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I have a walk-out basement, and about every three years, if we have a heavy snow and then warm weather, my back yard floods and water seeps in through my basement patio door. I have a drain-tiled basement, but pumping can't keep up with the water coming in. My back yard slopes toward this patio door, and I don't think the house should ever have had a walk-out. The 18 foot wide by 7 foot high wall where the 5 foot door is located is 2 X 4 construction covered with sheathing (fibreboard?) and faced with masonite lap siding. It has a concrete block footing, and the remainder of the basement is full height concrete block. I'd like to take out the patio door, and install a window that's 5' wide by 3' high and then raise the grade of the yard by about three feet to create drainage away from the house. My problem is, the inside of the basement is finished, and I don't want to have to rip out the interior finishes to install a four foot high concrete block half-wall (which I'd then have tied in to the upper frame wall). This isn't a supporting wall, so I'm wondering if I can have the existing siding and sheathing removed down to the framing, and then have the wall finished the same way they do when building a wood foundation. That way, all of the work would be done from the outside. Would that work or am I stuck with having to have a block half-wall installed and the frame wall tied into that instead? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Although I'm handy, I'll be hiring this project out.