Home Improvement Today?

Excuse me for the long post, but I'm about to hit the point of no return and want to make sure I'm doing this as best as I can.

To touch on something someone brought up a few pages ago, this past spring we had an extended period of heavy rain. Given the clay like soil around my house, drainage isn't that great and my finish basement started taking on seepage. After cutting out the lower 2' of a few walls I noticed that the slab had pulled away from the wall by ~1/4-3/8". I do have a sump pump in one corner but the seepage occurred in two of the other corners. I had to pull the carpets/pads/trim to dry everything out, and given what a total suckfest that was I want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

So that being said, grading around my house wasn't working in my favor to begin with. Due to settling and the prior buttplug's landscaping, a 4' perimeter around the house was sloped back towards the foundation. Step 1 is to build up the grade around the entire foundation for those 4' to achieve a slope of at least an inch a foot and laying landscape fabric underneath to direct the water away from the foundation.

In places where it is possible I have dug a 3' deep trench 4' out from the foundation. The grading will terminate at the bottom of this trench where a perforated pipe will lead to the lower level of the retaining wall in my backyard. It will also have landscape fabric and gravel fill to protect the pipe from sedimentary blockage.

Does this seem like a reasonable mitigation? At the present it is about the best I can think up. Unfortunately it is not really feasible to trench all the way down to the base of the foundation to retrofit a drainage system. The good news is we don't often get rain heavy enough and for long enough to trigger the problem, but it is still something I would rather avoid in the future anyway.

 

Are your downspouts tight piped away from the house ?

 

The downspouts are all underground and piped ~15' away from the house to the lower level of the retaining wall. I ran a hose through each to make sure they weren't clogged and backing up. They drain just fine.

 

Then without doing a full exterior weeper or interior weeper system , what you are describing is about all you can do

 

Thank you for the affirmation. Now off to grab the shovel and schlep some dirt!

 

I've heard you're supposed to leave those front loading washer doors open or they get mildew/mold.

Counter and sills look great!

 

Just long enough to dry out. No problems in the 7 yrs I've had mine.

 

Yeah, I think people weren't letting them dry out and constant moisture staying in. I have a top loader so I don't know. I've just heard about issues with that.

 

I've heard the same. Also when doing laundry we do the whites/bleach load last. A little common sense goes a long way.

God forbid anyone ever read the manual on how to mitigate the issue. Run the tub clean cycle, clean drain pump filter, etc.

 

DAFUQ would you do that for?!

 

We usually do , I had it closed so I could work there

Thanks

 

T5HO lights installed today

 

Project Next : Finish the barrel vault entry soffit

This was giving me a major brain ache for the last 2 days . I'm going about finishing a barrel vault soffit . The barrel goes from beam to beam , that was no biggie but at the far end it collides with the roof pitch and to top it all off I thought when I was framing the house that a skylight in that spot to let some sun down into the entry was a great idea lol

The original lack of plan consisted of a flat soffit in this area , the barrel vault idea came partway through the framing , basically about a week after I finished framing it , so the original 2'x 4' skylight is now off centre to the 4' opening between beams that weren't originally in the plan so first step was to reframe for a 2'x 3' skylight centred between the beams , and then try to wrap my head around how the 2' x 3' rectangle , running at a 5 in 12 roof pitch that defines the skylight well would intersect the boards of the barrel vault and how to proceed with the installation of the soffit

I managed to figure out that the skylight well will form an ellipse at the tallest end and the sides will be partial ellipses until they plane out with the regular 5 in 12 roof pitch where they will then be straight ..... going downhill ....at 5 in 12 ....or something

you get it ?

 

Damn. This should be good oz

 

Yes. What's taking so long?

 

Had my electrician friend over yesterday , we're changing how a couple outside lights are going to be switched and I need to junction the new wires in the existing ceiling box shown in the pic , gotta fish a few wires today then I can move on to some more of the soffit installation

 

That entry is awesome. You didn't do anything simply on that house did you? It reminds me of my patents home I grew up in that my dad built. For the longest time I thought everyone's house was like that when I was little. It was a large modified a frame with windows all on one side, huge wood circular stairs and all casement windows. The first time I saw double hung windows I thought they were weird.
We also has no railing on the deck for a long time....even now after I redid the deck the railing wouldn't pass inspection.

 

I love A frames. Sounds awesome.

Since you brought up deck railings, can I have everyone's opinion on them?

I built my deck to be less than 30" above grade, so a railing is not required. Now that the deck is near completion, a few people have said they think I should install a railing so no one falls off the deck.

I don't have a large yard, but the deck gives a great view of the landscaping. Adding a railing would block the whole yard up to my neighbors fence, so we would pretty much just be looking at the neighbors house instead of the landscaping.

The railing for the stairs is white 4x4 composite sleeves with black aluminum railings with small black square balusters.

I think the glass railings would look dirty unless cleaned all the time.
I like the cable railings but it doesn't seem like I could do it without using wooden posts, and my whole design has been to have no wood to maintain.

Sorry it's pretty wordy, but what does everyone think?

 

So the deck that won't pass inspection is 4x4 posts a low rail and a handrail the rest is wide open. No blocked veiw an adult can't fall off. But a child could fall through. No kids running around so no worries for us there. That deck has an over 10' drop. You could do something like that but if you have kids that's what you have to consider.

 

Post up some pictures OZ.