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onthebrinck

How to approach a large yard grading project?

onthebrinck
5 years ago

On behalf of my daughter, I want to hire a contractor to regrade her backyard. How do you go about finding the right professional and laying out a contract to do the right work? The backyard is an irregular area of about 125'x125' comprised of a new 15'x50' deck at the house and about 20' beyond that a new, enormous 50'x50' pool. The land grades down about 5' from the house to a narrow state-owned wetland behind used as a culvert and not environmentally 'over'-protected. Three major problems were created by the deck and pool construction. 1) there is no diversion under the deck to prevent rainwater there from flowing out and on to the 20' of patio beyond. So, as a result soil and mulch is often pushed out onto the cement pavers in any above-average rainfall. 2) Since the pool is level, the surrounding paving area and grass beyond had to be elevated. This grass area is not graded significantly to prevent rainwater from ponding and from eventually pushing mulch and dirt into the pool itself. 3) And this may be part of 2): the pool contractor used the clay soil from digging the pool as the base for the surrounding area which is now easily 75% of the remaining 'lawn' (he added about 1-2" of topsoil for grass.) This clay base is virtually impenetrable. It took all of my strength to literally scrape a planting hole 16"x16"x16". I think this is aggravating the drainage problem since I can't imagine rain water easily (if ever) soaking through the clay. There can be 2-3" of standing water even 12 hours after a rainstorm. I'd like to frame the contract to handle drainage and regrading, and an add-alternate to add 6-8" of topsoil to the new graded lawn.

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