My walkout basement leaked a bunch of water from under the drywall right next to my doorwall last week when we had a really hard rain storm. I thought it was another crack in the poured concrete walls, but to my surprise I found an area next to the doorwall where framing on the sides of the doorwall extended down below grade. I guess what ever they had covered this with (OSB or one by) has disintegrated in the 12 years since the house was built and dirt had filled in the area between the studs. When we had that exceptionally hard rain the water got wicked up over the basement floor level.
Looks like I'm going to need to cover this with something fairly water proof. I was thinking about maybe using a piece of one by wolmanized that I back buttered with some foundation waterproofer tar then after I install it cover it with blue-skin and more waterproofer. I really don't know.
You need to excavate your yard down to below the level of your foundation so the soil does not get anywhere close to the wood. Anything else you do is just a patch - like putting a bandaid on cancer.
That walkout was designed to have a step down to the patio or ground level, and someone brought the grade level up to the bottom of the door. REAL BAD move.
As designed and built, easier to just keep all wood above ground - which is the normal way of building (with the exception of PTW foundations - which (thankfully) never caught on.
So you have that wood *below* your poured concrete walls?
The pictures are of where your feet would be walking from the basement to the yard? And the walls of the basement are poured concrete? Yet there is wood at foot-level? Is there concrete farther down?
What about all around the house? AIUI, the concrete or cinder blocks should be higher than the earth. And no exterior wood should be below ground level.
Do you have neighbors whose houses were built by the same builder? (Or non-neighbors ) You should talk to them about their houses and yours and what they've done, and what worked and who did it . .
Interesting. When I first saw this I assumed that there was an option when houses were built to where people could have gotten a larger doorwall, so they just framed in the sides to accommodate a smaller doorwall. That ledge the sill plate is sitting on is the footing the basement walls were poured on.
Any excavation of backyard would not be easy. The house faces on to a pond and the slope away from the house is kind of important.
Looking out from that doorwall:
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View of the house from the back:
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Now I'm no contractor, but isn't it common for the outside of the opening of the concrete walls around a doorwall to be framed with treated wood to make the installation of the doorwall easier? I can't really tell if the wood is treated, but I would have assumed I would have seen a lot more rot after 10 plus years in the ground.
So far I think my best bet is to cut that sill plate out, pour concrete to make it higher, then reinstall a new higher sill plate on top. I might be able to do some local landscaping around that doorwall too.
Agree with the above, CL, Chomper, etc. This isn't right. Wood should not be below grade. We don't know what the rest of the grading/design is, but I would start there and figure out how much wood is below grade and what it would take to rectify it. Since this wood is kaput it's likely the rest is in trouble too. This was probably designed correctly, but then when the final grading was done, they did not grade it correctly.
You could bandaid the current problem somehow, but it's not the right solution and if you have other similar wood, it's going to be causing problems before long. One other thing, this kind of condition is a prime target for termites.
As you can kind of see from that one pic (looking at the pond) all the houses are landscaped exactly the same. Grade was brought within an inch of the bottom of the door wall. If it doesn't rain today I'm going to dig in front of the doorwall and on the far side to see what they did. The more I think about it, I might have to pour some concrete to replace the wood AND maybe pour a small concrete landing/patio couple inches under the doorwall, which won't require too much of a slope away from the house (like 1/4" per
Bad design! You must not have building inspectors where you live, or it wasn't inspected correctly. How many more of the sills around the house are below grade?
Given these latest pictures, I think that may be your only choice. In addition, I think I'd pour a slab under the deck, pitched away from the house. Then attach some fiberglass or corrugated metal roofing under the deck, also pitched away from the house, to try to get as much water as possible, as far as possible, from the house. Ground water could still be an issue, though. It's a bad situation that may call for professional help before you make it worse.
Well, it's raining today and I noticed something that is making the problem even worse. The perforated drainage tube that goes down to the drainage tube, that empties into to the sump pump (then it is pumped to the pond), well because the footing sticks out about 6" at back of the house this drainage tube is sloped at an angle and a lot of the rain water is emptying out of the perforations and being deposited right next to the wall.
I've never heard "doorwall" before, but from what I can find, it seems to mean a door that dominates a wall. At least a sliding glass door with 2 segments. Guys, does he mean "doorway" in those places where he says doorwall.
So why did they use wood, and did they use it only in this one spot?
Any excavation would only be one or two feet from the house, 3 at most, and would be refilled after it was fixed. I wonder if you have a claim against the builder. Not worth it if it is only 2 linear feet involved, but what if it is more?. If you ask, be sure to say what state you live in. State laws vary. Maybe even a joint claim (or class action?) I'm not big on suing, but depending on what some pro's say, if it's more than what the pictures show, this seems very bad to me.
I am not a builder, a carpenter, a cement man, or a general contractor
Unless you plan on selling soon and want to keep this a secret, you should bring this up at a meeting of the homeowners association, or talk to all those who have grade level basement doors, like the ones in the first picture above. You still seem only concerned about your doorway
I might be
I'll admit that keeping water away from the rocks under the deck might help a lot. My downspout drained into a cement splash block, which emptied 18" from the house. But the splashblock wasn't really under the downspout and enough water filled the soil that 5 feet down on the inside, inside the cinder block basement wall, my 18" wide sheetrock molded and rotted. up to 6" above the floor. Someone talked me into extending the downspout 6 feet, and maybe the whole thing is dry now. I really should check. (The rotted spot is on the other side of the room and behind a big chair, so I don't really care.)
Ok, when I saw the first pictures, I thought you had a basement below the patio door. Either way, your grading must be properly graded before you attempt to fix any rot.
Looking at the newer pictures you posted, especially the one capturing looking towards the home. It appears you have plenty of fall to the left of the structure, if properly graded. No doubt you would want to get the area "OOPS'd" before doing any digging, and there is no doubt too much material to move manually. In other words, someone with experience (landscaping, excavating, etc) to do the work with a skidsteer.
No structure material should touch any earth or mulch except concrete. Termite shields should also be in place as required by your code. Be sure to leave the 4" or 6" or whatever _your_ code requires between building materials & grading. Your local building department will gladly answer all questions regarding your project, I can assure you that.
I don't think it's that simple. He essentially has a situation where the outside is graded flush to the bottom of the door. That just isn't right. The more normal solution would be to re-grade the outside so that the soil is below where the wood ends. And that is what he's talking about doing.
There is plenty of grade to work with from the house to the pond. And it looks from the pic like the foundation comes up higher out of the ground as you move away from the door and go under the deck. If that's the case, it may be possible to regrade the area by the door going over 5 ft or so. That is if that is the only area where wood is below grade.....
It's interesting the different terms used in different parts of the country. I presume this is what in Maryland is called Miss Utility. I heard a third name here once. To the OP, they come, for free, and mark where the wires and pipes that provide things for your home are, so you don't break them when you dig.
I should have said what I had in mind, that all the wood would be removed and replaced with cement or something permitted below grade.
I don't know if that's possible, however.
Yes, there's plenty of room between the house and the pond. Although if they dig deep enough, they could all have canals right up to the patio, and could use gondolas to visit their neighbors near the pond. It would be very charming,
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