Title of Question:
Replace siding with ground
Name:Randy City: Kalamazoo, MI
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| Question: I am impriving the ground grading near our house to get water way from our basement walls. The two bottom rows of siding need to come off or they would be buried under ground. Should I burry them or take off and replace with what? |
Post Your Answer To The Question Above:
| Answer: Hi Randy! I'd suggest that you treat your home's current elevation as a fixed point in your drainage improvement project. If you were to put the dirt right up against the siding, burying it, water would get trapped between the siding and the house, increasing the likelihood of even bigger water drainage problems. If you were to remove the siding, I cannot think of any materials that you could use to replace it that I personally would trust to keep the water from leaking in. You would have to worry about not only the areas that you are covering up, but also the points where the covered areas meet the concrete of your foundation. What I would do instead is to create a more modest slope. Six to twelve inches of height difference from your house's foundation to lower points in your yard is enough to give you a big improvement in drainage. With a 2% grade, you can move the water out 30 feet from your house using that six-inch differential. Once you have the surface water routed away from your foundation, you might find that you have created new puddles further out in your yard. You can either fill them with a little dirt or install French drains to disperse the water. |
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