Here is the most troublesome side of the house: the West Side. Shared with our neighbor to the west, our home experiences water intake at the basement level whenever it rains. Our home is downhill from our western neighbors, and water runs this direction.
Here's the history: My first attempt to solve the problem was in 2008, I installed a French drain backfilled with Missouri River Rock. This had no effect. In 2012, we installed a second drain along side the french drain with a few drain ports to capture water. This was also ineffective and appeared to make the problem worse. A third and final attempt occurred in early 2013. The regular drain was replaced with a new French drain back-filled with chat (instead of larger river rock). To our chagrin, this seemed to make things worse. The real issue was the fact that we disturbed the ground so much around this area that it was as if we were welcoming water to run down the side of our home. So this summer, I began packing more dirt on the West Side to create a slope away from the foundation and to give the weakened ground back its density. Then also near the Northwest corner where the ground was the weakest, I re-routed the downspouts to the new drain system and covered up the old clay pipes.
And here I took a break until last week. The Northwest corner was full of exposed pipes, and the ground still sloped inward to the house. Using my last pile of dirt from the backyard, I killed two birds with one stone: the backyard is now free of dirt piles. The Northwest corner is hopefully better off with the earth moved to this spot. I first covered the ground and the drainage pipes with 6ml plastic doubled over, and then I added dirt to the area. I added grass seed and a bit of top soil to protect it.More improvements to the West Side are still needed. I want to grow grass all along the side where I have yet to plan any. The windows need to be caulked and re-painted. The fence in the back needs to be weeded. The Northwest Corner also has more potential, I believe, to be a beautiful place.
