Just bought 6 acre of land. Now what???

[paulsharvey]

We passed the tiny home lot yesterday. Prices started at $69k

I found a couple of used fifth wheel campers with a king-size bed and 3 slides for less than that with a quick online search last night

Guy down the road built a tiny house Styrofoam and stucco igglo. Probably 600 sq ft; now he has like 6 sheds; to keep his stuff in. Not sure the point of a tiny house if your going to turn around have to build that kinda storage to keep your stuff.

 

[Dftodd]

If you can talk the county into a swaled or ditch block style driveway, over a culvert, that will save some $$$$. I think a 40 ft 18" CMP with 4:1 cut miters is around $1800 for just the pipe. If you do have to do the culvert; go with 40 ft over 32 ft; you won't regret it down the road (unless they spec the length in the permit).

Swaled drive basically goes down to the flow line, following the existing grades/slopes; and allows free flow of water. If that creates a slope of greater then 10% down and then 10% back up; you'll drag trailer jacks or corvette noses. Only good with a hard surface drive (asphalt or concrete)

A ditch block drive has a minor low point at the center for water to flow after it stages up; but doesn't follow the contour of the ditch. This works well where there is very little flow, and good percolating soils. Only good with asphalt or concrete.

This all assumes there is somewhat of a swale on their road side; a typical paved road cross section. should be about 2-3% 'crown'; 4-10% grassed shoulder; 4:1 front slope; flow line/ditch invert; then 3:1 or less back slope to the ROW line. Dirt or gravel roads; might have more cross slope or none at all; and may or may not have a grassed shoulder at all; or even a shoulder that is higher then the edge of travel; from a lack of maintenance...

18"x20' pvc culvert is $460. 30ft is $680. County will install for free. I just have to provide the culvert

 

[Dftodd]

Guy down the road built a tiny house Styrofoam and stucco igglo. Probably 600 sq ft; now he has like 6 sheds; to keep his stuff in. Not sure the point of a tiny house if your going to turn around have to build that kinda storage to keep your stuff.

I can get two 16x40 sheds for $38,000. Pack them side by side. Add a common roof. And that will give us around 1280sqft but I could probably frame myself for about half.

 

[paulsharvey]

18"x20' pvc culvert is $460. 30ft is $680. County will install for free. I just have to provide the culvert

100% spend the money for the 30 ft. 20 ft sounds wide till you're tired, it's dark, and you're pulling a trailer.

Your county is Much easier to deal with than the ones around here.

 

[Dftodd]

100% spend the money for the 30 ft. 20 ft sounds wide till you're tired, it's dark, and you're pulling a trailer.

Your county is Much easier to deal with than the ones around here.

I went from a 10 to a 20ft at my old house. Had to add an extra 5ft to give me a little wiggle room when backing in the 30ft camper.

Part of my waiting for the call back from the county is I have truck loads of 18" poly HDPE pipe at the shop. It's twice as thick as the pvc culverts.

If I can have that installed, add a foot of gravel over it and could run over it with anything you could think of on wheels and it won't flex

Plus, it wouldn't cost me a dime for a 30ft stick and I could have my coworker kick it off the landall trailer on his way home

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Culvert over a swale any day. Nice and wide.

 

[Grumpycat]

When I had my current driveway doubled in width the contractor looked at me funny when I insisted on using (3) 8' 18" concrete culverts. "We only need 2!"

Nope, 2 downstream will exit 3' beyond the new edge of the driveway. Original builder used only 2 for the other half but upstream side is flush with the edge. No safety margin to put a wheel off.

Am so happy I did. I think one would have to be grossly excessive in the length of a culvert to regret the expense.

 

[paulsharvey]

When I had my current driveway doubled in width the contractor looked at me funny when I insisted on using (3) 8' 18" concrete culverts. "We only need 2!"

Nope, 2 downstream will exit 3' beyond the new edge of the driveway. Original builder used only 2 for the other half but upstream side is flush with the edge. No safety margin to put a wheel off.

Am so happy I did. I think one would have to be grossly excessive in the length of a culvert to regret the expense.

On a state Access (driveway) permit, for a residential; we would call for a poured mitered end section; 4:1 slope on that; then min 2 ft separation from the top back of that MES to the drive; for roughly 10-11 ft more pipe then the width of the 'throat' of the drive, on each side. Allows easier turning movements; safer; and allows you to turn off the road at a min of 10 mph. You shouldn't have to come to a stop in the road in order to make a right turn. The miters allow some over travel without something catastrophic, and also are allegedly safer in a crash than a head wall or plain pipe end. Minium total pipe for a 12 ft wide driveway throat (not the radius or flared part where it touches the road) would be 32 ft; more like 40 ft for a 16 ft wide drive.

I'm not saying to over build beyond what is required at all; just pointing out people frequently underestimate the length of pipe really needed; and 8 or 16 ft more of pipe is easier and cheaper the first time, then redoing it in the future.

 

[Dftodd]

When I had my current driveway doubled in width the contractor looked at me funny when I insisted on using (3) 8' 18" concrete culverts. "We only need 2!"

Nope, 2 downstream will exit 3' beyond the new edge of the driveway. Original builder used only 2 for the other half but upstream side is flush with the edge. No safety margin to put a wheel off.

Am so happy I did. I think one would have to be grossly excessive in the length of a culvert to regret the expense.

At our old house when we bought the place it had a 10ft culvert. It was tight pulling in with the truck.

Ditches were also 4ft deep

Culverts needed to be replaced, so I ordered a 36"x20ft culvert to replace it. I also formed it up afterwards and poured 10 yards of concrete over it I formed the up stream side of the ditch at an angle to basically shove the water into the culvert.

We had a crap load of water that came down that ditch. Plus the county in their infinite wisdom installed an 18" culvert down stream from us. Which created a dam and caused my driveway and the rental next door to be flooded after a good gully washer came through.

I got sick and tired of having to get stone to replace what was washed away each time it flooded so my wife could leave in her car.

After we bought the camper, I ended up extending the upstream side another 5ft to give me some wiggle room to back the camper into the driveway.

After that, I'm a firm believer to have a wider entrance than what I think I need for an entry to the property.

 

[Torvy]

I probably would have 'helped' the county by replacing their downstream mistake...or at least I would take a lot of pictures and push them to do it themselves.

Do you have grates over your culverts? I get concerned about long culverts and keeping them cleaned out.