Picardy Project

building shit & raising girls

Hey, We Finished Another Drainage Project

About 2 weeks ago we got late summer rain storm. I was at work at the A’s and had a wonderful 2 hour rain delay and Chris frustratingly texted me, “We need to fix garage drainage next chance we get.” Our favorite puddle

When we redid the patio there were a ton of inconsistencies in the pitch across all 900+ sq. ft. and while we did an excellent job (if I do say so myself) of fixing 99% of them, this area in front of the garage apparently did not get fixed. As a result, whenever it rains we get a big, fat puddle right in front and some seeping water into the garage
Not fun. It was on our list this year to tackle this issue, but it sorta went unnoticed because we haven’t had much rain. Cue the storm that resulted in this while I was at work
thanks Brett Anderson’s instagram
Needless to say, Chris was itching to get at it. I didn’t however realize how soon he would get at it because last week while I was away at work with Zoe we came home to this
Excitement 🙂
In order to get the project done, Chris had to do several things.
First up he used the skil-saw (with the help of a slow stream of water from the hose) to cut out a small amount of concrete from the entrance of the garage
After he cut out the concrete and broke it up he dug out many inches of dirt as well

After the concrete and dirt was dug out he laid down 4-6 inches of gravel in the ditch (not pictured). This was intended to help drainage and provide a good subsurface for the concrete.
Then it was time to take out about 25 sq. ft. of pavers and re-pitch the area (not pictured). He laid down some more dirt and sand to get a better pitch away from the garage so that hopefully the water wouldn’t run into it anymore. Once the pitch was corrected he laid the pavers back down. 
Over the rest of the patio we used polymeric sand which creates a concrete like joint so no weeds can grow up through the pavers. However, with this redo Chris decided to use regular sand so that if the new pitch wasn’t enough to divert the water away from the front of the garage the joints would be permeable so water could seep through between the paver joints.
The last step was to repour the concrete patch. As he poured in the new concrete he also laid down a strip of foam as an expansion joint between the pavers and the patch. This allows the concrete and the pavers to move a little without cracking.  
Initially Chris wanted to use pervious concrete to let water also seep through if it got past the re-pitched pavers with regular sand and strip of foam, but he decided against that because he wasn’t confident in any of the mix designs he found for the pervious concrete.
As the new concrete went in he made sure to insert 2 small 3/4″ pvc pipes into the patch

These pipes provide an area for the door stops to slide into so that we can lock the garage properly.
Once the concrete was dry Chris cut down the bottoms of the doors a little bit (they hang slightly low and drag a little on the ground as they’re being opened and closed). After that, the project was done!

A check mark on our list of 2013 goals that only took a day and a half to do? Awesome. 
Now we just have to get rid of yet another pile of crap on the patio
Damnit.

Comments

  1. Hey, what is that cool-looking cart behind the garage door (white, black, and a little bit of green? It might be something completely different, but from the angle of the photo, it looks like a cart. I'm always on the lookout for neat things… Love your blog BTW!

  3. Heather – aren't they the fucking worst? And we just got rid of a big one right before this too, grrr.

    Anonymous – thanks! The green, white and black thing you see is a cart. It's a festool storage dolly that my parents got Chris for his birthday this past year
    http://www.amazon.com/Festool-498660-SysRoll-Systainer-Storage/dp/B0092JSK0W/ref=pd_sim_hi_5
    It's expensive, but it really comes in handy for handyman jobs. Chris has gotten slightly obsessed with Festool. I think it's going to be a future "tool obsession" post of his. (Seriously, the man has like a dozen of their containers)

  4. we had a small pile of leftover class V on the lawn next to the house after putting in the retaining wall for over a year…in fact, it was still there when we sold the house. whoops.