Driveway/Garage Drainage Problem

1. Call and ask him to use a concrete saw to install a drain across the driveway. Home Depot has the plastic trough with a heavy plastic grate that can be installed. You might want to shop around for a metal equivalent. You can sue, but don't let it come to that.
2. Don't add a ridge, because when water gets stuck on the wrong side of the ridge, you will have a flood that can't drain.

-B

Forget about trying to get patch mix to hold together as a curb- first time you drive over it, it would break apart. You may be able to find some sort of heavy rubber or metal garage threshold molding you can fasten down with construction adhesive and some ramset studs, to coax the water where you want it to go. Proper solution, short of ripping out end 8 feet of driveway and starting over, is to rent a concrete saw (or hire someone) to cut a slit trench in front of garage door. You then dig out and form a concrete trough and cover it with a grate to drive over. Trench is sloped to whichever end provides best drainage. If you get a lot of water, you may need a catch box and drywell to accept the runoff. You don't want to encourage the water to pond near the house, the better to avoid wet basement, etc. Your local precast concrete place should be able to set you up with all the bits you need for DIY, or a real paving company could knock it out in a couple days. Of course, if you hire out, you should have them crunch the numbers both way- drain trench vs. repaving end section. No idea what to say about going after the original guy. Tradesmen working off the books like that are usually pretty judgement-proof. Unless you can guilt him into trying again, probably SOL. And if he screwed up something basic like that the first time, do you really want him working for you again?

aem sends...

----- Original Message ----- From: "ameijers" Newsgroups: alt.home.repair Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2004 8:54 PM Subject: Re: Driveway/Garage Drainage Problem

What do you mean by a "slit trench"?

You then dig out and form a concrete trough

Would I slope this trench in the opposite direction as "line A" in the photo?

We don't a whole lot of rain, but occasionally....

You don't want to encourage the water to

The driveway is highest along the house, so that's not a problem...

I don't care, as long as he fixes it, and it doesn't cost me for him to fix what he screwed up.

I don't know about that. After all not only is he still subject to legal action by the owner, he is also under threat from the local authorities for failing to have a license (this could also involve a problem for the homeowner since it is not likely that a permit was obtained (another good reason to get a permit) and he is under the larger threat from the IRS. Don't feel bad if he would happen to be turned in to the IRS. Remember that the taxes he does not pay, you get to pay.

I have a similar problem where the double garage door could not seal properly to prevent water from seeping in. My solution was to glue a strip of 1/2 x 2 inch hardwoodwood trim to the floor. After gluing the strip let the garage door sit on it to press it down and to get the proper alignment. When dry caulk the seams.

Won't that hardwood trim just rot eventually? Does it look "out of place"?

Five years now and still looks new. All my friends who saw it thought it a great idea. It looks like a regular door threshold. Before glueing stain the wood to improve rot resistance. Mine's stained dark walnut to match the trim. If it does eventually rot or just looks ratty its easy enough to scrape it off the concrete and glue another strip. You are looking at under $20 cost and almost no preparation is required other than to wipe the glue area with paint thinner to remove oils, dust, etc.