Ono Island · Building

Building on Ono Island: Fill, Elevations, and the Foundation Phase

This is the part people drive past. Sand. Batter boards. A silt fence. The house is already being decided here.

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A starting point

When a buyer asks me what is happening on a lot like this, they often think nothing has started. I see the opposite. Building on Ono Island has already begun. The sand is here. The corners are being found. The silt fence is doing its quiet job.

I advise buyers and sellers full-time, and have for years. Advising clients on building on Ono Island is one of my favorite parts of the job. I created this guide as a thoughtful starting point for this phase: site work, fill, elevations, layout, and the first steel in the ground. The pretty walls come later.

People here are about the boating life, and a house that knows how to sit in sand, flood, and weather. This is the part that makes that possible.

Building on Ono Island. This is the fill-and-layout phase, not the finish.

“If you only look for walls, you will miss the house. On Ono, the house starts in the sand.”

Before the sand

Permits first. Then the lot can move.

An ACC permit is required for most work on Ono Island. Baldwin County may still want its own permits. The job sign and the permit board you see on a lot like this are not decoration. They mean the paperwork caught up with the dirt.

If more than six inches of earth will move, Ono Island wants a boundary survey, a topographic survey, and a stormwater plan stamped by an Alabama engineer who practices hydrology. Fill is never “just sand.” I walk that in my ACC, setbacks, and silt-fence guide. Silt fencing is required for land disturbance. You can see it along the neighbor line in these photos: the black fabric that keeps our sand on our lot.

What you are looking at

The mound is the elevation.

Fill is sand brought onto the lot to raise it. Coastal houses here have to sit high enough for flood. The engineer and the surveyor tell us how high. The trucks bring the sand. The mound you see is not leftover dirt. It is the future first floor, still in a pile.

Elevation, in this phase, means how high the house must sit above the flood number for this lot. An elevation certificate comes later, when there is something to measure. Right now we are building the number into the ground. I wrote more on that in elevation certificates on Ono Island.

Soils, in plain English

Fill is only as good as what it sits on. A geotechnical engineer tests the dirt so the foundation is not a guess. Ask them to test where the house will actually sit. I walk that in my geotechnical guide.

If you are buying a lot, or watching a house come out of the sand

Call or text me. We will walk this phase like it matters, because it does.

What comes next

Stem wall, ICF. The sand is getting ready for both.

A stem wall is a short concrete wall that stands on the footing and holds up the first floor. Common on this coast when the house is raised. The batter boards you see now are often finding that wall.

ICF is insulated concrete forms: foam blocks stacked, then filled with concrete, so the wall is structure and insulation together. I absolutely love ICF. Quiet. The insurance file. The glass. The lot is too expensive for a light wall. The fill and the footing still have to be right first. Read the ICF hub and the vacant-land walk.

Gold FORTIFIED belongs in the drawings while they can still change. I wrote that for roof and openings in FORTIFIED homes. This phase is when the load path starts, in the ground.

“A name is helpful. Context makes it useful. The batter board is the house, spoken early.”

Shall we look together

Call or text. Tell me if you are buying dirt, or watching it rise.

Building on Ono Island is one of my favorite parts of the job. Search current homes and lots on Ono Island. If the backyard is a pool later, start with whether the lot can hold one: Can I put a pool on this Ono Island lot?

I know the lots, the streets, and the teams. I would love to introduce you.