Thank you, I will try to answer your questions the best I can. The house was built in 1976-77. The basement is very deep, totally underground on the north side. Our 7 city lots (actually 8, but one is not so relative & sits away to the east of our other 7). Think of 7 lots, 50 x 150 extending the whole length of the block.....just over an acre, I think. Our house sits on the southernmost 2 lots with the remaining 5 to the north of our house. About 5-6 of those lots, including the 2 that our house sits on (basically ALL but the northernmost 2) are sloping upward (to the north). The house faces the west. The grade was fixed on the north side of the house shortly after we moved here in '77 so that water would run away from the house, part of it to the west & part of it to the east, but over the years erosion filled in that side of the house again; we had just not taken sufficient measures to prevent it. :-( A couple of weeks ago we had some excavation done to fix the grade again. There is about a 10" fall away from the north side of the house now (with the downward grade extending out 15-16 feet from the house) w/extensions on our downspouts. The patio is to be out the back door on the west side of the house. We have NEVER had water in our basement, hardly ever even a musty smell, even though there is no ventilation down there, no windows, etc.; however, there is what we assume to be mold in places on the clay block walls, especially in the seams, so we KNOW there has been moisture, although we don't see any.....EVER. We were concerned that with the poor quality construction of the previous patio that that could have been part of the problem causing the mold, but maybe not, because there's mold on the other walls as well, but maybe not quite as bad. The blocks are clay & the cavities within them run horizontal, not vertical. I remember the drain tile that went around the house before the brick was laid & the dirt pushed back in. I remember a "tar" substance (??) being applied, & I think a plastic was put on the exterior walls, etc. Internally........?? I don't know of anything, but we've never had water in the basement. We're in central Alabama where the average annual rainfall is 53.7 inches. The soil - I don't really know if I can answer that sufficiently, uh......lots of rocks, for sure! There's LOTS of limestone in this area; in fact, our town name comes from the Latin word, "calx", meaning "lime". As poor & rocky as our soil is, plants seem to grow ok. As for how it percs, I don't know. The guy who did the excavation just tried to fill back in where the patio was & we were just going to put sod there temporarily until we could replace the patio, BUT that was a disaster. He scooped up zoysia, dirt, whatever & tried to pack it all where the patio was. When we tried to take a rake to it, we couldn't rake dirt, for big, beautiful, hard clumps of zoysia sod, so we started removing the sod by hand & salvaged quite a bit & replanted it. Oh, it was horrible! At that point, we decided we'd have to remove the base/fill that he put there, & start over to go ahead & put another patio there. We wanted to wait awhile on that project, but have decided we MUST go ahead & handle it now, but we WANT it done right this time. I don't know if this gives you enough info. or not. Let me know if I've answered sufficiently.
From: billsf9c <OOWONBS@Netscape.net>
To: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 11:57 PM
Subject: [DIY] Re: Patio Advice Needed
I sooo wanna answer this, but I/we need more info.
Basement. Drainage system for it, internally & the external walls?
Where. Rainfall, annually.
Soil. Perc testing?
Surrounding topography. Does the land drain toward the house?
Will/did you remove the old crappy base?
(WAS there an issue? Or are you pre-thinking???)
BillSF9c
--- In DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com, "bdbrant" <bdbrant@...> wrote:
>
> What are your recommendations on the best material(s) for constructing a patio for maximum drainage away from the house? With sufficient grade away from the house on the BASE for the patio, is ONE material just as good as another?? What kind of grade do you recommend to look nice, but for sufficient drainage? The basement wall just below where the patio will connect to the outside brick wall of house has mold on it. We've wondered if this is an unfortunate result of the previous concrete patio that was there, which was about 34 years ago, a very sloppy job, & poured over poorly prepared base. It was broken in places & sections of it had settled...as much as 2 inches, possibly more. (??) But we're paranoid about what we replace it with. We've had the old patio removed & need to replace it ASAP. We also need recommendations on the best way to prepare the base. We may hire it done, but have found out that WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING OURSELVES TO OVERSEE THE PROJECT that we hire someone else to do!! HELP!! ...and many thanks for all the helpful advice from this group!
>
Basement. Drainage system for it, internally & the external walls?
Where. Rainfall, annually.
Soil. Perc testing?
Surrounding topography. Does the land drain toward the house?
Will/did you remove the old crappy base?
(WAS there an issue? Or are you pre-thinking???)
BillSF9c
--- In DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com, "bdbrant" <bdbrant@...> wrote:
>
> What are your recommendations on the best material(s) for constructing a patio for maximum drainage away from the house? With sufficient grade away from the house on the BASE for the patio, is ONE material just as good as another?? What kind of grade do you recommend to look nice, but for sufficient drainage? The basement wall just below where the patio will connect to the outside brick wall of house has mold on it. We've wondered if this is an unfortunate result of the previous concrete patio that was there, which was about 34 years ago, a very sloppy job, & poured over poorly prepared base. It was broken in places & sections of it had settled...as much as 2 inches, possibly more. (??) But we're paranoid about what we replace it with. We've had the old patio removed & need to replace it ASAP. We also need recommendations on the best way to prepare the base. We may hire it done, but have found out that WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING OURSELVES TO OVERSEE THE PROJECT that we hire someone else to do!! HELP!! ...and many thanks for all the helpful advice from this group!
>
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