We Finally Patched the Patio

Now that we have taken the house off the market we have decided to focus on getting a lot of projects done around the house.  We moved here in June of 2007 and by October discovered drainage problems.  In March of 2008 we had a major yard disruption to fix the drains running from the house to the municipal sewers.   We had hoped that would solve our problems but we were wrong.  In August of 2009 we had flooding in the house and by September of 2009 we had trenched from the house to the water's edge to completely correct the drainage problems.  Essentially all of the storm drains and runoff run from the top of our property to the water.  The slope of the property combined with a collapsed drainage system and improperly draining downspouts created erosion around the lower level of the house.  When the trench was installed we were told to leave it to settle for a year.  This past weekend my husband decided to repair where the trench had gone through on the lower patio.

The sidewalk leading to the lower patio, patio itself and the two retaining walls really need to be ripped out, built back up then redone.  However, that would be major repair work right now and since the problem that caused it has been eliminated we can postpone that job for awhile yet. 

The lower patio is inter laid pavers.  This is not my ideal choice for paving in our area but it was the way the patio was when we bought the house.  What happens is moisture gets into the ground then freezes causing the pavers to shift and buckle.  Compounding the problem with drainage issues that resulted in more water than normal around this area cause more shifting.  The patio pavers could easily be removed then the ground leveled out, resanded and the pavers replaced.  We are debating doing this but we are also debating redoing the back to enclose the lower patio as well so until we are ready to do the retaining wall repairs we decided a temporary fix would work.

Once we leveled off the dirt from the opening we laid a nice layer of play sand.  Pictured is the snd layer just as my husband started it.  He used a board to level it.  Sand acts as a bit of a cushion for the pavers.  At the same time the sand fills the spaces between the pavers stopping them from shifting.  Replacing the pavers was not difficult or even time consuming.  We ended up with a few pavers left over.  The reason being we decided not to cut pavers for the end section and not to pave over the pit.  My husband reasoned that using cement would be a better solution that would give a bit more support while looking clean and finished.  Most of the cement will be covered with potted plants as well so aesthetically it will look nice.

The fieldstone brick retainer walls at each end of the patio need to be redone.  They have cracks from years of drainage issues that were ongoing well before we bought the house.  The decision whether to fix or replace will be made when we decide whether or not we are redoing the upper sunporch and building in the lower level patio.  The two spaces when redone would provide a considerable amount of solar heat in the winter !

My husband used hydraulic cement in the pit and quick set cement for the patch along the retainer wall and around the pit.  The new drain cleanout is near the pit.  It is hard to tell in the picture but he created a lowered edge around the pit so we can put a cover on it. 

Once the cement had set up for 24 hours we started applying more play sand to fill in any cracks and crevices.  Apparently a few earwigs were not very happy with this turn of events which pleased me somewhat because not they might move on elsewhere.  Pictured is the section after the sand had been swept into the cracks for the first application.  We intend to repeat the sand sweep in the fall and again in the spring to counteract any minor erosion that may occur over winter.  We are keeping the extra pavers as well in case we simply decide to level the the lower patio.

It really is a bad time of year to be doing this type of work.  The weather has been very hot and humid so the moisture seems to be lingering under the patio pavers.  The patio gets very little direct sun so takes a long time to dry.  The humidity has caused condensation around the cracks to in the morning it looks like the cracks are wet. 

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Plumbing Update

I know many readers have been waiting for the current plumbing problems. If you recall my last post talked about our plumbing problems (more here). The plumber snaked from the house and back the other way hoping to solve the problem. Ideally had this worked we would have noted a great improvement in our drainage problem.

Indication

Snaking should have opened the drainage lines but what we quickly realized is it caused the lines to collapse. The water wasn't draining properly then about a week later we noticed greening of the grass (red arrows) right in the same orientation of where the line ran and not really noticeable in the pictures the ground caving in. So we thought we found the exact location for the problem not realizing that we had a type of fiber piping that has been banned since the 1970's. In it's inception this piping was supposed to prevent root damage. However, as we quickly found out this piping does collapse causing major drainage issues. It is proving to be a costly repair for anyone who used the fiber piping!

Dangerous Wire

In Ontario it is supposed to be mandatory that you call for utility line locates prior to digging. Line locates are free but can take up to 2 weeks if it is not an emergency. In emergency situations line locates can be done within 24 hours. The fine if you hit a line without calling for line locates is $5,000. Now we knew from previous line locates there were no official utility lines as in from the utility to us where we were digging. What we also knew is the previous owner installed an outdoor plug off of which fed an outdoor utility light and the line to the dock lift. We disconnected the line to the dock lift so here is what we saw with the first backhoe shovel not even 2 feet under the ground and only a foot from the sidewalk where digging for flower beds easily could have happened was this totally illegal wire hook-up running from the main backyard plug to the utility light. I was shocked and yet happy we found this potentially very dangerous wire. How could anyone be this stupid? I'm not kidding! This unprotected electrical wire had the very real potential to kill someone. It's eerie too because my husband said to keep the backyard breaker off unless we were using it so he must have suspected a problem. So that is our next household project.

Pipes

It was decided after a bit of discussion to install a weeping bed that would be between the house and the lower clean-outs. This involved digging a trench from the back of the house to the clean-outs or about 100 ft. Three quarters of the trench was filled with 1' of gravel then the solid piping from the house was connected to two lines of holed piping that reconnects into solid piping that connects to the final drain. What this means is any storm, grey or rain water coming from the house ends up being filtered into the ground so it doesn't reach the water. In our area this is a more expensive solution that is eco-friendly as well. We are very, very conscious about what goes down our drains even though all but the kitchen are hooked to the municipal sewage system. This means nothing from the kitchen even though it is all phosphate free will not reach the water. Rain water is collected and used for the gardens. Now eventually any excess will reach the water but not much and by then it has been filtered so again another eco-friendly solution.

End of Day

It really was a depressing day in a lot of respects. My husband and I watched as the entire backyard was essentially destroyed. All the sod, seed and work we had done was gone. At the same time I couldn't help but think perhaps we finally have the problem fixed meaning no more water in the house.

Over the past 2 years we have had water levels in the house as high as 3" on several occasions. It is never pleasant to deal with flooding problems. So while our backyard now looks like this as of last Friday I'm looking forward to flood free days indoors. I think too that with the improved drainage our millipede, centipede and earwing problem will disappear even though I definitely have those issues under control. Our main concern right now is to solve all of our drainage issues. Once those are solved any of the side effects of drainage problems should go away including moisture loving insects.


Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Plumbing Problems

We have had on and off plumbing problems since buying this house. We actually are dealing with two drainage systems possibly three, faulty design for both and roots. The first system is the municipal sewage system. The two bathrooms and laundry room drain into the municipal sewage system. Shortly after moving in we discovered a problem with this system which we thought was fixed until another problem appeared the following spring that involved using a porta-john and digging up the neighbours' yard. That ended up being a rooting problem so once the roots were removed that system has been working fine. During the second repair we installed additional drain clean-outs for that system and the system that drains into the natural water body. Ground water, rain water and the kitchen grey water drains into this natural drain system. This means we have to be careful to use a no or low phosphate dish and dishwasher detergent as well as scrap plates before washing either by hand or in the dishwasher. Before you ask, yes this is a perfectly legal, acceptable and common drainage system here. Now we know there is a septic system that we suspect may still be in use for rain water drainage but we haven't found it yet.

Just outside of the kitchen patio doors there is a pit, brown circular object at beginning of the arrow. Water from the kitchen, rain water and two drains from the patio (one pictured end of arrow) (1) drain into this and from there travel down another solid pipe to the natural water way. We suspected a blockage of this solid pipe that forced water up and back into the house. The only solution was digging up the patio.

We discovered a corrugated drainage pipe that was obviously bowed (2) and (3) so now things got interesting. When the solid pipe was snaked, the snake went through the 'Y' joint instead and snaked the corrugated pipe instead of the smooth pipe. We do not know and the plumber can't figure out why the corrugated pipe is there in the first place unless it was a shoddy repair. At the same time we found the solid pipe (4) that had obviously been patched at some point. The end solution is we are tying all of the drainage pipes together in one solid fashion so nothing can get inside the pipes. The pit is going to be replaced with a clean-out. What we will end up with is a solid plumbing system into the natural system with 3 clean-outs covering all bases.

Pictured is the machine our plumber uses to snake the drains. A large coiled, flexible metal rod attaches to the front. It is then fed into the drain and the machine is turned on forcibly clearing any blockage. Additional rods are added as required. When the blockage is cleared is shows as a thick, black and very smelly sludge. In a normal system you would not see this as it would go directly into the sewage system. In our case we could both see and smell it!

Once we got the blockage cleared we discovered another problem. The pipe end in the pit (1) was more than half blocked with cement reducing the diameter considerably which reduces the flow of water from the pit. This creates a greater chance of water backing up into the house. Then when the blockage was cleared it was obvious the patch in the solid pipe wasn't sealed. So we are replacing the solid pipe from the pit that will no longer be a pit to the connection of the first patio drain.

The majority of the work happened Tuesday afternoon. The good news is there is no flooding in the house. It has drained and dried up. The trench my husband dug has also mostly dried. As you can see from the bottom picture the water coming out of the drainage pipe has cleared considerably. The bad news is the plumber wants to leave the open trench as is for at least one week before hooking things up properly. That means we are left with a nice trench, piles of bricks and a pile of dirt for the next week.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009