What does this look like?
A gravel yard, right? In actuality….
It’s my driveway.
Like I said here my parents and brother were here for Easter and the week after. My dad is someone that wants something to do when visiting. And he decided (yes HIM) that a good project would be to tackle the root cause of this:
This was our basement when we bought the house. After 2 winters of living here and studying when water would come in and where from we figured it out and shared it with my father. The culprit was this cement slab between the house and garage.
I’ve always thought the cement slab was ugly, we figured out however that it was put in WRONG. Can you do concrete wrong? yes. While the previous owners had graded the slab heavily… they did not put in a base. So when the spring thaw came the water would pool against the garage then go through the cracks under slab and then travel back against the house. Once it was against the house it would build pressure against the foundation walls (which are blocks) and ultimately come through the blocks causing gallons of water to enter our basement. One solution to this problem was to put a gutter along the garage… but like all things done by my dad we over-designed and as Stephen put it “it’s like wearing a belt and suspenders”.
Monday: First things first: The demolition.
Usually a slab of concrete for a patio/walkway is about 4 inches. Ours was up to 8 inches in some places. So a jackhammer was necessitated:
Dad wielding the jackhammer
Father-in-law, David and my little brother, Dalton removing the jackhammered concrete
Proof that the water ran back towards the house… and also proof that there was no base put down
Tuesday: Recovery
It was rainy Tuesday so no major manual labor was done. A rain gutter was installed (and checked), but mostly everyone recovered from moving the roughly 30,000 lbs of concrete.
Wednesday: Digging and planning
A 6 ft. diameter by 4 ft. hole was dug on Wednesday by David and my dad. This hole became what is known as a “dry well”. Essentially we installed a french drain between the house and garage to move the water away from the house (and my spring flooding basement). The dry well is what the water drains into. The bottom is filled with rock… then some landscape fabric… and topped with grass. The pipe comes in where the rock is so that the water can then disperse into the ground.
Dalton in giant hole.
Thursday: digging, digging and oh… more digging
Some of the dirt
Between the house and garage a trench was dug in the middle, with the sides sloping towards it. They fit the piping as they went so we could include the downspouts of our gutters into the drainage system.
Fitting piping
Fitting in the downspout
Then the trench to the giant hole had to be dug
Dalton’s sad face that at 4pm he has another trench to dig
Trench done!
The trenches
Dalton admiring his handiwork
Here’s how awesome Dalton is
Friday: piping and cover-up
All the piping went in and the slope was tested
It works!
Then it was time to cover up all that hard work. Starting with the perforated pipe. Plastic runs to the pipe which is surrounded by pea gravel and surrounded by landscape fabric. It was then all covered with dirt. So if ANY water comes between the house and garage it is forced into our lovely drainage system and taken away from the house. :)
The giant hole was filled with (some of) the concrete we had broken up. Taking the amount that had to be dumped to…. oh 25000 lbs maybe…
Samantha helped where she could
Or got help to help
Mostly she played… and stayed (kind of) out of the way
The hole filled with chunks of concrete. The pipe is so we can check water level (it will be cut to the level of the grass)
Clara came out to visit every once in a while to get some good Vitamin D
Then it was time to FILL IN ALL of the holes. It made Dalton feel like he was in the movie/book “Holes” and had been sent to Camp Green Lake for his Spring Break.
We solicited some help from our nephew, Thomas (12) on both the digging days, and filling in (he didn’t have school). Ultimately, he was a good helper
Shoveling dirt
Compacting the dirt
He would disappear every once in a while though
And yes, even I helped
The project is still on going. We have a giant mud pit between the house and garage and a lot of concrete sitting on our driveway still. We have the pavers to make a cute walkway and patio, but everything is a bit on hold as Stephen is signed up to take the GMAT and is scheduled to go to Utah next weekend. Hopefully by Memorial Day (or on Memorial Day) this project will be complete.
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