Home with a sloped backyard?

[ILoveLucy]

We've been house hunting and have seen a house we really like. The only thing that gives us pause is the backyard slopes towards the house. It also slopes away from the house along the side of the backyard, which the realtor claims is enough to keep the house from getting wet. It was built in 2001, is a split level with a finished basement that is spotless and doesn't appear to have ever gotten a drop of water. However, having grown up in a house with water problems, I am leary about that issue.

Is this something that you think is likely to be okay or a nightmare in the future? Obviously we would get an inspection on any property, but unsure if this is something we should just flat out avoid or not. Thanks for any advice!

[mom_hanna]

We bought a house in Oregon like this - I would stay far away. We did not have flooding, as we didn't have a basement, but we did have huge problems with water pooling in the yard near the house. We finally had to regrade the backyard to get the water to run off. ETA: we did get an inspection, but was not deemed to be a problem because of the sideyard slope. WRONG.

[Green22]

Where do you live? In some areas, water is just a way of life - it is more a question of how you manage it. I live in PA and I literally do not know a single person who has never had some amount of water in their basement at some point or another - not a massive flood, but like, an area in the corner that got really damp after a bad storm or something.

The way you describe it, it sounds a bit like my parents' home (in PA). The slope is gentle towards the house, and there's a large area of flat between the slope and the home. They never really had any water problems until a Hurricane Ivan caused a ton of flooding where they live (entire towns were underwater, so it could have been worse). They ended up having a french drain system put in around the house and a landscape architect designing a "dry river bed" to divert water toward the drain on one side of the house, and just do other landscape things. They've never had any issues since.

That being said, I would avoid anything with a really severe slope. But don't forget about landscape architects! There is a lot you can do with the land to manage water.

[TwinFoxes]

We have a sloped backyard. Even with all of the runoff from our melted blizzards no water issues (knock on wood!). It so happened it poured rain the day of our home inspection, so we were pretty comfortable that it would be ok.

But if you have doubt, keep looking, or have an engineer check it out. I wouldn't take the realtor's word for it, s/he isn't really qualified to make that determination.

[klwa]

Our house has this (we built). After making sure it was properly graded to drain finally away from the house, we haven't had any problems. I'd check after a good rain & see what the crawl space/basement looks like. If it's sloped properly now, it shouldn't become an issue later unless something is built to interupt the flow later. (Like putting a shed in the wrong place, etc.)

[Momof3Labs]

We bought a house in Oregon like this - I would stay far away. We did not have flooding, as we didn't have a basement, but we did have huge problems with water pooling in the yard near the house. We finally had to regrade the backyard to get the water to run off. ETA: we did get an inspection, but was not deemed to be a problem because of the sideyard slope. WRONG.

:yeahthat: except our house is in Illinois. The basement appeared totally dry when we bought the house. The seeping water started a couple of years after we moved in. NO WAY would I do it again.

[Moneypenny]

Our house is like this and is fine. Right next to the house the slope is graded away from the home. We have had 100 year rains twice in the last 3 years and we haven't had any water in the basement. If the grading is okay, you should be fine. As a PP mentioned, you can also put in a french drain system or even just a couple of drains in the yard. We live in a very hilly area so it's virtually impossible to have a house that doesn't have some kind of land sloping toward the house. There are lots of ways to deal with it if it's a problem.