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Posted by marson on August 8, 2007, 10:59 pm
>
>
> > My wife and I are at the very beginning stage of planning and building
> > a new home. We're in the "driving around and looking at land" stage.
> > The problem we're having is trying to ballpark the site prep costs.
> > It's obvious that the prep cost for a flat, former corn field will be
> > less than that of a hilly, rocky, heavily wooded site, but how do we
> > figure out roughly what the cost will be. What we'd like to be able
> > to do at this point is look at a piece of property and be able to say
> > "this piece of land costs $x and the site prep will cost between $y
> > and $z on top of that". Any estimating tricks would be appreciated.
>
> > Thanks.
>
> 2 of my sons prepped about a 1/2 an acre of hilly, rocky, mildly wooded
> area. Took them about 2 months on weekends only. This was for my homesite
> on 5 acres of land. Shortly afterwards, I retired from the Navy. Spent
> another week doing more prep work on the land for the homesite. I rented a
> tractor one day to pull some stumps as well. Guesstimate local wages, plus
> contractor fee for all that at minimum. We worked sunup to sundown.
>
> Its going to cost you more for a rock saw to cut for plumbing/underground
> wiring than just a simple trencher. Takes alot more time to do. Teeth may
> need replacing along the way. The septic tank and leach field need to be
> downhill from the house, even if a pump is used. The prevailing wind should
> not be driving any potential leak stench from that to the house. If the
> ground has terrible percolation rate, you may need an above ground leach
> field. They have to bring in all the soil for that. Cost is about double
> the normal leach field install. Makes a nice putting green.
>
> If the area is hilly and rocky, and you want some kind of lawn, you'll have
> to do some mods. You may need to build one or more rock walls for retaining
> soil. And, bring in the soil. 6" depth minimum.
>
> Putting up fence posts on rocky ground ain't no picnic.
>
> Nice thing about hilly areas that are generally rocky, no standing water
> problems...
> Dave
Just what do you mean by site prep? To me, it means cutting the trees
and grubbing the stumps which is pretty small potatoes compared to the
cost of the whole job. If you mean utilities, a road, basement, etc,
then it's going to vary widely as others have pointed out. Where I
live, excavation/site prep can go to 50 grand and up for a long
driveway, possible bedrock, etc and a difficult site down to 10 grand
for prepping a slab on grade on a city lot (both numbers include
hooking up to city utilities---well and septic can add even more
money). You might try calling a local excavator to find one who will
tell you what you are up against.
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