Raising ground to the old level

[Bored Shopper]

Now that we're done drinking to celebrate the completion, time to get digging to get the garden landscaped.

The case:

- the new house sits a bit lower than the old one, so the original ground (with the construction debris cleared off) turns out to be a bit higher than the new patio, and visibly raises towards the bottom of the garden.

- we want the lawn with some planted borders.

- if we level the ground out at the existing level (eg lay turn flush with the patio or 1-2 cm lower) then it would require removing 2-3 bulk bags of extra soil from the raised end of the garden. Not ideal.

 

Would it be a good idea to build a low retainer (c. 30-40cm high) and have the bottom end of the garden raised a bit?

 

It seems permitted development rights allow raising the level to the max of 30cm against existing level. But in our case the top of these 30cm is already existing, we're just kinda formalising it. 

 

Any caveats I'm missing here?

 

Also, how to protect the side of the single-skin garage (blockwork + render) which would be c. 10cm below the raised area (we'll add a bit of topsoil on top there to allow turf).

 

The white curve on the photo is approx location of the retainer.

 

[ProDave]

The level shifts you are talking about I would not worry about PD or not, I would just do it.

 

Te the garage, take the retaining wall alongside the garage with a gap so you are not piling soil against the garage wall.

 

If you have building rubble that will need disposing of so get rid of that first and then determine final levels by what is needed to use up the soil.

[Bored Shopper]

We've already disposed of a few tonnes of rubble, but when forking up the soil for levelling keep coming across patches of gravel and gray base building sand from previous builds. Lift these and keep them for the retaining wall foundation (am sifting the soil through a vegetable basket, gives me screened topsoil to 10mm (facepalm))...

[Bored Shopper]

now, after 2.5t of walling Cotswolds stone and 6x days of manual labour in pissing rain, this is what I built.

 

(I.built.a.wall.Me.a.middle.age.admin.woman.zero.experience).

?

 

[joe90]

Very nice, Well done ?

Edited December 18, 2020 by joe90