Site Clearing for our new Kit Home

	Our process for site clearing for our new kit home was actually very simple. Since the building pad was already leveled, all we needed to do was clear off a garbage pile from the building pad.
	We did, however, have a lot of site clearing to do around the edges of our kit home building site. Ceanothus, or Wild Lilac, grows like a weed in our area. Clearing this brush not only opened up the view from our building site, it minimized our risk for fire hazard.
	We also had several Gray Pines that needed to be cleared. Loren was able to clear these himself, and it went a long way toward opening up our views. There are several Black Oak trees on the property, and we really wanted to emphasize them.

Locating your Building Site

With your site plan in hand, be sure that you choose a building pad that avoids encroaching on another person's property or on public easements. It's also a good idea to know where you will be connecting to utilites. If you are unsure of these items and want to be extra safe, you can always hire a surveyor to locate the house on your site plan and install corner stakes for you.

Some factors to consider when choosing the location of your building pad:

• Set-back limits for all sides of your lot according to your local regulations
• Orientation of the house to any fixed reference line (such as a street or view) or for solar orientation
• Lot drainage: if you are going to alter the natural drainage of your lot, be sure that you are not directing water onto someone else's property
• Evaluate your chosen site according to what type of foundation you will be using, i.e. slab, crawl space or basement ~ often times the site itself will determine the foundation type

It's a good idea to put stakes at the major corners of the house, not only to help you visualize how the house will look, but also for talking to your excavation and foundation contractors.

If you haven't actually purchased your land yet and are considering a panelized kit home, you may find it helpful to print out your floor plan(s) of choice and take them with you when you are land hunting. This makes it a lot easier to visualize how the house would fit on a particular lot, and what the view would be out the windows of the house. Finding the right combination of kit home and land from the outset is far less expensive than trying to modify a home to suit the views (or hide them) later.

Breaking Ground

Here you will have some opportunites to save money by removing trees, shrubs and debris yourself. But don't forget that your excavation contractor will be able to clear things up much faster with a dozer or backhoe than you can with elbow grease!

Excavation contractors are usually paid by the hour and the rates can vary according to the type of equipment used (larger equipment = higher cost). One great way to save money here is to be prepared. Know the location of underground utilites, hazards, etc. so that you aren't paying your excavator for extra hours trying to figure this out when they're supposed to be digging.

Here's a rough outline of the steps for preparing your site:

• Choose building pad location
• Mark corners of the house
• Determine what work you will complete yourself
• Mark areas to be cleared by the excavation contractor
• Mark trees to be saved
• Mark areas to be leveled or contoured
• Conduct excavation bidding process according to these specifications
• Site Clearing
• Inspect your site ~ have all stumps and debris hauled away and make sure the dimensions of cleared areas are correct before your excavator leaves the site

It's a good idea to be present when the site is actually being cleared in case there are any questions. Remember, you're paying by the hour!

Back to Kit Home Site Preparation Overview page
Forward to Water & Sewer connections page