Today, suburban construction is developing with increasing intensity, this issue is becoming relevant, as is the acquisition of land for the construction of cottages or summer houses. But often it turns out that with insufficient study of the terrain, the owners are faced with a problem, which is expressed in the location of the site on two levels. This can lead to problems in the construction of facilities and the arrangement of the territory. However, it is possible to deal with such a nuisance, and before starting work it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the most popular methods for solving the problem.
Varieties of sites
Before you fill the site for construction, you need to familiarize yourself with the main types of sites, they may differ in geological features and topography. Among them are the following:
- plots above sea level;
- plots below sea level;
- areas below ground level;
- areas above ground level.
When it comes to sites that are located above sea level, you should remember that in front of you is a territory that is located in a mountainous area or on a hill. This causes a greater amount of precipitation and a low average annual temperature. Soils in these cases are podzolic, sandy, or clayey, but sometimes podzolic chernozems or carbonate soils can be found. The relief of such a site is flat or hilly. In the latter case, there is no way to do without lifting, while noticeable cavities have to be eliminated.
Features of work in the area below sea level
Before raising the level of the site, you must determine what territory you are on. It can be located below sea level and is characterized by significant swampiness. In some cases, salt marshes form on the territory, but silty and fertile soils are not so rare. For this reason, experts do not recommend immediately abandoning the acquisition of such a territory, however, raising the level should be done to exclude flooding of the foundation of buildings and to provide suitable conditions for growing garden and horticultural crops.
Features of work in the area below the ground
Before you pick up the site with your own hands, you should examine it. It may be located below ground level. The rise in this case is mandatory, since the territory is in a lowland, and water from neighboring sections will flow into it. You may experience soil leaching and reduced building life. A high level of groundwater can have a detrimental effect. It also happens that the land is located above ground level. Such territories, at first glance, are devoid of flaws, but the uneven terrain can create difficulties in cultivating the soil and in caring for the garden. Among other things, moving around such a territory is quite problematic. Raising the level of the site here is required to smooth out irregularities.
The need to raise the territory
Before you raise a plot in the country, you should familiarize yourself with the factors that indicate the need for such work. If the difference in levels is not so pronounced, then you may have a desire to save money by doing upgrades without raising the level. But there are several cases where experts advise you to think about these manipulations. Among them, one should highlight the close location of groundwater, the presence of pronounced hollows and hills, the location of neighboring sections is much higher.
If groundwater lies close to the surface, this can cause swamping, and the top layer is usually eroded. If on the territory there are hollows and elevations, then construction can be difficult, this also applies to the improvement of the territory, for example, to the installation of lamps, planting flowers or vegetable crops. If neighboring areas are higher, then this will mean that heavy rains and floods have caused regular stagnation of water.
Ways to solve the problem
If you are thinking about how to raise a plot in the country, then you should consider the most popular ways of carrying out such work. In practice, it turns out that there are not many such technologies, however, all of them have proven themselves from the best side. Their difference lies in the fact that the method is selected depending on the height by which it is necessary to raise the territory. If the indicator is not more than 30 cm, then it is best to use taken from the hills or imported land. Additional compaction is carried out by a vibrating plate, and a previously extracted fertile soil layer is laid on top.
If the above parameter exceeds 30 cm, then it is best to use planning mixtures, which are prepared by combining gravel with sand. It is necessary to lay the material in layers between which fertilizers are placed, on top is a fertile soil layer, without which the cultivation of plants will be impossible. Before you raise a plot in the country, you should think about whether there will be a lawn on it. In this case, the situation should be approached with special attention. If there is water on the lawn, then before raising the soil you need to make sure that there is no clay layer inside. Otherwise, the operation will not achieve a positive result, even if the groundwater is deep.
If you are convinced of the presence of clay, then you should get rid of it by replacing it with sand. The chernozem is laid on top, then the moisture will leave more efficiently. If the road passes above the territory where the lawn is located, and this becomes the reason for the flooding of the site, it is best to raise the level with the help of porous soil. They can make river sand.
Erosion solution
In order to prevent erosion of the soil, the lawn is fenced with a concrete fence, the height of which is a limit of 3 to 4 cm. But the depth of installation of this design in the soil should not exceed 20 cm. If you determine that groundwater lies at a depth ranging from 1 to 2 m, you should take care of the presence of a drainage system. In addition, a sand or earth layer is covered in the area where the lawn is planted.
Preparatory work
If you will be filling the site, then at the first stage it is necessary to carry out preparatory work. To do this, the topography of the territory should be well studied, which will determine the type of soil and the depth of groundwater. It is also important to know how close the ponds are. It is useful to observe neighboring areas, they can dig pits for the foundation of the house, lay drainage systems or dig holes for fence posts. This way you can determine the depth where the water is in the well. It is important to know in which direction water flows, and where it stagnates and forms a marshland. After orienting yourself on the terrain, you should clean the area, saving it from the roots of trees, weeds and debris. It is advisable to allow the soil to settle for a week, but this is true if the weather is dry.
Tool preparation
If you are thinking about how to raise a plot in the country, then the next step is to prepare the tools, among them:
- shovels;
- hose;
- buckets;
- crushed stone;
- gravel;
- vibrating plate;
- yardstick;
- cord;
- rake;
- sand;
- water;
- cement;
- hydrostatic level;
- concrete mixer.
And in order to turn the territory into a flat surface, which has a slight slope of 3 cm per meter, you need to perform the following operations. First, the fertile layer is removed, at the same time, it is necessary to deepen by a maximum of 20 cm. The soil is laid separately before the completion of work. If leveling is carried out locally, then wooden pegs should be installed across the zone along the perimeter, and a two-meter distance should be expressed between them. A cord is stretched between them, which will allow you to adjust the soil level by removing or adding soil between the pegs.
To ensure that the height is uniform, it is controlled using a level. The filling of the site should involve filling the depressions with suspension or clay. If the level differences are large enough, then construction waste can be placed in pits. Further actions will depend on the thickness of the layer that you want to add to raise the level. If the latter needs to be raised to a height of not more than 30 cm, then the earth is brought into the site and laid in layers, their thickness can vary from 5 to 10 cm.
After the completion of laying one layer, it is compacted with a vibrating plate, poured with water and left for 24 hours. Then you can start laying the next layer. The procedure is repeated until you reach the desired height. It is important to take into account the thickness of the previously removed layer, which returns to its place.
Specialist recommendations
The soil on the site is filled in the form of a sand-gravel mixture if the relief is far from a perfectly flat surface and the level difference is more than 30 cm. The algorithm remains the same, the layer thickness should be approximately 5 cm. It is recommended to lay fertilizers in the middle of each, which are a peat mixture. The layer, which consists of gravel and sand, is compacted and left for 24 hours. At the final stage, the height of the layers of the earth or mixture should be higher than the required level, this is due to the fact that the soil shrinks. Its period will depend on the amount of precipitation, layer thickness and many other factors.
Leveling large areas
A swampy area of a large area can be leveled using special equipment. At the first stage, the fertile layer is removed, high tubercles are cut off and hollows are filled up. With the help of a bulldozer it will be possible to level the territory with a complex relief, where there are streams, ravines and hills. The plot at the next stage is plowed twice, in this case it is necessary to move in the longitudinal and transverse directions, after that the area is cultivated by a cultivator, also twice. The next step will be compaction, for this a barrel of water is used. At the final stage, the seeds of lawn grass are sown , which are sprinkled with earth. You can also raise the site with sand using the same technology. Its surface is rolled again. Excellent results can be achieved thanks to the arrangement of the drainage system, it can exclude flooding of the site, for this, trenches are excavated along the perimeter, the slope of which should be about 4 cm per meter.
Why not use crushed stone
Although the site is filled with crushed stone, it is rather rare. This is due to the fact that this building material is relatively expensive. Its cost is about 3 times higher compared to sand and 5 times more expensive compared to construction waste. If we compare the cost with the prices of soil and black soil, then crushed stone will cost 2 times more expensive than any of these materials. Despite the fact that there are certain advantages when using crushed stone, most owners of suburban real estate prefer to use sand or soil.
Sand cost
Sand, the price of which is 250-380 rubles. per cubic meter, is also quite often used when dumping. However, it is not suitable for landscaping the site, this must be taken into account before starting work, because they will prove to be labor-intensive and voluminous, but subsequently they can become an obstacle to planting cultivated plants.
Conclusion
The territory can be filled not only with sand and soil, but also with wood chips and bark. In terms of originality, these materials are the best, but they can not always be called practical. If the whole area is covered with wood chips or bark, then this technology cannot be called correct. Sometimes soil is laid on top of the bark, but in this case, the bark may begin to rot, and inside the soil, these processes will go faster at all. In this case, the upper fertile layer will become suitable for planting only after a few years, when the bark completely decays in the layer. Therefore, these alternative solutions, like sand, whose price is quite high, can not always be called suitable.