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Back Yard Patio
This project started because of poor grading which resulted in some dampness in our basement. We also adopted a dog that really loved to dig around the foundation of our house which didn't help the grading. I wanted to avoid as much serious excavation as possible despite being in Wisconsin where our frost line is relatively deep. I'm lazy and cheap and didn't want to haul a ton of dirt and gravel. Biggest takeaways: Should have rented a sod cutter. Paver pads work well if you take your time and do them right. Buy the nicest pavers you can afford. Measure twice, dig once. Dogs will drive you to do insane things. N95's work in a pinch, but wear an actual respirator if you're cutting stone. Finished result first! Final result. We did plant grass which has filled in and the garden box next to the steps gets planted each spring. This summer, I plan to finish routing the downspouts under the deck and bench with cleanouts for each one. We started by tearing down the janky stairs from the sliding door. When we moved into this house, there was a family of ground squirrels that I trapped and relocated to across a river 5 miles away. It still smelled bad a few months later. We also needed to remove a very thick slab that was mostly buried in grass. It was significantly larger than I thought it would be.... Cut a rough perimeter of the patio. I cut all of this sod by hand and really should have rented a sod cutter. All of this sod and bit of topsoil was composted and has been feeding our vegetable garden for a couple of years now. Still cutting sod. Dog approves of the work so far. After all sod was removed, I rented a power tiller so that I could remove a few more inches of soil more easily. I chose to use paver pads instead of excavating a ton of soil and backfilling with gravel because I didn't want to do this by hand and didn't want to rent heavy equipment to do it. At some point around here, I also dug and poured footings for the new deck and stairs. This is after everything was rough tamped. I rented a compactor to do this. The goal here is to provide a mostly solid base for leveling sand and provide some rough grading out and away. The general slope is from the back left to the bottom right. I used some 2x4 lengths and a level to make sure water would flow in the correct direction and measured against the string line which came out to about 1 inch per 6 feet. Weed barrier down. Still procrastinating on clearing out the last yard of topsoil... Midway through final grading with leveling sand. I was able to keep the same initial grade and used some plumbing as a guide for screeding. Paver pads over the leveling sand and the first few pavers in place. The paver pads worked well and I would probably use them again. They've also kept heaving to a minimum over three Wisconsin winters. I have three cracked pavers that cracked the first winter. The cracks follow a seam and I suspect the paver pads aren't properly seated against one another. Placing the last paver! Lines in most places are pretty straight. If I were to do this again, I would purchase higher quality pavers that are more uniform in thickness and have perfectly straight edges. Something like a brick paver would work much better with the paver pads since they remove the ability to set one paver deeper than another. Dog approves. Framing out the deck. I applied joist flashing on all upward facing edges of the framing. Enlisted the help of my wife to get deck boards down. OSHA approved footwear. More inspection. The height of the deck was really the biggest mistake of the project. The top step height is... odd. Other dog (one of the main reasons for doing this project) loved to sun herself on the deck. RIP old girl :( Framing out a bench to hide last bit of exposed foundation. I went into this part without a plan, and it shows in how this is framed. Either way, it ended up very sturdy. Decking added to the bench (two downspouts will be ported through here this summer). Rough finish on a small garden bed that gets a variety of annuals each year. This is somehow the only picture I have with the bed actually planted. Thanks for reading! submitted by /u/yakmanuw [link] [comments]
| | This project started because of poor grading which resulted in some dampness in our basement. We also adopted a dog that really loved to dig around the foundation of our house which didn't help the grading. I wanted to avoid as much serious excavation as possible despite being in Wisconsin where our frost line is relatively deep. I'm lazy and cheap and didn't want to haul a ton of dirt and gravel. Biggest takeaways:
Finished result first! Still cutting sod. Dog approves of the work so far. Weed barrier down. Still procrastinating on clearing out the last yard of topsoil... Framing out the deck. I applied joist flashing on all upward facing edges of the framing. Enlisted the help of my wife to get deck boards down. OSHA approved footwear. Decking added to the bench (two downspouts will be ported through here this summer). Rough finish on a small garden bed that gets a variety of annuals each year. This is somehow the only picture I have with the bed actually planted. Thanks for reading! [link] [comments] |
