I have a new raised patio that appears to be causing water to be forced against my basement and water is coming into the basement via cracks in the foundation wall.
The retaining wall built was filled with AB3 and fabric to keep the AB3 inside the wall. It is sloped away from the house (3" drop), except in the one section I note. The blocks used in the retaining wall were glued together. It's not water tight, but water does appear to have a difficult time "weeping" through it.
I had two engineers look at my patio to give me ideas on what issues might be causing the problems. Here is generally what they said.
The retaining wall built was filled with AB3 and fabric to keep the AB3 inside the wall. It is sloped away from the house (3" drop), except in the one section I note. The blocks used in the retaining wall were glued together. It's not water tight, but water does appear to have a difficult time "weeping" through it.
I had two engineers look at my patio to give me ideas on what issues might be causing the problems. Here is generally what they said.
(1) not pouring the concrete patio over the retaining wall as opposed to butting up to it which leaves a seem so water can get into the retaining wall.
(2) not using a better draining filler such as "clean gravel" as opposed to all AB3 which will retain water.
(3) not adequatly slopping in spots
(4) under ground conduits that might be directing water back to the house, because of the AB3 or concrete?
(5) not water proofing the foundation or draining the filler properly by the foundation.
generally, their concerns were with drainage both on the patio and in the AB3, and use of only AB3..
I've prepared a diagram of the (4) trouble areas and labeled them as Sec1 thru Sec4 with some pictures to help describe what is happening (patio_diag). The blue dotted lines is the general water flow that the engineers looked at with a house to see the direction water travels on the patio.
I also have more detail and pictures but I'm having trouble uploading them at the moment.
I also have more detail and pictures but I'm having trouble uploading them at the moment.