building a home on a very steep hill?

Factual Questions
1

Snuggle Bear and I where given 3 acres of land out in the middle of no where. We are putting an A-frame home out there but keep running up against the same wall. The land is on a very steep hill for one. Plus we can’t get the land logged off. The man that owns the land behind ours will not let the loggers use his land to log ours. Logging it would do a few things it would give us about $5000 to start building, it would keep trees from falling off into the road, and it would give us a yard. What we are wondering is if any of you have any hints clues or anything else that would help us in learning how to build a house on a very steep hill. Snuggle Bear my father my brother and myself are going to be doing most of the work. If you know of any helpful web sites or any hints you have from building your own home that would be helpful please let us know.

2

Where to start…

  1. Lawyer to get an easement for loggers.

  2. Where are you going to get:
    water
    sewer
    electricity

  3. What are the zoning laws for this lot? Some jurisdictions will require plans approved by an architect and/or engineer.

  4. What is the soil type?

  5. You will wand a level pad for the house - either scrape off part of the hill, or sink pilings to create a level surface.

none of this is cheap.

(and you REALLY want to think before using a well and a septic system on a slope :slight_smile: )

3

Thanks for the tips.

Water has to be well or spring.
Sewer has to be septic.
electricity is the easy part we can run lines from one of two places.

Hadn’t thought about getting an easement from a lawyer for the loggers… the land really needs to be logged. :slight_smile:

There are no zoning laws. We dont even have to go by code or have a building prement. We will have a building prement and go by code much safer to do it that way. (its in the back woods I have looked in to this b\c my parents are building out in the same valley.)

Working on getting it perked right now. There is a level part in a flied next to us that we can use for septic lines and the like there.
I think when my father talked it out with Snuggle Bear the came up with it needing to be 8 feet of brick to make the level pad for the house. there is not scraping off b\c under the soil its many feet of rock until you get to the under ground lake.

No it wont be cheap.

There isn’t city water out here or city anything for that matter. there wasn’t power until the early 70’s

4

If you’re on a slope, a septic bed may be awkward. Do it the easy way: get a composting toilet for the human waste, and use the greywater from your sinks and showers to irrigate gardens. Greywater is amazing fertilizer: my friends’ gardens look like jungles.

5

I used to have people ask me this sort of question all the time when I was a planner in Colorado.

Fortunately, I had a good answer … some advice that one of the county commissioners wrote.