A fenceman can fence anything, almost....

[RickS]

Wow!!! I would love to see this in action. Would not want to pay for it though. Of course, if you can afford that house and an "engineered" hill, this is chicken feed.

Thanks for the pics. Your work is inspiring.

 

[scott_vt]

Hey Harv,
That railing better be a GOOD one

 

[rox]

Harv,

Why did they build an engineered hill like that? It seems so impractical.
I am curious why they did it, what was the purpose?

 

[Renze]

Harv,

Why did they build an engineered hill like that? It seems so impractical.
I am curious why they did it, what was the purpose?

In the Netherlands in former years, they buried their deads in artificial hills... anyways i wouldnt want a house on one of those !!!

 

[LeadPoison]

In the Netherlands in former years, they buried their deads in artificial hills... anyways i wouldnt want a house on one of those !!!

Same with the Native Americans along the southern section of the Mississippi River. Lousiana State University is covered with them.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harv,

Why did they build an engineered hill like that? It seems so impractical.
I am curious why they did it, what was the purpose?

There is only so much available lake front property available. As that amount has shrunken existing property's values have skyrocketed and lots that were impractical to develop have become economically viable.

This lot was an example of that. Here's the way it happened as I understand it.

Originally it was a gully with no room for building a home. Fill dirt was brought in and a building pad was developed. The house was built.

There were problems with a spring under the new home and the view from the back porch was cliff like. The water issues were fixed and the engineered hill was made to enable the back yard to have a swimming pool installed.

The smaller lots with big homes, lakeview but no lake frontage, are a million plus in value.

 

[RonR]

I'm sure the Engineers can cipher it correctly, but my common sense tells me NOT to build a house on fill. Someday, it is gonna settle and crack.

I'm sure technology is better now, but in the late 1960's, our school district built a new consolidated school over an old city dump. It wasn't 10 yrs before they started having settling issues and cracked brick walls. Took a lot of redo and sinking concrete piers to try to shore it up. To my knowledge, it's still cracking in different sports.

No thanks, I wouldn't want it.

Your steps looks fabulous though!

ron

 

[EddieWalker]

Ron,

It's extremely rare to have a house or just about any building that's not built on some amount of fill. If it's done right, there's rarely a problem. Of course, even the very best engineers and builders have been known to make a mistake or are lied to about what's been done to the ground.

Eddie

 

[Renze]

RonR, over here in Holland, in our river delta country, there are lots of old river arms with bog underneath.
The first serious bog is miles away from here, we live on the driest desert sand possible. Anyways a guy building a house 3 km away from here, hit an old river arm and had to put 9 meter concrete poles into a solid sand layer under the bog, to get enough foundation for an extra room against his house...
It was only a matter of a few meters away, before the subsoil turned soild again.

What also happens is that they put houses in bog areas on poles... then they alter the level of surface water (draining the ditches, cities require a lower water table than grasslands) and the peat sponge starts to shrink... it has happened in the 50's that the soil sank 1,5 meter after a house was built in a newly drained wetland..

 

[rox]

Eddie,
I have never really heard of a house being built on top of fill. In Wisconsin nobody does that. We dig basements so there is never any fill, we dig out dirt not add in dirt. Nobody in Wisconsin would ever build on filled land. Must be different in different parts fo the country where you don't build basements. My daughter bought a home in Hampton Virgina a year ago. It was quite a different experience to be in a home without a basement. Unless there were water table issues I would always want a basement, I guess you always want what you grew up with.