What would a 1.3 gradient to back garden mean?

[Dorothyislost]

We're currently looking at a new build house with a back garden gradient of 1.3 sloping towards the house.

Google has been incredibly unhelpful, could anyone shed some light on exactly how sloped the garden would be? Ideally we'd want a flat garden for the children to play! Tia!

Very steep - means for every three metres long, it slopes up for 1 metre.

That's a very long way from being flat.

You could have a go at skiing on that gradient!

Have a look at the ramp pictures on this site :theamcm.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/ramps-slopes-gradients-inclines-and-levels/

Even the 1 in 6 gradient looks pretty steep to me. 1 in 3 would not make a great garden for kids.

How amazing would it be for sledging in the winter though?!

I've emailed them for confirmation, surely that can't be right.

Does anyone know if it'd be able to be levelled to a much lesser slope? Assuming the builders won't be interested in doing that so if we went ahead it'd be down to us.

The agent has just replied and said its a 1 in 10, so slopes 1m for every 10m?

Assuming that'd be easier to level? Really need it as flat as possible! Sorry for the misunderstanding, can you tell I'm a ftb 

@reallybadidea

Anything is possible - yes a very steep bank could be levelled but it could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to hold the earth back. Clarify whether that slope is exactly as described. However, the very fact they've had to mention it at all indicates that there's more of a slope than would be expected on the average home.

@PolkerrisBeach we asked to see all the plans of the house and surrounding area so it wasn't mentioned until we reserved and went over the paperwork.

1 in 10 isn't nearly as bad - why does it have to be absolutely level?

I'd also be concerned about water run off

How long is your back garden? Remember to think about how much higher the end of the garden will be in relation to the bit by the house...... Also remember that the rain has to go somewhere at the bottom of the slope.......

The garden could be terraced to provide more than one tier of level ground if you wanted. It would need some sort of retaining walls for the tiers and you could expect run off of water so adequate drainage for surface water would be needed.

The back is about 10m long. It doesn't need to be perfectly level but enough for a big climbing frame/slide set that is about 6m long and the children love to play football so I just want it to be good for them.

Our garden right now has a slight slope and we had drainage issues so don't really want that added expense in the new house. Think I'm just being picky. It'll be our last move so I want it to tick all our boxes. If we built a small retaining wall to the patio we could level the garden that way I'd assume.

Thank you so much for the replies

I live on a downward facing slope. I would not choose a garden that sloped steeply towards the house due to potential drainage issues.

The houses backing on to me all have gardens sloping down towards the house and most of them have dug out and built u-shaped retaining walls about 1 m in from the boundary fences and the planted up the ‘high’ bits and grassed/decked/astroturfed the flat bit.

To level it at a single point will require a retaining wall. They are mega expensive and should be designed to cope with the weight of a sodden garden behind them. You cannot just pop one up. Are the builders capable of doing this as an extra? Although I'm not sure I would trust them to design a retaining wall!!! Usually you require a structural engineer's drawings and calcs for this.

However, you could level it in smaller steps, say 3m at a time, depending on the width of the garden this might accommodate the slide. Smaller steps might be retainable by railway sleepers. You will definitely need to consider drainage because it will naturally drain towards the house and out through the retaining wall. So you could have a wet patio or lower lawn. To have a higher lawn held up by a retaining wall and lower patio, you will need to move a lot of earth. Again, this is expensive.

Also, what is under the slope? If it is builders rubble - that is a big problem. Doing this amount of work in the garden will be expensive unless you can do the work to the required designs.

Make yourself a model with cardboard. A 1m section will be 10cm higher at one end give or take if it's a consistent rise of 1m over 10m as indicated. What does that look like to you? Are you happy with it? If not is there access for machinery to the garden if you wanted to terrace and can you get estimates? Moving earth is hard and doing it safely can be expensive because the consequences of getting it wrong are serious.

If this is a new build, then you can bet that the gradient has been helped with loads of dumped rubble and cement then skimmed with topsoil so they can lay turf. My friend had this issue on her new build which she bought off plan. couldn't grow any veg or plant any trees, as the soil finished at a spit level below the grass line. the grass looked awful in places. They contacted a garden landscaper when they moved in as they had a 1 in 10 slope they wanted to terrace. It proved too expensive an option.They sold it 3years later.

I used to have a garden with a similar slope. It was useless really, I wouldn't buy a house like that again.

Thanks so much for the replies. It is a new build, it's perfect in every way for what we need bar the garden. It's not finished yet but there would be no access for machinery around the back. We've reserved the plot and have a part ex in place when we are ready to sign away but nothing further until the end of the week so I need to get a plan together soon.

I'm not happy with the slope, at all. Our current garden has a sleeper along the back creating a long raised bed, I was wondering if that would work in this case, so say 50cm high and rest levelled out so it's only half the gradient it's due to be? We have a friend who is a stone mason and know a landscape gardener so I'll have to speak to them at some point.

Do you think I'd have a chance of getting the developer to level it? We are one of the last plots and have gotten a great deal with everything we've asked for and as we haven't signed yet I could have some leeway to ask I guess.

get that massive difference in what the slope actually is written into the contract, not just 'the agent said'.

and yes, get it flattened before the house is built as with no rear access you'll have fun doing it afterwards.

how much sun will this place get at the bottom of the slope?