foundation slope

rigpa

Hi Everyone,

I have recently removed a lot of soil that was touching my siding shingles only to find a 4 foot patch of foundation sloping towards the house. One section of concrete has a very pronounced slope to it. It almost looks like a french drain type of thing but I have no idea if it was intentional or just poor work. House is over 100 years old. I'm the one who put the soil up to the shingles 12 years ago when i bought the house. All i knew at that time was that the land should slope away from the foundation so i tried to achieve that not knowing that i would cause my siding and some of the original wood trim board to rot. I'm wondering what i should do. Is this a problem? I am replacing some of the shingles and going to keep the soil away from them. Should i put some kind of metal flashing in there to direct water way out and over this concrete that slopes inwards. Pics attached. thank you.

Linda

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rigpa

let me also add, that when i poked around the house foundation with a screwdriver i am touching concrete, but i don't know how many inches or centimeters before the wood sill starts. i'd say about one inch that i know of, maybe more.

Daniel Holzman

That looks like it might have been part of an abandoned project, hard to say. And those look like asbestos/cement shingles. If so, they are not going to rot from soil touching them, which is completely different than wooden shingles. You are right to have the ground slope away from your house, if those shingles are asbestos cement, I would put the soil back, the alternative is a fair amount of grading and some jackhammering to remove the offending portion of the concrete.

rigpa

Indeed they are asbestos shingles. I've attached some more pics of the siding deteriorating due to moisture i suppose. Those shingles are on the other side of the house, but kind of how the ones exposed to the soil looked too. Also a pic of the wood trim underneath the siding rotting. That section had been exposed for some time due to the siding being broken there.

so, an abandoned project? could the foundation have been poured like this originally? would jackhammering this concrete to level it compromise the rest of the foundation?

thanks again.

Linda

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rigpa

the wood trim board rotting pic

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joed

I question whether is is part of the house foundation or remnants of something else. Is there a basement or do you think this is a footing that the house was built on?

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rigpa

There is a crawl space under here, concrete poured foundation.