I recently moved into a house that has I noticed collects rain on the lawn adjacent to the house. It appears to be a 3x5m area where there’s currently just grass. Never had any basement moisture issues.
It’s a small enough area that seems doable DIY. My thoughts are to fill the ground with some top soil / gardening soil from the store. I’ll aim for about 6 inches of elevation from the house out to about 10ft, and may as well do the entire side of the house since I’m digging anyways.
I also have a ton of IKEA ceramic deck pavers from my previous apartment. Would putting these on top of the soil, next to the house, help the water to run off into my lawn? There are still some slits between the pavers for water to drain into the soil.
by qwerty12e
4 Comments
Don’t use potting soil. Bring in actual topsoil from somewhere that would sell stone/sand/mulch etc. potting soil is a lot of times made of peat moss, perlite, compost and bark and will decompose and settle overtime. If you install the pavers, you will need to have drainage layers of crushed stone at least 2”-4” deep for a bas, packed and tamped then and then a 1/2”-1” layer of decomposed granite or sand for the pavers to sit to make sure you have a level or slopped surface for excess water to drain away
Use clay fill and top soil on top.
Correctly installing pavers is a huge lift, put those aside. Bringing in dirt to fill a grade like this is going to be a lot of dirt. I’d first look and see if there are spots in your yard that have extra dirt that can be moved, creating a proper grade from your house and going lower towards the back or wherever the water wants to drain. It’s a $500 job, a landscaper with a small skid steer can do it. Otherwise rent one from Home Depot. If there’s no dirt to push around, then you need to bring some in. Call a landscaping supply that does deliveries by the yard. And still get the skid steer.
When I was in the business, my guys liked to pick up jobs like this on the weekends, easy money and only needs one person.
Where’s the water coming from? Probably gutter downspouts or driveway?
pavers need to be properly installed (with sand and gravel substrates to resist freeze/thaw) to last. Yours will get wonky quickly if you just lay them on soil.
Rain gardens are a great long term solution for certain issues. Capture the water and put it to use growing plants. You’d build it so any overflow moves away from house.
https://www.washtenaw.org/675/Master-Rain-Gardener-Class