Permits and Site Planning
When You Need a Retaining Wall Permit and an Engineer
You want to cut a level spot into a sloped yard and hold the bank with a block wall, and the contractor says it can start...
A homeowner calls me with water pooling against the foundation, gets three quotes for regrading the yard, and the numbers come back at $1,800, $4,200 and $9,500.
Recent
Permits and Site Planning
You want to cut a level spot into a sloped yard and hold the bank with a block wall, and the contractor says it can start...
Grading Equipment
You graded the base for a patio or walkway, it looked flat and firm, and three months later there is a low spot holding water...
Driveways and Access Roads
Backing 200 feet down a narrow driveway onto a busy road gets old fast, and it gets dangerous the first time a school bus comes...
Drainage and Runoff
Every heavy rain, your downspout dumps water right next to the foundation, and the plastic splash block you bought keeps...
Slope and Erosion Control
You finish grading a slope, the surface looks smooth and clean, and then the first half-inch rain cuts little channels straight...
Site Grading
A new patio that holds a puddle against the back door after every storm is one of the most common callbacks I get.
Sections
Archive
Three people who have actually stood on a graded lot before writing about it: a contractor who has run a dozer for two decades, a civil engineer who used to stamp the plans and got tired of watching them ignored, and a road builder who learned grade the hard way on land the county would not fix. Every article carries a byline, and nothing runs that the writer has not seen fail in the field.