In This Post:
– How to Build a Mountain Home?
– Advantages of a Mountain Home
– Tips to Construct a House on a Hilltop
People who invest in cities like Islamabad, dream of owning a mountain home with beautiful panoramic views of the city’s skyline. A grass-covered hillside makes a picturesque setting for your dream home. However, bringing that picture to life is quite difficult. There are quite a few pre-construction tasks you must carry out before laying the first brick. For your convenience, we have laid down some tips to construct a house on a mountain slope along with some important considerations that you should keep in mind while building your abode on a hilltop.
So, let’s check them out.
How to Build a House on a Mountain?
If you are wondering what are the steps to building a home in the mountains, then you have landed onto the right page. The first step is laying the foundation of the house which can be done in two ways. Either you go for the common method of leveling the ground and filling it up with earth and then laying the foundation of your residential unit or use the support of wood and steel columns on which your house can be perched.
When filling the earth, the soil required can be brought in to fill the plot and level it. You need soil to fill the earth and level it but in some cases it needs to be dug out from the slope which is later used as retaining wall. Either through earth filling or blasting rocks to truck out soil from the slope, you need a higher budget to construct a house on sloped land.
Before we begin to tell you some tips to construct a house on a mountain slope, let us discuss some benefits of investing in a mountain home.
Advantages of Building a Mountain Home
Here are some top reasons for buying a house on sloped land.
- Beautiful views – Enjoy stunning views of the green meadows, rugged cone-shaped mountains, woody forests, wild flowers and clear blue skies from your living room. Living close to nature has a soothing and calming effect on your mind and soul.
- Natural lighting – When making a house plan, enjoy mountain views through the windows. Houses situated on the hillside are meant to maximize views and natural sunlight – a prized feature that has multiple health benefits such as higher productivity, better sleep and good mood.
- Landscaping – The main attractive feature of having a house on a hilltop is the inclined surface and beautiful landscaping. Tall trees, chirping birds and fluttering butterflies are some of nature’s gifts that you can enjoy at your leisure.
- More space – A major appeal of owning a mountain home is that it is less crowded. Unlike a house in an urban setting, where you will find buzzing marketplaces and houses up close, there is peace and tranquility living in a mountain home.
- Privacy – A less crowded space means more privacy. Building a house on a mountain top allows you to select a location off the beaten path.
Tips to Construct a House on a Mountain Slope
Some of the biggest challenges of building a house on a hilly area is whether it is upslope or downslope and the gradient of the slope. A 10% incline is ideal, while an 11 to 15% is considered moderate, but anything above 20% is quite steep and more expensive to build on. An upslope plot requires blasting of rocks and disposing of extra soil and rock to construct the foundation. This is more expensive than a house built on a downward slope.
Here are some important tips to build a house on sloped land.
- Building the foundation
- Stepwise construction
- Water drainage and seepage
- Type of soil
- Access to the house
- Attaining the natural look
- Plan your landscaping
Let us discuss these in detail.
Building the foundation
The most challenging and difficult task of building a house on a mountain is its foundation. Most of your budget would be spent on laying down complex foundation systems that work well on a 10 to even 50% gradient slope. The cost in establishing the foundation layer of a mountain home is more than an entire house constructed on a flat surface.
Even if the construction site is moderately sloped, it still requires deeper excavation through specialised rock blasting, more concrete, terraces, deep boring and specialised solutions for drainage systems.
Stepwise construction
You must keep a rough estimate of the cost that will be incurred on blasting of the rocks and in step-wise construction as usually due to the slope of the mountain, you need to level out the surface first. Because of this, homeowners think of having a basement to utilise the difficult construction site at maximum.
Water drainage and seepage
If you have seen mudslides, you would know how important it is to have a proper solution for drainage of surface and sub-surface water when building on a mountain slope. Rainwater needs to be directed away from your home’s foundation. Retaining walls must be waterproofed and drained well. There should be no water pooling near the retaining wall.
If you are planning to have a basement that will be located below the water table, water leaking through the sub surface can become a problem.
If the sewage line is uphill, you must install a pump, but if it is downhill, then you need to have blocks to slow down the flow of water at a considerably reasonable rate.
Type of soil
If you don’t choose the right kind of soil, it can cause a big problem for home builders. Gravel, sand and silt are the ideal soil types that drain well and can bear high loads, but soil with clay can damage the home’s foundation as it can swell up when wet. They usually require additional engineering fixes.
Access to the house
Access to the construction site is an important consideration for both homeowners and the contractors and labourers. Remember to calculate the cost for transporting construction materials up the hill. The truck driver and the labourers would charge an extra amount for this.
Attaining the natural look
When constructing, trucks carrying the construction material come and go damaging the construction site, having a negative effect on the natural beauty of the site. The plants and lush green grass around your newly built property wear a neglected look. It will take some time to get back to the original beauty. Replant cultivated plants and wait for the natural plants to grow on their own. You will have to spend some money on replenishing the construction site.
Plan your landscaping
Sloped land has a lot of exciting possibilities. Unlike front yards on a flat surface, a garden on an inclined surface has a natural landscape. Choose plants that can survive on an inclined surface. Plants on the sloped property can reduce erosion and prevent weeds. A flowing waterfall and a rock garden can spruce up the sloped yard.
So, these were some important points to consider before building a house on a hilly slope. If you already have a mountain home, then do share your experience by dropping us a message at blog@zameen.com and we will surely get back to you. You should also read our comprehensive detailed guides on construction cost to build a 5 marla, 10 marla and 1 kanal grey structure before laying the foundation of your unit. Subscribe to the Zameen Newsletter appearing on the right hand side of the page. Stay tuned to Zameen Blog, the best real estate blog in Pakistan.
