Erosion and foundation shifts can change the grade around our home. Why is this a problem? Because our home’s grade is set to move water away from the home; if water is allowed to pool up around a home’s foundation, it can find its way inside. Grade can also get thrown off with the shift in a home’s foundation. Even new homes move over time, and these movement can cause change to the grade. Luckily, Rocky Mountain Compost is here to help with fill dirt.
How to Adjust the Grade
First, remove all the plants near the home’s foundation. If you want to keep any grass, make sure to cut it with a sod shovel and move it—keep sod watered if you plan to leave it for more than an hour or so. Place a stake in the ground at the home’s foundation and another stake ten feet further away. Grade should be determined in ten foot lengths and four foot widths, so continue the stakes every ten feet to your properties boundary, and then add new rows every four feet. Grade should fall away from the home’s foundation about six inches for the first ten feet. This should align the grade for the rest of the yard. If you are using a shovel, then use both a spade shovel to dig down into the soil, and a flat-nosed shovel—the kind of shovel you would have used to cut the sod—to scrape away layers to flatten the grade. If you have a large area for which you are resetting the grade, machinery such as a Bobcat might be a good option. To make the grade outside the general slop of the house, simply find the highest point in the yard—if the highest point is the lowest point in the home’s grade then set the grade to that level. To level the yard, run the stakes every ten feet and four feet apart, and stretch your line at the correct height. Low spots get filled in and high spots get leveled. Contact the experts at Rocky Mountain Compost today!
