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New Patio & Weep Screed Woes

21K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  ncgrogan 
#1 ·
I just moved into a new house about two months ago which, of course, needed backyard landscaping. So about a month ago, we took the first step and had a patio poured which runs the entire length of the back of the house.

The problem is, the contractor for our housing developement was over to fix some problems and when he saw the patio, he informed us that we had a 'major problem'. It seems that our cement guy poured the patio too high and covered up most of the weep screed. Some of the weep screed is still exposed - about 10 feet of the section is about 3/4" below the weep screed because of the way the patio slopes away from the house. The rest of the section, about 12 feet on one side and 20 feet on the other side of the 'exposed section' is covered. It looks like it just touches the bottom of the weep screed.

We had the cement guy over, who was a friend of a friend and gave us a good price, and he offered to cut a groove where the cement meets the house. This would allow moisture to weep thru the screed again, but may cause a problem if water just sits in that groove. It would have to be swept out or something.

According to the housing developement contractor - the patio should be ripped out and redone. He says that water can go thru the stucco and build up in the walls if the weep screed is blocked.

According to the cement guy - he's been doing cement patios and house fondations for 40 years and in his experience, people don't like the weep screed exposed and request that it be covered up. In fact, his opinion is that the only purpose the weep screed serves is to allow bugs to get in the house. He says that you would have to spray the wall for days in order for water to go thru the stucco. So he doesn't see a problem. He wants to make us happy, so he'll cut the groove out along the wall, but in order to take out the slab, he said he would have to charge us to do it, and then, of course, we're out out the money for the patio, the money to have it ripped out, and we then have NO patio.

We're in Southern California (a dry, desert area) and got 9 inches of rain last year. We have a roof overhang of 18 inches where the patio is, so it would have to rain pretty hard and there would have to be a fairly strong wind at the same time to blow water on the wall. I don't really see the wall getting soaked at anytime, but I don't know.

So, I thought I would throw it out here and see if anyone had any opinions on options--

Do nothing, and figure the wall probably won't get too wet?

Go with cutting the groove to expose the weep screed and deal with keeping water out of it?

Pay to rip out the patio and start from scratch? (This would be a huge hardship, as we don't even have the money to rip out the patio, let alone put in a new one.)

Take our cement guy to court to make him do the job right? Ripping it out and putting in a new one, or, more likely, ripping out the patio and giving us back our money for the first one, which would basically put us back to where we were when we started. (This would, I'm sure, turn VERY nasty.)

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I just wish I had researched this subject more so that I would have been able to talk to our cement guy and make sure that it was done right. Then again, when you hire someone with 40 years of experience, you assume, or hope, that they know what they are doing.

I'm leaning toward having him cut the groove.

Like I said though, I thought I'd throw it out here and see what others think. Thanks....
 
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#4 · (Edited)
Don't know about California, but around here your supposed to have at least 2" clear from concrete. I would make him redo it. If not find someone who knows what they are doing and redo it. I can imagine what that weep screed is going to look like after he gets done trying to get the concrete off it. At the very least tell him if he is going to "notch it" he has to replace the weep screed. I don't think you could geta a lawyer involved if there weren't any specs. You shouldn't ever cover up a weep-anything. I can't tell you how many times I've seen weep holes caulked or covered over and they say "I dont know why its leaking but I covered up all those holes where water was getting in" Oh and by the way, just because someone has 40 years experience doesn't mean a thing. Chances are they've been doing it wrong for 40 years.
 
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