Degree of slope on acreage?

[Hermein]

I’m moving to a place that requires barns and shelters to be on “level” ground, which is desirable, imo. However, I am clueless on how one determines the actual degree of slope over, say, a 72’ by 70’ area. Do you use an actual level? Hire a surveyer? Somewhere in the pile in the garage, I have a laser thingy that I used for height measurements once upon a time, and I think one could use that IF one knew what one was doing.

I would estimate that the entire property length (700+ feet) slopes about 1.5’, front to back, based on the shoulder height along the road. I think I could call 70’ of that “level”, right?

Thanks.

[tangledweb]

If your guess is right, then yes, it’s probably close enough to level that varying the barn footing by an inch would fix it. You’ll put it on a pad of some sort to raise it up anyway I presume. People are terrible at guessing slope though so you probably should check.

You could hire a surveyor, and may have to depending on the permitting requirements where you live, but you can get an accurate answer by buying 80’ of clear tubing and two rulers.

Google for “water level” eg http://www.deckmagazine.com/tools-and-equipment/making-and-using-a-water-level.aspx

[Hermein]

What a boon! Thank you 1000 times!

[PeteyPie]

[QUOTE=tangledweb;8389506]
If your guess is right, then yes, it’s probably close enough to level that varying the barn footing by an inch would fix it. You’ll put it on a pad of some sort to raise it up anyway I presume. People are terrible at guessing slope though so you probably should check.

You could hire a surveyor, and may have to depending on the permitting requirements where you live, but you can get an accurate answer by buying 80’ of clear tubing and two rulers.

Google for “water level” eg http://www.deckmagazine.com/tools-and-equipment/making-and-using-a-water-level.aspx[/QUOTE]

Rather than buy clear tubing, you could use a hose and a water tub as well. Just fill up a big tub or trough of water. If you fill it to the top it’s easiest to measure the distance from the top of the water to the ground. Submerse the hose so it fills with water, then hold your thumb over one end and drag it out, keeping the other end submerged. When you get to the end of the hose or to the place you want to make a measurement, raise and lower the hose until your arrive at the height where the water stays just at the rim of the opening; then take a measurement from there to the ground.

Make sure that you have someone re-measure the height of the water in the tub at the same time that you are holding the far end of the hose because that level in the tub will have dropped. An easy way to do this is to have that person just mark the new water level and subtract that from your initial height measurement.

Theoretically, you could do this with one person, but it may be hard to keep more water from draining out of the hose while you are moving back and forth, which changes the water level in the tub.

[PeteyPie]

For your conversions, here is a good chart:
http://www.archtoolbox.com/measurements/geometry/slope.html

If your slope drops 1.5 feet in a distance of 70 feet then divide and multiply by a hundred to convert to a percentage slope:
1.5/70*100=2.14

Then, if you check the chart, you will see the closest measurement to your 2.14% slope is 2.08% which converts to a 1.19 degree slope.

For exact conversions, just google “convert % slope to degrees” and you will find all sorts of stuff. For example, here is one:
http://www.calcunation.com/calculators/general%20math/geometry/slope-percent-conversion.php

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=Hermein;8389448]
I’m moving to a place that requires barns and shelters to be on “level” ground, which is desirable, imo. However, I am clueless on how one determines the actual degree of slope over, say, a 72’ by 70’ area. Do you use an actual level? Hire a surveyer? Somewhere in the pile in the garage, I have a laser thingy that I used for height measurements once upon a time, and I think one could use that IF one knew what one was doing.

I would estimate that the entire property length (700+ feet) slopes about 1.5’, front to back, based on the shoulder height along the road. I think I could call 70’ of that “level”, right?

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

Go to the agency that made the rule and get their definition. Or, if they don’t have one, find out what their approval standard is. Then follow it.

G.

[ReSomething]

You can buy a thing called a line level that lets you run a string from post to post and determine whether the string is level. https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=line+level&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-004 But just because they want the site level doesn’t always mean you cannot cut and fill or do substantial dirt work to prep beforehand, I’d suggest heading down and determining the exact definition in your locale, and I see G beat me to that.

[China_Doll]

All you need are 2 stakes in the ground and a string and a level