Our builder is preparing to pour the foundation for our home and let us know that due to the slope of the lot the driveway is at too much of an incline to the garage. The proposed solution is to just lower the garage 2-3 feet so the driveway will be at a more appropriate slope.

Downsides to this are
1) My garages will now have to have steps in them to enter the house from since it will be significantly lower. This is significant to me as we both have elderly parents and will likely be dealing with 1 or more wheel chairs in the near future. We spent considerable effort to ensure we could accommodate our parents with a guest bedroom on the first floor and accessible bathroom etc.

2) Some minor aesthetic changes such as the walls being taller on the garages which I'm guessing won't be a huge deal but it's hard for me to tell.

I'm curious this boards thoughts on potential alternatives and the impact of the proposed solution. The builder did mention a retaining wall could be built to make the front of the lot higher but that would incur significant costs ($30k). Is just having a steep driveway a potential alternative? The driveway is a little over 40 feet long until it meets the plateau of the garages.

Could your parents not access through the front door if/when they were staying with you which I assume is on the same elevation as the first floor of the house? Or do you anticipate they will be living there long-term and parking in the garage.

I have a similar issue on my new build but much more extreme. Our house is about 4-5' above our detached garage/carport and connected by a breezeway that includes stairs. We had to build a retaining wall for that difference and the cost of a retaining wall is enormous so if money is tight I would try to figure out what alternatives would work without the cost of a retaining wall. We have a circle drive in the front of our house for guests or when we need to bring something into the house to avoid the stairs but we use the detached garage for everyday living.

My vote would be for the couple of steps inside the garage and have the driveway slope proper as you dont want to have a steep incline into the garage.

I don't have your accessibility concerns so having a lowered garage with a lesser incline on the driveway sounds like a win to me, especially if no added cost.

If your garage entry is not flush with the rest of the house, I would ask your builder about extending the front of the garage 3' or 4' and then building a ramp (or leave the option to build a ramp) for wheelchair access inside the garage. Added material cost should be fairly low at this point in the game.

Like this

How much are they dropping the garage? 40' seems like a lot of room to play with a a foot or two isn't going to change the pitch all that much.
I disagree with advice given above, no builder is going to want to mess with ramps due to significant liability reasons, handrails, etc.

Well, the Builder does have plans he bid & seen the site many times but wants to save self money, embellish profits soooo make YOU pay EXTRA for a solution already in Contract? I don't think so and think someone that can read a Contract might agree with me. Enough of that .... perhaps it's all Cost+ and no one thought far enough ahead.

One client agreed to a steep slope, imported dirt driveway in designs but then elected a step-down garage when tempted by its Game Room above it getting a higher ceiling (roof did not change) ... any wheelchairs must visit front door @ circle driveway height.

All of my wheelchair clients that still drive would
a) force the steep driveway then roll EZily into house from Garage, plenty of clearances ahead
b) allow a few steps in Garage so long as a 1:12 slope ramp was also provided to wheel selves up to landing flush with door to house

Austin area client in spec.house had a step down reif.conc foundation Den ... which leaked through the step down wall in heavy rains ... no rubber barrier on the dirt side. Spec.house of course.

Aggieland engineer self design/build went a bit underground with his reif.conc walls only to have them semi-implode due to expansive clay soils ... banks refused to loan on ANYthing underground for a decade or so.

I will always be an "a)" fan, no matter what it costs.

A retaining wall $30k is a no-go but earth berms are an alternate, given plenty of land to slope it (at 21%??? re: http://rb.gy/fwij7) and not erode away & begins with cut&fill free dirt, topped with soil that grows anti-erosion vege ... we are all blind to actual conditions but this reader is suspicious, as noted already.

Aggietaco said:

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I don't have your accessibility concerns so having a lowered garage with a lesser incline on the driveway sounds like a win to me, especially if no added cost.

If your garage entry is not flush with the rest of the house, I would ask your builder about extending the front of the garage 3' or 4' and then building a ramp (or leave the option to build a ramp) for wheelchair access inside the garage. Added material cost should be fairly low at this point in the game.

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I think OP's issue is that a ramp would need to be really long for a 2'-3' drop. ADA slope is 1/12 because that's the easiest slope for someone in a wheelchair to push themselves/be pushed up. That would be a 24'-36' ramp. Cut that to like 12'-18' and that's going to be a pretty steep incline.

If dealing with ramps, they are unsightly, but portable metal ones may be better.

Update: Well after some more due diligence the builder does not have concerns with the grade of the driveway so we won't need to lower the garage anymore. They strung a string from the street to the garage entrance and it looked like a pretty manageable slope to me (my rough calculations were a 10% grade over 50 feet).

Now are are onto figuring out how to hide the 4 foot slab reveal on the front of the house by either 1) bringing in more dirt to level the front yard out more 2) lowering the stone facade to cover some of the revealed slab which will make the walls appear higher or 3) some compromise of both options.

ALWAYS bring in more dirt to cover
and your foundation WILL perform better +
minor bonus: deeper beds make better happier plants, esp. now that TX has become a humid Tuscon all summer.