Slab, Crawlspace, or Basement?

[BeelMX]

Greetings Forum,

I'm building on property that uniformly falls about 1’ every 20’ The fall will be diagonal from the back left of the house down to the right front. The house is about 58’ by 58’ if counting porches, making the diagonal distance 82’. So, I expect the diagonal drop to be 4'.

Does this situation demand a crawlspace foundation? Can we go with a slab, digging out the whole thing and packing in tons of fill on the lower side? Or, would a basement be in order (trying to do something to cover the exposed block in the front)?

And, finally, can the surrounding area to the rear left be excavated broadly to allow us to set the house lower and without being below grade in the rear left? (That way we’d not be so high in front.)

With Continued Appreciaton to the Forum,

THB

[Rich]

If you don't want to do the crawlspace I would suggest pouring the slab at the lower elevation (right front) and then pouring a small (4') stepped stemwall around the sides where it would be buried. Make sure the exterior of this is waterproofed perfectly.
The biggest thing with grading is no matter what elevation you choose you should have grade slope away from the home with perimeter drain system or some method of getting the water away from the home.

[BeelMX]

Thanks for the help, again!
THB

[mreynolds]

My wife and I are about at the same place you are, that is we are building our house next summer. I am doing all the work myself and by trade I am a teacher with no professional construction experience. However I have read a lot and have some key friends that have knowledge. I had a discussion with a builder in our area about a similar situation, he generally would push for a spilt level home in that situation. By droping the entry way you wind up balaning out the slope problem. Depending on what your tastes are this might be an option. However the lot we finally purchased now has the opposite problem, not enough fall (6 feet over 185 feet)We actually are going our to build our home higher out of the ground that you normally and then grade back up around it. This is all due to the fact that we want french drains because of the wet soil conditions.