As thrilling as it is to build a new custom home,  there are some elements of the process that rate pretty low on the “excitement” meter. It’s natural to want to spend energy and time focusing on decisions that excite you, and in turn gloss over some of  the not-so-exciting things.

The location and layout of your driveway and culverts are decisions that fall into the not-so-exciting category, but nonetheless, are very important to spend time thinking through.

A little pre-planning can go a long way in ensuring that your driveway works in proper relation to your home and lot. A rushed decision may prove unwise and might only become apparent once the house is in place, leaving you with few options to correct the error.

If you are working with a basic rectangular lot, your driveway placement will be fairly straightforward; however, if your lot is an unusual shape, or has radius curves, rather than straight lot lines, then the placement might be a little more tricky and could involve more thoughtful planning.

Culverts are drainage pipes that are placed under the driveways if your driveway goes over a drainage swale. If you have to install culverts to access the lot, then it becomes critical to determine your driveway layout up front.

Once the culvert goes into place, you will have to live with it. Once the dirt on top of the culvert is compacted it will be covered with a layer of crushed recycled asphalt to strengthen the surface.  The ends of the metal culverts will then be formed to receive concrete bibs, and finally the sides of the sloped dirt will be sodded.

For simple a rectangular lot, where the driveway fits perpendicular to the road, determining the placement of your culvert is fairly simple. First determine the center point of your driveway, and then place the center point of your culvert in that spot.

Easy and done.

However, on more complicated lots that have radius lot lines and complicated driveways, the placement of the culverts become very important.

Here are a couple things to consider:

Have your site plan finalized prior to the placement of your culverts. On the site plan, you want to have made the final determination for the location of the house, how the driveway will be laid out, where the drive will start on the road, how the driveway apron will be configured, and any other factors that will play a part, such as trees, retention ponds, etc.

To create the layout and locations of the driveway on the site plan, you will have already mapped out these locations on site using stakes and landscape spray paint. On site you will determine where the driveway should start on the road and how it will then work its way to the house.

With this information, and with the layout information we discussed in the “Lot Layout” blog, your surveyor can then create your site plan.

Then, prior to your site contractor arriving on site to place the culverts, you will want to place landscape stakes that show the center point of the driveway so the center point of the culvert can be located correctly.

If the driveway comes off of the road at an angle it will be important to place at least 3 center point stakes to ensure your site contractor will clearly see how the driveway will be located. If possible, ask your site contractor to tell you when the culverts are delivered on site so you can confirm they have placed them correctly prior to them being covered with dirt.

Once the culverts have been delivered, you will want to confirm the culvert location so that adjustments can be made now.

The first thing you will want to do is find the center point of the culvert itself and spray paint a line directly on to the culvert. Next, you will determine where the correct center point of the culvert should actually be on the ground where the culvert is located and place another spray paint marks on that location. Finally, you paint arrows on to the ground indicating how the culvert needs to be shifted. With this information your grading contractor will clearly know what needs to be done in order to finish the culvert work.

Building a new custom home can be fun, or it can be frustrating. Trying to think through not-so-fun details up front will go a long way to ensure your process stays in the “fun zone.”

Please visit our About Us page to learn more about Charter Bay and see why we think we are a different kind of custom home builder.