Last weekend, some of you may have seen that I posted the following photo on Twitter:
This is 12 cubic yards of top soil, dumped on my front yard, waiting to be spread across the yard to fill in all the low spots and to make sure that water would drain away from the foundation rather than towards it. KP had a blast nibbling away at it.
My wife and I worked all Friday afternoon and evening, and most of the day Saturday, but we finished it up.
Here’s what the yard looks like now:
Our lot is so flat, that most of the positive drainage away from the foundation is subtle at best, but we just don’t have any other options. It will have to do.
Here’s a nice before and after that demonstrates our progress pretty well. Back in 2012, I posted about doing some work on the flower beds in front of the house. I posted the following picture – notice how much of the stone pavers are showing. At least 6″ – Maybe 8″.
Then a couple weeks ago I posted some photos of the new concrete walkways, and pointed out how high the new walkway was poured compared to the ground and the pavers. Notice that the pavers are just totally eclipsed by the walkway, and the front edge of the concrete is completely visible.
Now here’s a similar angle after spreading all the new top soil around. Notice we removed the pavers (and stacked them up next to the house since they weren’t doing much anymore now anyway. Also notice that we’ve completely backfilled around the walkway.
Again, the drainage is subtle, but it’s all we can do without either raising the house up, or lowering the street elevation, neither of which is going to happen.
Oh yea, I also pulled a muscle and can barely move my arm now, lol.
We’re in the midst of researching what to do about a similar issue. Did you pour the concrete yourself or hire someone?
All of these walkways we hired out. We did pour our garage aprons ourselves, though.