house landcape is against brick

chillz911 · 08-25-2010, 11:54 AM

Hi there, i am a new poster in seek of some feedback.
I hope you can help me with my problem.
Here it is.....

I recently purchased a new home in the front of the house there is a septic bed and the landscape is fairly high and sloped away from the house.The high landcape is currently higher then the foundation and against the bricks(there is some efflorescence and some brick have started to spall).I have recently dug out the front of the house to let the bricks dry. i have dug 4 bricks deep to get to the 8 inch required level below the brick level. However since the original landscape is so high there is now a ditch where i have dug ( approx 1 1/2 foot). What sort of suggestions do you have for a solution to my problem.I would like to assure proper drainage and slopage occurs. I do not want to have to remove any row of bricks as that may be very expensive to do.

A friend of mine suggested i put a sort of window well around the front of that area but i am afraid that during the winter the snow will still be accumulating and melt and may enter the weep holes.

what do you think guys.....

hyunelan2 · 08-25-2010, 01:09 PM

If you did put in a window well type of thing, I think you would need to cover it. You don't want rain (or snow) building up in there - without there being any drain at the bottom of the window-well.

What about installing some landscape bricks? You could build those up in front to hold the soil material away from your house's bricks.

Scuba_Dave · 08-25-2010, 01:16 PM

A picture would help
Any way to install a drainage pipe to allow moisture to drain away ?

chillz911 · 08-25-2010, 06:56 PM

chillz911 · 08-25-2010, 07:01 PM

i do believe i could put a french drain in there once i dig deep enough.

as you can tell by the pic the soil is high up against the brick.

i was going to do a sloped ditch 4 feet away from the house sloping east of the house but since it is so high up i cant see this being possible......

Allison1888 · 08-27-2010, 07:26 PM

I agree with the French drain idea. Here are a few links with some tips. We had ours done by a company, but it depends on your skill level:

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/how-to-ad...basement.shtml
http://www.easydigging.com/Drainage/...nch_drain.html

federer · 09-16-2010, 01:28 AM

what about building like a little concrete pad/pathway around teh house?

Michael Thomas · 09-16-2010, 05:50 AM

In my experience, the biggest problem is that the damp brick many be rotting out the band joist, floor joists and other wood structural members behind the wall. This can happen very quickly (a year or less), BTW.