Drop height from Exterior door to driveway

Question

We're having our gravel driveway regraded. As of right now (it's fall) the basement floor of our side door/garage door is level with our gravel driveway. During the winter, the driveway heaves and rises and water has entered in both of those doors.

I remember the home inspector saying that having the two surfaces (basement floor & driveway) flush isn't up to code. Is there code regarding a step height, that we can refer to for this regrading? If not, what's the recommendation?

Answer 1

I guess the inspector does not believe in handicap access. Aside from that, 7 3/4" is the maximum height of any step. When given the choice, I always keep the outside surface lower than the interior by about 4". This is for snow build up, just something I always did.