Assess Drainage Problem and Plan Grading

all right guys we've got a pro a water problem obviously the house on one side is higher than the house next to it and these guys have to control the drainage and so sometimes the simplest solution can be the best solution and what we're going to be doing and it doesn't have to be an ugly solution either what we're going to be doing today is installing a Dry Creek bed what the surface looks like is not nearly as important as what it looks like below the surface so this grade that you see Zach working on this is the key to success in an application like this we've got to make sure that we get this surface contoured the right way so that it captures the water here Zach will you hold this the camera for me for a minute what we really want to do is we want to make sure that we get a good slope here's a couple of the critical things and the things to not do wrong okay one we want to make sure that we get a nice belly or a slope so that the water comes away goes down into the middle or the furthest point away from the house as possible without impeding or flooding the neighbors next door a couple of the things that guys go wrong on this is instead of subtracting soil they add soil now we have what's called a sill plate right here not sure we're gonna be able to see it but right about here should be a green treated plate and that should rest on top of a CMU or concrete masonry wall so on this house there should be an eight foot basement down below here excuse me then the sill plate then the siding starts if we raise the dirt up what's going to happen you can see it happening right now this dirt right here this is Splash dirt okay and this is the last thing we want to do is raise this grade and having even more dirt and water splashing on the house because what it does is it gets wet it gets dry it gets wet it gets dry and that can create a lot of issues with the wood the stick framing behind the siding this doesn't really protect that that well from that constant exposure to the elements such as wet dry wet dry dry Rock can occur you can have the the Timbers fail etc etc so right in here the ideal thing is to have the sub grade a minimum of eight inches below the sill plate so from this point down to where your dirt starts whenever possible it's not always going to be possible but whenever possible it's good to have eight inches of clearance and then we want to make sure that the subgrade angles away it tapers up and then we can put on top of that our Dry Creek…