Prairie, I was with you for most of the question, but what I don't understand is what were you planning to do with the existing patio door?
Again, thanks to all for your responses. I'll research possible ways to change the yard drainage before considering removing the patio door. If may come down to whatever is cheaper. I'm selling the house in two years and I don't want to put more into it than I have to, but I also don't want to dump this problem on the next owner (like the last owner dumped it on me).
You're correct; I'd rather correct the problem while I live there, as opposed to being sued and have to possibly spend more later. I'm now leaning toward the regrading, drainage solution as my first choice.Prairie, just something to consider for you.
I look at a lot of foundation, concrete, etc.. problems for past customers, friends, a few real estate agents, etc.. for real estate sales. The thing I notice especially with foundation & water problems is that a buyers cost assumption is far higher in most cases than the actual repair cost. You have far more control over the costs if you repair them before hand, and it also shows that the problem no longer exists. Buyers tend to be VERY apprehensive about this issue, often times walking away from there first choice in homes, rather than take money in escrow. In this housing economy (at least in my area) where there's a lot of homes on the market, this could force you into an even longer sale.
At the same time though, it's 100% your decision which way you decide to go with the situation. Merely my opinion & past experiences.
Thanks for posting the pictures; I'll think about encorporating something like that in my solution. Odd though it may be, right now I don't have a sump pump in my sump pit, because until this year, I've never had enough water in it to need to pump it out. I will be adding one for sure now.I dug around on the harddrive and found a few pictures of the patio we had at our old house. This work had been done by a previous owner at some point to address an issue similar to yours.
One picture is taken from a window above and the other two are taken through the basement door looking out onto the patio.
The walls and stairs were constructed out of pressure treated lumber and a few old railroad ties. If we had stayed in the house one of my summer projects was going to be rebuild the whole thing using a much nicer retaining wall block system.
The floor of the patio was a plain concrete slab with a drain at the low point that connected into the house drain sump pump. The area was directly exposed to rain with no roof and in seven years living there we never had a single issue with water from the paito. The only maintainence was to clean leaves off the drain every once and awhile.
Good luck.