Good morning,
I have attached a sketch of a section running through the offset/ single car portion of the garage. At 840 there is a 9 foot drop. I drew three viable options: a terraced solution, a fill that achieves a 3:1 slope and a fill that captures the native grade but with 6ft of fill. Let's discuss what we can do. The three foot increase to the FFE of the entire house will affect how we get down to grade with the backyard, or we will need to find another solution.
Robert
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Tim, Robert, great discussions yesterday on the phone. Happy with the decision to move forward with the single drive. Spoke with Jim and let him know our plan. He said he should have a driveway sketch for us to review by early next week. Thanks, --jeff
Ok understood. We do need to raise the entire house 3 feet but here are some ideas I think could help with the amount of fill.
1) What if we combined the step downs in the gallery into just one step down of 6 steps from outside the guest bath to the gallery and we eliminate the stairs from the gallery to the entryway. This would allow us to lower the FFE of the courtyard by almost 2 feet. So the gallery and arcade would be the same FFE. The 2 sets of stairs are probably more elegant but we feel its a good trade off to allow for the circular drive.
2) I know we all discussed the need/desire for the courtyard to be at same (or I think 6 inches lower FFE as the gallery per Tim's site plan) but we can compromise and have the courtyard lowered 2 feet or so if it helps.
So potentially we could lower the FFE of the courtyard by around 4 feet? We talked about the potential to have the courtyard eventually part of the house as a parlor or living room and I'm not sure the implications of lowering it for future conversion into parlor/living room but Christine and I would favor losing that option if it helps us get the circular drive and easier backyard terracing. The open space and views from the courtyard are so amazing Christine and I would not be the ones to ever change it.
Let me know what you guys thinks, thanks-- jeff
Hi Jeff,
I was just illustrating the drastic change in elevation and the amount required to fill. I can design it to fit your needs, I just wanted to show the difference before I went in and fully designed it and have a discussion about this move. This is a point in time where it might be beneficial discuss/ explore the FFE of each area in the house again as the previous step downs reflected cutting into the hill. Does the entire house need to be raised 3ft or just portions of it? If we are all on board I will redesign the backyard to fit this move.
Thank you Robert. I'm not sure how this section illustrates the keyway strategy though. I dont see any fill. I think Crystal will look at this and reject it because it looks like we just raised the house 3 feet and now we have 10 feet of "space" under the house.
I was hoping to raise the pool deck 3 feet and put it on fill. I know it will be more expensive but it is worth it to have the driveway and have the terraces higher up from the neighbors lot. We could also make the pool 3 feet deeper to help stabilize the hillside (i.e. keep some of it below grade).
Attached is the section running through the impluvium, gallery and courtyard. As requested I made the courtyard the same elevation as the gallery. I overlaid the 3 ft raised FFE over the original to illustrate the difference between the two. We will have a maximum +/- 10 foot difference between the FFE of the courtyard and native grade with this option.
2017-01-16_Impluvium_Section1.pdf
Jeff McDavit said:
Sounds good, do you think we should color in the fill brown so its more clear for Crystal to understand? She might think the "space" under the garage is air but its really fill.
Again - NIce Job Robert. Maybe e-mail Crystal this on Tuesday (since tomorrow is MLK day). She went over the driveway situation with Jim Diggins so hopefully we can get a resolution to this. If you can modify one or more of your sections cutting through the house showing how additional fill will be distributed. If David and Crystal don't like this fill option then we'll probably have to go with a single curb cut (non-circular) drive and set the garages per my site plan (which we know they are happy with).
Hi Robert, great sections here! Christine and I would prefer the green line which looks like a 4 foot step down and then native slope over 6 feet of fill. Our second choice would be the 4 foot terracing step down.
I was wondering if we do the green option, could we put the backyard spaces on fill as well or do they absolutely need to be on grade?
For example, could we put the BBQ area on 3 feet of fill and make it at 833 instead of 830 and do the pool area at 826 on fill instead of 823?
Thanks-- jeff