ok heres the situation... me and my sister bought a brand new house. we picked the lot and everything, but honestly, we picked a pretty crappy lot. the only reason its crappy is b/c of the driveway. when we picked the lot the driveway slope didnt look like it was going to be bad at all. i dont think the salesman mentioned to us that the builder would first have to go up from the street and then go down, so we just figured it would be like every other driveway and go straight from the road and then down once its past the sidewalk. if that were the case, i dont think i would have a problem.

unfortunately that is not the case, and i do have a problem. they put our driveway in last week and i went over today to go test it out and i can not get past the sidewalk without scraping the middle of the car. after we bought the house we had our "pre-construction" meeting and the contractor told us that b/c the driveway is sloped down towards the house, the sidewalk would have to be a specified number of inches above the road (to prevent flooding, which is understandable). i cant remember how many inches he said but the number 3 keeps whizzing by in my brain. if it is supposed to be 3 inches then its way higher than that.

now, to clear any doubts you may have about the contractor... he is VERY nice and told us in the pre-construction meeting that he would do everything he could to make the driveway easier for me to get in and out of. i think he even said he raised the entire house foundation by 6 inches. i talked to him today after i "left my mark" lol and he was trying to think of something he could do but i think that there might not be anything else that he can do.

so i ask s2ki... wws2kid!? lol if we could make the driveway wider then that would probably work but i dont think the homeowners association would like that very much.

here is a pic for reference



and yes, i *could* raise my car a little but even a stock S2000 would have problems.

oh and once i get past the sidewalk im going to have to worry about the bottom of the driveway...

 

why the hell did you buy a house with your sister????????

 

wow i dont want to be an ass but im really tired of explaining why i bought a house with my sister, so lets just focus on the driveway thing and then maybe we'll get back to your question

 

If the driveway slopes down toward the house you have more problems than just scraping your car. You could have flooding problems. You're in Fla, right? Check your municipal building codes. Here in Daytona the FFE (Finished Floor Elevation) of homes must be 12 inches higher than the crown of the road to prevent flooding.

Your situation sounds backwards, like they are more concerned about keeping people walking on the sidewalk dry, rather than the home. Doesn't pass the sniff test - I don't think there would be any code stating the sidewalk be a certain elevation relative to the road. The solution is to replace the sidewalk and driveway, or no S2k.

 

so building code in daytona basically says that the house has to be higher than the road? if so, i know thats not the case in Clermont, otherwise we wouldnt have been able to put a house on this lot. maybe the driveway has to be 12 inches above the road instead of just 3 like i thought (from what i can remember it looks like its about 12 inches).

they are putting down the kitchen floors tomorrow so maybe ill drive over there and take more pics of the driveway so you can see how it is

edit: this is (very) roughly what im workin with. not to scale at all but it shows the general incline and decline. there is a very very slight incline going into the garage so that the rain water coming down the driveway will get funnelled out the side where the angle is i guess.

 

get the contractor to cut side walk down <if thats legal

or build it up a bit on the house side of the sidewalk


I still want to know why you bought a house with your sister, i know florida is in the south but damn................j/k

 

Just because the house is there doesn't mean it's up to code. Plenty of buildings get built in violation of codes. Sometimes the inspector or plans examiner overlooks something. I've seen newly poured building slabs get yanked out because of mistakes.

I'm not saying this is true in your case, but unless you check with the building department (just ask them generically re: FFE in relation to roadways) you won't know.

Most builders (especially in this economy) will save every penny they can. One way to do so is to minimize the amount of fill (or quality of fill) they bring onto a lot.

Good luck.

 

so even all the inspectors and people that come out wouldnt say something about that? im not doubting what you're saying (i actually hope its true b/c then maybe i can persuade them to do something about the driveway in general) but it seems like someone would have said something about it by now and stopped the building process... unless they are ALL shady people lol

 

Your contractor was probably REALLY NICE because someone somewhere ****ed up and being nice to you will make you not press the problem. No one is your friend. Business is business. You should have it checked out. You WILL have problems with water going into your foundation and ****ing up your house in the future.