Basement wall slightly below grade

[ws6guy]

I moved into this house 11ish (built in 1989) years ago and always known that landscape bed on one side of house seemed awful high but never paid much attention to it. We had a very large tree that was in the landscape bed removed and now looking at lower the beds. By my rough measuring from where the gas line comes out, my basement wall is likely 4-5" below grade. I have 3 rows of brick buried in dirt and roughly the top of the bottom row is equivalent to the top of my basement wall. Strange thing is that I've never had water issues in this area except a month or so ago. We ended up having a little bit of water in the basement but I thought it was from the recently installed front door that is leaking as well. It was during a storm where it rained horizontal on this part of the house like I've never seen before. So now I'm thinking water might have came over the wall instead.

Problem that I'm likely going to run into is that if the landscape bed is taken down to a proper level I'll likely be negative grade towards the house. I'm thinking that I'm going to need to find someone with experience that can get creative. Probably not the best solution but maybe a water barrier on the brick and make sure I have a good grade away from the house.

 

[gregkl]

I'll admit I'm not following what you are saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words and all that. But if your foundation is only 4-5" below grade I would excavate it below the footer, install a french drain, roll some liquid waterproofing on the walls, and put some dimple board over top of that.

I know that's overkill, but I did that to mine and I have had zero moisture in my basement and I am confident I won't.

BTW, my footers were about 4' below grade so I rented an excavator to do the heavy work.

You should be able to hand dig 4-5" pretty easy.

As far as negative grade: I ended up with that also when I did my repairs. The house was built too deep in the ground and I couldn't do anything about it.

So, I created a swale several feet out from the house. The overhangs prevent water dropping right against the house and the rest drops into the swale and runs off down into the back yard. Any water that comes against the house drops down through the stone into my french drain and runs into the back yard. I checked it yesterday after our 1-2" rain event and there was just a little bit of water in the outlet in the yard. Not enough to even come up to the top and flow out.

 

[ws6guy]

You got it....basically a lot words to say my basement wall is 5" below grade

House was likely set pretty level with the grade then my guess is the fine landscape folks raised the beds slightly or maybe after 30 years of mulch the beds raised to the current level.

The french drain idea might work out well here. No sure about the swale for the run off. Since this is a landscape bed in the front of the house we'll have some kind of plants/ shrubs etc.

 

[cosermann]

Do you mean the top of your basement wall is below grade?

 

[ws6guy]

Do you mean the top of your basement wall is below grade?

yes the top of the basement wall is below grade

 

[gregkl]

yes the top of the basement wall is below grade

Ah, so I misunderstood. Sorry about that! I was thinking it was a mostly above ground basement with maybe a walkout like mine and only 4-5" of the basement wall was below ground.

That changes things entirely as far as the work involved. To get to the footer, you will need an excavator.

You probably should look for away to grade the area away from the foundation. There are ground level "systems" you can put next to your house that go out into the yard 5-6' using stone, liner, etc.

 

[ws6guy]

Here's a picture. The soil level is basically at the top of the 3rd row of bricks along this wall. Best I can estimate is that the top of the basement wall is at the top of the bottom row of bricks.

This wall is about 20ft long to the right and this picture is the highest soil level. Going to the right the soil level drops down enough to be flush with top of the bottom row of bricks. There's plenty of room to grade to the right in the picture. However coming straight out from the house I don't think there is enough grade to get the soil level much below the top of the wall let alone a few inches lower. Bottom line when they built the house in 1989 it was set way too low. The rest of the house isn't so bad but this section has a sunken living room that's a about 8" lower which of course means they dropped the basement wall that much.

 

[PGRChaplain]

Get a Backhoe! The bottom course of Brick has to be above Grade. Brick and Mortar are Porous, Water penetrates and runs don the backside of the Brick veneer. The water exits through Weep Holes in the Bottom course. The only time we had Water Problems in new homes was when the Landscapers covered that Brick veneer.

 

[ws6guy]

Turns out I cannot get my bottom row of brick above grade without having a negative grade towards the house. If I run a level line from the house to the yard the top of my basement wall is at least of few inches below the yard grade. Guess the guys that did the final grading screwed the pooch.

I had a guy that is highly regarded with basement water proofing and excavation look at. His solution is to get the dirt as low as possible and still have a good grade away from the house. But the top of the wall will still be slightly below grade. So he'd apply a water proof membrane on the first few rows of brick and down about 2 ft down on the basement wall. I'd rather have the top of the wall completely above grade but I don't see how it would be possible without regrading the entire front yard which isn't going to happen.

Oh, and for some reason this house doesn't have weep holes anywhere. These rows of brick have been covered for 30 years and I guess I'm dang lucky this hasn't caused a problem.

 

[blain]

So to get a clear picture...
In order to take the landscape bed down to a good level for proper drainage away from the house, you'd basically be creating a trough below basement wall and yard level?

A picture back away from the house would be good. That way we could see the house, bed and yard situation.

 

[Expat]

if the bed slopes away and the yard slopes away and the eaves go out far enough and you keep your gutters clear, it may not be all luck.

 

[Bugzilla]

Several options, just need to get creative. Grade the slope toward the house and add a drain tile from the low spot and run it to a dry well or a lower spot. Pour a patio or sidewalk in that area that has a short knee wall that can be below the yard grade and slope the yard to the knee wall.

 

[WebSnyper]

Turns out I cannot get my bottom row of brick above grade without having a negative grade towards the house. If I run a level line from the house to the yard the top of my basement wall is at least of few inches below the yard grade. Guess the guys that did the final grading screwed the pooch.

I had a guy that is highly regarded with basement water proofing and excavation look at. His solution is to get the dirt as low as possible and still have a good grade away from the house. But the top of the wall will still be slightly below grade. So he'd apply a water proof membrane on the first few rows of brick and down about 2 ft down on the basement wall. I'd rather have the top of the wall completely above grade but I don't see how it would be possible without regrading the entire front yard which isn't going to happen.

Oh, and for some reason this house doesn't have weep holes anywhere. These rows of brick have been covered for 30 years and I guess I'm dang lucky this hasn't caused a problem.

Thread jack... No weep holes in our brick on the 20 year old house we purchased. I'm looking at having some minor brick/tucking type work around the entire house just to touch up some cracks and places where some of the mortar could be touched up. The masonry guy indicated they could go ahead and cut weep holes when they do this, which I was going to have him do.

Any Mason types here who would say that's not a good idea to retro in weep holes?

I'm waiting for the masonry contractor to have a break in his builder schedule to do this job, so not exactly sure when I'll actually be a le to get it done.

 

[ws6guy]

here's a couple pics. At the corner of the house the top of the basement wall is right at ground level or a little lower. As you can see when travel down the wall the grade increases and the wall is about 6 inches below grade. Then you can see the yard is pretty much the same level.

If I dug low enough I'd end up with around an 8" drop towards the house over about an 8 foot distance if I didn't mess with the yard level. So that would be a pretty steep drop and then I'd need to tile it and make sure it stays cleaned out or I could have more issues than I have now.

I could possibly lower it enough and get a grade away from the house. Then when it meets the yard do a retaining wall concrete block edging. The blocks would probably need to be 2 or 3 tall to be level with the yard. But I'm not sure if I could get it to look right. I'd probably need to edge the entire front and side landscape to make it look right. This would be quite a bit of brick. To the right of the 1st pic, but not shown, there's a pretty steep drop where the blocks could be 2 or 3 tall above ground.

 

[gregkl]

here's a couple pics. At the corner of the house the top of the basement wall is right at ground level or a little lower. As you can see when travel down the wall the grade increases and the wall is about 6 inches below grade. Then you can see the yard is pretty much the same level.

If I dug low enough I'd end up with around an 8" drop towards the house over about an 8 foot distance if I didn't mess with the yard level. So that would be a pretty steep drop and then I'd need to tile it and make sure it stays cleaned out or I could have more issues than I have now.

I could possibly lower it enough and get a grade away from the house. Then when it meets the yard do a retaining wall concrete block edging. The blocks would probably need to be 2 or 3 tall to be level with the yard. But I'm not sure if I could get it to look right. I'd probably need to edge the entire front and side landscape to make it look right. This would be quite a bit of brick. To the right of the 1st pic, but not shown, there's a pretty steep drop where the blocks could be 2 or 3 tall above ground.
View attachment 281613 View attachment 281614

I'm not very good at visualizing even with pics apparently. I can't see the issue. I wish my house sat that high! To me that side shot of the front elevation looks fine. And it looks like when you go around to the side you have a good slope going towards the back. If I was there I'd probably see what you are trying to show.

 

[dudley0]

What is the spray foam hiding? Is that where the water is making entrance? Is it a finished basement?

I agree that it all looks nice from the pics.

Start small and cheap would be my suggestion.

Make sure the stoop at the front door it sealed against the house. Looks like it is sloped well enough with the pic provided.

Check the downspout adapters to be sure they aren't leaking when you get a lot of water. I would even consider a little trenching to make sure they are sloped nice and carry away from the house enough.

Pinpoint where the water is coming in then plan an attack from there. Water finds the path of least resistance. Could be coming from nearly anywhere. But if your basement as a whole is not getting soaked then maybe there isn't a big problem after all. Find the problem tho, and remedy the situation. The good news is that it isn't a big problem right now, so you can get it resolved before it is.

Best of luck.

 

[ws6guy]

Sorry been out of town on vaca. Yeah it's hard to see from the pics but the landscape bed on the front of the house does slope towards the house. Along with the area where the small tree is planted sloped towards the house.

Yes around the corner of the house there is an ok grade. Also the front landscape bed slopes downward towards the side of the house which probably helps the water flow from left to right on the picture that shows the front of the house.

However I still have 3 rows buried below ground. Which results in the top of basement wall along with the sill plate being under ground.

The foam is where the jut out out is to the left of the window. About 10 years ago a critter dug a hole there and found a gap there. The jut out is just a small void area and not part of the basement. I put some metal screen there and expanding foam.

The way it is now if I dig out the bottom 3 rows of bricks and a little extra I'll be below the yard level. So this creates the issue of how to proceed.

I don't mind the idea of the guy I had to look at by installing a waterproof membrane on the first few rows of bricks and down the basement wall a couple feet. My only concern is that I know brick is porous and what happens to any water vapor behind the bricks that now cannot escape out the bottom row. Not that it can now since it's buried. The guy seems to know his stuff but I'm concerned about fixing one problem and creating a new one.

 

[Shadow01]

Turns out I cannot get my bottom row of brick above grade without having a negative grade towards the house. If I run a level line from the house to the yard the top of my basement wall is at least of few inches below the yard grade. Guess the guys that did the final grading screwed the pooch.

I had a guy that is highly regarded with basement water proofing and excavation look at. His solution is to get the dirt as low as possible and still have a good grade away from the house. But the top of the wall will still be slightly below grade. So he'd apply a water proof membrane on the first few rows of brick and down about 2 ft down on the basement wall. I'd rather have the top of the wall completely above grade but I don't see how it would be possible without regrading the entire front yard which isn't going to happen.

Oh, and for some reason this house doesn't have weep holes anywhere. These rows of brick have been covered for 30 years and I guess I'm dang lucky this hasn't caused a problem.

Water proofing should extend to the lowest level where your foundation drainage is.

 

[WebSnyper]

Sorry been out of town on vaca. Yeah it's hard to see from the pics but the landscape bed on the front of the house does slope towards the house. Along with the area where the small tree is planted sloped towards the house.

Yes around the corner of the house there is an ok grade. Also the front landscape bed slopes downward towards the side of the house which probably helps the water flow from left to right on the picture that shows the front of the house.

However I still have 3 rows buried below ground. Which results in the top of basement wall along with the sill plate being under ground.

The foam is where the jut out out is to the left of the window. About 10 years ago a critter dug a hole there and found a gap there. The jut out is just a small void area and not part of the basement. I put some metal screen there and expanding foam.

The way it is now if I dig out the bottom 3 rows of bricks and a little extra I'll below the yard level. So this creates the issue of how to proceed.

I don't mind the idea of the guy I had to look at by installing a waterproof membrane on the first few rows of bricks and down the basement wall a couple feet. My only concern is that I know brick is porous and what happens to any water vapor behind the bricks that now cannot escape out the bottom row. Not that it can now since it's buried. The guy seems to know his stuff but I'm concerned about fixing one problem and creating a new one.

Maybe have weep holes cut further up above the rows where you'd put the membrane?

 

[blain]

The guy seems to know his stuff but I'm concerned about fixing one problem and creating a new one.

Face the facts, unless you do some major yard grading, you won't have the ideal drainage situation.
Opt for the lesser of the two problems.