Long story short, It's been on the list a long time, but never got done. Summertime I'm busy and the plants are tall. Anyways, after the wife planted Elysium next to our home and a few years later took over everything, I decided to rip it all out including six inches of soil to ensure it's gone. Gonna re-do the area with plantings and just keep it simple.
Couple of jobs that need doing are as follows:
Need to upgrade exterior spigot; cut in drainage lines to a couple of spouts; Re-locate and upgrade electrical outlet and re-point foundation.
Gonna try this weekend to chip and point the foundation - raised ribbon style :whistling but I'll see if i can delay it a little longer :laughing:
Granted, you won't see much when I'm done - but it needs fixin'. The previous owners had ivy all along the ground up against the foundation. Notice how it eats away at the mortar. I was pulling old vine roots from the holes in the stonework. I really just don't want termites gettin' in. The house has never had them and i certainly don't want them :no:
Ivy is awful, it ruined the brick mould on my front door then I ripped it off, I started seeing the junk grow back and I poured diesel on it and surrounding areas and bye bye it went. I hope theres no green freaks who readd this!
Superseal..... not much i can say. You can handle the pointing/below grade parging. It might be worth a powerwash to prep it.
I love the underground drainage of this type; smooth seamless 4". Far better that the black corrugated style.
It works great when it's above freezing but I believe you can count on it freezing solid in the winter.
#1) I would consider a second egress point for water above ground for when it is minus 20 and the lines are frozen solid, just so when the tempurature does raise above freezing some water can escape the essentially sealed system.
#2) If you visualize such a situation you can end up with a solid shaft of water (I'm not sure of the strength of it but visualize a 4X4 post). Now figure in ground heave from freezing. I believe it can end up pushing the pipe and frozen shaft of water upward. This can break loose fasteners or in built in gutters could tear soldered joints. This frost heave action can be mitigated with a horizontal offset before it enters the ground or in some situations you'll see a downspout terminate several inches above the ground and then dump onto into a disconnected grate which is the start of the underground system.
People in Florida may not need this system but folks further up north may.....
My connection at ground level is the light PVC tube which my steel downspout dumps into....... it is fractured....shattered from freeze expansion.
Hi Willy, good hearing from you...I used a lawn popper dug into a small drywell for now as the plan is to take it to the street. Basically went under the walkway and about 3 ft in front of the shrub you see in the picture. Yes, don't want these lines freezing. There's a slot cut into popper to relieve underground pipe water and prevent freezing - this is were I Installed a small drywell to help accommodate drainage. The popper is what allows a deluge rain to escape.
Worked 1/2 day today so I'm about ready to get out there and start chipping away. Will definitely wash to prep and gotta get some top soil delivered to start planting again.
Never the less, I appreciate your concerns :thumbsup:
Hope all is well.
Gotcha, I'm saying that frost heave will push pipes attached into the ground upward, in this case a downspout. Maybe not yours depending on if you are a zone 4, but it can happen in zone 5. When the column is full of frozen water it can amount to a fair amount of push or weight. Mine freeze and stay frozen perhaps for months. It's a fact of life.
How did you push the drainage pipe under the sidewalk? Much fun?
I hear ya Willy... I previously had them piped to the driveway using 3"
sched 40 and when i dug them up, they were fine. In there around 10 years I bet - just got tired of icing on the driveway. Did have it happen to me in my garage system when the frost lifted the drive pin/ rack on the spout attachment about 3/4". Nothing broke, just heaved.
As far as snaking the pipe through under the walk, I grabbed my breaker bar and just tunneled. The walk is only 3ft wide so it was no problem at all. It helped when i poured the walkway, I used 4" crushed stone base which came out pretty easy.
I'm sure you will get the stonework looking good superseal.
How old is your house to have a stone foundation? Looks a bit like mine, except the whole house is built like that
It's a young one compared to yours i bet. Built in 1942 at the breakout of the war. Some houses in the neighborhood received steel for lintels and beams and when the shortages arrived, the builders arched the window spans and used wood timber beams, even originally came with cedar roofs. Simple little houses really, random rubble foundations and multi wythe masonry.
There's a couple of different models that were designed including capes and colonials, and our street names reflect the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Since my buddy is the local historian, I'll steal a couple of his early photo collection of the cape models.
Interesting photos. I can see the floor joists going on in the background. I should have guessed yours was multi wythe from the headers in the facework.
That's not you on the bike is it superseal, looks like the same pair of sneakers.
Superseal....I have no idea how I missed them but your photos DO show and above ground egress drain. Sorry I missed them; I seldom see them.
Another fellow and I work on some old local historical style houses about 10 years older that were built during the depression. Each one was unique, recycled parts, random beams, and often made from local rubble stone. They are charming little cottages that range in size cost and quality. Some people call them fairy houses, because they look like something out of a brothers Grimm story. Anyway....they just had a historic walk and one of the newspaper articles said that (keep in mind during the depression) that workers were paid about 1 dollar per day.
That explains some things. : )
Quite possibly during the war there was a shortage of skilled workers and decent materials. Kind of like the houses that I sometimes work on one has to say; in spite of the shortcomings they have held up pretty well.
Well, got a little bit done this morning before friends popped over and offered a festive lunch and a Grolsh to wash it down. Let's just say i didn't get much done afterward :no:
Some raised ribbon on some not so friendly stonework...
i'd love to see a video how this is done. Obviously the joint is scored but how is the extra mortar removed and how are the intersections completed. Beautiful work.
I remember you saying this and actually posted these pictures because of that. I figured you'd be chiming in. Sorry I didn't shoot a video - Just thought I could get through with pictures.
Anyway, you mainly use a margin trowel to scrape away excess mortar using the straight edge of the trowel to work the intersections, corners and field lines. Start away from the joint working toward your score line and with a gloved finger, work a sand finish.
Proper layering of multiple coats of mud to bring the surface flush and good timing are required to pull this off. If your early you'll be pulling the joints - too late and you'll be blurring the work busting your
Also, mix ratio is important; too sandy no good, too rich and you get hairline cracks. Anyone like like to guess?
We're still waiting for the seceret recipe. :whistling:
D.
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