Question
Outside Planter next t
Hello Marc. I'm enclosing a picture. I have some mold at the very bottom of some fake brick paneling on the part of a wall inside my summer screenroom that butts up against a small landscape planting area outside the room. I'm thinking there may be excess moisture building up in that area possibly because -
1. The outside planting area is angling downward toward the screenroom so water is gathering against the base of the screenroom wall instead of running off away from the building and 2. The drainage next to the building needs to be improved.
I'm thinking of doing the following -
1. Change the angle of the planting bed so that it runs downhill away from the building rather than towards it and
2. Digging a 4 foot trench next to the building and filling the bottom 2 feet with gravel and then covering the gravel with 2 feet of soil to improve the drainage.
I'd also like to know if I should cover the outer side of the cement block footing of the screenroom with some sort of landscape material before I refill the trench. Thanks in advance.
AnswerHi, Thomas - Yes, change the grade any way you can to avoid both packing dirt up against the sunroom wall, and having drainage run towards the building. I also noticed the downspout draining onto the planter. Any way you can direct it to the base of the retaining wall on the left? If you get ample rain, the water is going to pond up and enter your sunroom.
As to the trench, it sounds like a fine solution. Some folks call it a "french drain" or curtain drain. If you expose the block wall you can paint on a mastic product, tack on a plastic vapor barrier, or install a sheet drain to aid it moving the water away from your sunroom. Any way that you can get the water away from your home will be an improvement.
Here are a few links of what I'm referring to:
http://iewaterproofing.com/h_cmu.html
(the black material on the bottom photo is mastic)
http://www.protectowrap.com/prod-lwm200.html
http://www.wmbconstruction.com/blog/?Tag=footing%20drain
(A bit over-kill for your application, but good resource)
Hope it helps! ~M
