped on a technicality.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                        The ground looks pretty rocky, you said you have a backhoe so go and dig a few test holes and see what's waiting for you a couple of feet below. When we built the place up in ShowLow the gound looked like an easy dig and it was until you got about 24 inches down, then I hit big ass rocks!!!!!

                        Also you might want to start grading the area out, your going to have to let the "fill" dirt compact for a period of time as the building department will probably want compaction tests done, especially with the amount of dirt you'll be filling the lower section with. So if you do it now, you should be good to go when the time to build comes.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                          Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
                          Yeah, but I want to build a six to twelve car garage. It has to run the long axis of the lot. Plus I don't want it really visible from the front of the house nor block my view of the hills from the house windows. If I can get away with it and afford it, I want to build a 40'x60' ;D
                          haha have you got a quote on the taxes on that um. shop

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                            Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
                            Yeah, but I want to build a six to twelve car garage. It has to run the long axis of the lot. Plus I don't want it really visible from the front of the house nor block my view of the hills from the house windows. If I can get away with it and afford it, I want to build a 40'x60' ;D
                            A 40x60 is what we plan on putting up in the ShowLow. Are you looking at Steel Buildings??

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: The Silver Buick wants a garage.

                              Originally posted by IRONHEAD
                              Originally posted by TheSilverBuick
                              Yeah, but I want to build a six to twelve car garage. It has to run the long axis of the lot. Plus I don't want it really visible from the front of the house nor block my view of the hills from the house windows. If I can get away with it and afford it, I want to build a 40'x60' ;D
                              haha have you got a quote on the taxes on that um. shop
                              I'm sure the taxes in Ely are pretty cheap. ;)

                              Comment

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