When I bought this house, and as you can see in the pictures, there was negative grading around the house. Luckily, the basement is very dry, it never sees water even in the largest of water storms. Regardless, having a positive grade around the house is still important, so that’s the project we tackled this weekend. There was also concrete and driveway that was right up against the house that needed to be removed.
In the process of getting that removed, the power wire to the garage got dug up and needed to be replaced. I installed 3/4″ PVC to run a new power line and ethernet line to the garage. The ethernet line was just in case I wanted to add an access point in the garage in the future. Once this was installed and the lines were run, I covered it with the old dirt.
I had 15 yards of topsoil delivered to the house. I also had to go to home depot and get some window wells and concrete screws to secure them to the foundation. Once they were secured properly, we proceeded to start spreading the dirt. The goal was to have a 1″ over 1′ at a minimum, which we achieved and exceeded in some places, which was perfect.
We also had to raise the air conditioner unit. We did this by putting a sawhorse on one side and dirt on the other at the right height. Then we put 2 by 4s under the unit to raise it up, through the dirt under it to raise it up, then pull the boards out. You can see the outcome in these pictures.
All in all, this project took about 9 hours spread between 2 days, and will be the stepping stones to a beautiful landscaping job that will be posted here when it is complete.