|
Posted by RicodJour on May 25, 2007, 6:39 pm
> As those of you who read my initial post know, I'm in the process of
> digging out a hole for a paver patio that is outside the walkout
> basement - which happens to be the low spot of the property. To
> recap, I just removed an old
> slab of cement outside the walkout door and as I was digging about 10"
> down a water puddle formed along the foundation and I ran in to (what
> I thought was) a drainage pipe. This pipe runs parallel to the
> foundation about 10" below the level of the basement floor. I
> presumed the water drained from this pipe to the sump.
>
> As it turns out the previously mentioned pipe turns out to be an old 5
> foot piece of 2.5" pvc that was half under the old concrete slab at
> the doorway with the other half just covered by dirt and gravel. The
> pipe was sitting on gravel and was atop plastic and parallel to the
> house against the foundation. It looks like it was intentionally laid
> this way. The thing is the pipe does not connect to anything. It's
> just 5 feet of pipe lating there. I can remove it.
>
> Which brings me to the next problem. Why is there water pooling
> against the foundation. Granted, it's below the level of the basement
> floor, but I'm not sure that I can lay a patio atop it. Does this
> water pooling suggest that the drain tile is not working correctly or
> is this a natural type of occurence? next, can I safely put a paver
> on top of it? The water doesn't seem to get any higher than a certain
> level. Even if I try to fill the hole it seems to seep in the
> ground. It doesn't rise. For patio purposes I suppose I could back
> fill the hole with gravel, pack it - that would get me about 10", then
> the subbase of the patio wouldbe another 5" with a 1" sand base and
> 2.5" paver stone.
>
> I'm at a loss here.
If you have that much cover, and you use graded, compacted, fill,
there's no problem with the patio pavers. That's the least of your
worries.
The pipe makes no sense, I could come up with theories, but who
knows? The water level is an issue. I'd imagine you've been looking
at this for a relatively short time and haven't experienced heavy
flooding, torrential rains, snow melt - whatever is the worst case
scenario is in your area - so I wouldn't be in a hurry to lay those
pavers until you're very confident you understand the water/drainage
situation.
I'd definitely want to have some drainage in front of that door,
either running to daylight or to a drywell. Concrete slabs will wick
up water, so even if there isn't standing water in the basement, the
high water table could wet the slab, damage stored items and promote
mold growth.
R
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap