On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:50:28 -0700, "SQLit" wrote:


"Steve K" wrote in message
...
Hi,

My wife and I bought a house back in 1996. We had no kids. We then had
two kids, boy and girl. Now they are 7 and 5, the boy loves baseball and
football.

But our yard is quite sloped. There is no flat spot anywhere to play.
Except for the spot designated for our future garage (we had MANY loads
of fill brought in over a two year period to just get enough of an area
to build a garage on). I know it's hard for you to picture how sloped
our yard is but it's maybe 20 or 30 degrees. ??

One area of our yard that has no trees, it's just grass, is where they
play now. But being that it is sloped it's hard to play anything, you
hit a baseball and it rolls to the bottom of the hill. No fun.

This area is about 50 yards long by 25 yards wide. Give or take a few
yards. If I stand at the bottom of the hill, the top of the hill is
maybe 6 or 7 feet above my head.

Are my wife and I nuts for even thinking about hiring a guy with a big
bulldozer to come in and take half of the high part of the hill and push
it to "fill in" the lower part of the hill, therefore flattening it out?

We're even thinking of moving. But we really love the house and area and
would rather not move.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Steve

Better start with the local county agent or building department. Ask some
general contractors in the area.

I went to school at ISU. Some loon bought a piece of property next to the
fire department. Changed the grade and when it rained as it does in Iowa.
The fire department building and engines slid into the new lot. The
restaurant that eventually opened in the new building was called "The
Cave-Inn"

I would think fill would be cheaper. Bring in truck loads of fill and level
it out. Then wait a few months while you water it. Let it compact and settle
then bring in some more. Keep the levels of dirt down to less than 24 inches
at a time. You say 6 feet, then you sure do not need top soil.
Check around some construction sites close to home and see if they want to
get rid of the excavation materials. You might get the stuff for free and if
you strike a really good bargain they might do the in-between leveling so
that they do not have to drive farther to another site.

As a kid we had a creek that flooded and was eroding the hell out of one of
our fields. When they put in the new highway we got 100 trucks loaded with
broken concrete dumped where we wanted it and leveled for nothing. Saved the
contractor a 30 mile one way trip to dump the stuff.


You know what that say about "location, location, location"..

I had an estimate for rock for an erosion problem 2-5 ton loads with
leveling was $2000 US... I couldn't imagine how much you saved...