
Our Own Altadena Fire Rebuild: Glenrose Avenue Site Clearing
Cleared our Glenrose Avenue Altadena fire rebuild lot: driveway concrete, fire sprinklers, sewer lateral out, soils report done, rough graded 1% to street.
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Posts specifically about drainage plans as a deliverable: what's in them, what they cost, and how long they take to get approved.

Cleared our Glenrose Avenue Altadena fire rebuild lot: driveway concrete, fire sprinklers, sewer lateral out, soils report done, rough graded 1% to street.
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Our own Altadena fire rebuild on Glenrose Avenue: reversing a rear-sloping lot with area drains and a 12 inch parkway drain, no pump.
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W Mendocino Ave fire rebuild in Altadena: two-story house with cellar and garage ADU, tied into the existing driveway apron and routed to a rain garden.
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Grading plan for a Pacific Palisades hillside rebuild on a 12% slope. Garage and basement on same level with lightwell, area drains, and deep trench drainage to the street.
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A drainage plan and hydrology report for an Altadena fire rebuild where the site slopes 11 feet from street to rear. We designed flowlines around the main house and proposed ADU, added plastic lined rain gardens on both sides, and used the hydrology report to show pre-fire impervious was greater than proposed.
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LA County requirements keep changing after the Eaton Fire. Most Altadena fire rebuilds only need a drainage plan, not a full grading plan. Here is what can trigger the requirements.
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An Altadena fire rebuild addition on a sideways lot created a drainage challenge when the rear of the addition sat lower than the existing garage. Here is how we figured out the drainage without using a sump pump.
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Drainage plan for a 0.1685-acre Altadena sideways lot. The lot slopes 7% east to west with minimal north-south elevation change. Sheet flow design with flowline splitting to sideyard and driveway.
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Our second drainage plan for a Wapello Street property in Altadena. Looking at the existing topography with an excavated house pad, downslope site, and existing pool to work around.
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A drive through Altadena to see the aftermath of the fire, and a first look at a project we're engineering - drainage plans and hydrology report for a hillside residential rebuild.
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How we designed a drainage plan for an Altadena fire rebuild, starting with existing survey data, tying into neighbor elevations, and setting up flowlines to gravity drain to the street.
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An Altadena fire rebuild drainage plan for a lot with a 10ft front-to-back drop and existing pool. We raise the house, re-grade the driveway, and add rain gardens to keep post-development Q similar to pre-fire levels.
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We are taking over for another Civil Engineer to bring construction costs down on some Altadena fire rebuild drainage plans. This particular lot we were able to sheet flow the entire property.
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We have another Altadena drainage plan where the goal was to not use a stormwater sump pump. The way the lot sits the existing stormwater used to drain all from the top of curb at the street to the rear of the property.
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Our next Altadena drainage plan is for a lot with manufactured homes, consisting of basically two ADU's. With the way this lot slopes and two smaller, separate structures, we are trying to save as much on construction costs as possible.
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A bit of back and forth still with LA County with our creative solutions to getting Altadena Drainage plans approved. Plan check wanted some minor modifications which is fair enough to bring the plastic lined rain gardens 5 feet off the property lines.
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Its been an experience, but we are finally getting the latest batch of Altadena drainage plans approved by LA County. Our technique is to keep the existing drainage pattern so we don't have to install stormwater sump pumps.
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This is our first sideways lot in Altadena, with the entrance on the West side and the topography slopes North to South. The goal is to drain as much stormwater to the street as possible using gravity.
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Going through plan checks and getting the current requirements back in a correction, one of the projects had their insurance ask what code LA County is using to require drainage plans on some lots, and not on others.
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This Altadena Drainage Plan is a corner lot fire rebuild. The proposed house sits in a similar location but we need to adjust the existing contours to keep 5% slope 10 feet from the structure at the top.
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We have another longer lot Altadena Fire Rebuild Drainage Plan. This lot, the front yard doesn't slope as heavily as the previous ones we have seen, which allows more room to slightly regrade the contours.
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LA County wants us to show earthwork numbers for the difference between the existing and proposed soil. Showing the contours in a 3d orbit view always looks interesting and a quick way to tell if the model is looking good or not.
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Any lot that sits on the North side of the block or sideways in Altadena is likely going to require drainage plans. Some South lots might require drainage plans as well.
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Our first Altadena rebuild like for like project was pretty smooth. The idea was that the proposed house would be in nearly the same footprint as the existing now gone house.
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