Congratulations! The excitement of signing a contract to build a new home, picking your lot, and starting the process is an exciting chapter. When you choose your desired lot, please ask to see the grading plat, as this will show the design intent of the lot. The grading plat will show you the property’s contours if you have a hill, swale, drain inlet, or any other item that needs to be mentioned. In an ideal world, the builder representative will point these out to you, but they don’t know in most cases. A quick word of experience: your yard will NOT be flat.
The grading plan will show you the property corners of your home and the size of the lot you are purchasing. This information will be necessary if you install a fence, shed, garden, chicken coop, etc. At the end of construction, you can pay the survey company to come out and install monuments on your property corners so you always have a reference point.
Contour lines on the grading plan show how much fall is on the lot, and the distance between each line shows how severe it will be. Most disagreements with building a home stem around the grading and a customer saying they didn’t know there would be a hill, swale, or other constraint. You will have elevation points on fixed items, which can be a reference to help you see the severity of the lot. If you don’t know how to read the plat or have questions, please ask, as we want you to be informed about your purchase.
We have yet to see grading plats in home building that show the existing terrain with a proposed cut-and-fill analysis. Instead, we see plans that offer the intent of the lot when it is complete and ready for your possession. This is unfortunate as it leaves a lot to chance and puts ownership on the individual tasked with building your home.
Water management is critical in home building! We must be intentional about where the water comes from and where it goes once our home is constructed. Water will take the path of least resistance, and we want to create a pathway for the water to move freely around the structure and to a stormwater management system. Yes, this means you will have a swale installed in your yard as a pathway for the water to transfer freely. The alternative is not recommended because water entering your home is the most expensive type of repair for a homeowner to take on.
Who likes to see the big green box when they look out their windows? The box we refer to is the power transformer required to install power to homes. The grading plat will show the location of utility boxes, so you know where they will be located and how they will obstruct your life. Now, if you are building and the utilities have not been installed, you might have some say in adjusting the location, but be prepared to share in the cost of this move. The price we paid to move a transformer was $10,000, which was shared with the customer.
Grading yards is a science and an art. When looking at a lot or piece of property, try to envision the home being built as if it was always there and the earth was created around it. Many people find this difficult to do, so many homes are high or too low. Next time you walk in your neighborhood, look at the driveways and ask if the driveway slopes towards the road or the house. Where is the water going? How do we manage it?
