As strategic advisor I told Mr. Bachelor that garden in the front yard had to be removed, because it probably causes water intrusion, but the home inspector disagreed with me.
Well, I was right because Mr. Bachelor has endured a long headache.
After we married, at the top of the list was my improved ability to manage conquering this woe, since I finally lived at the house of doom.
INSTALLING FLASHING UNDER FRONT DOOR
Picking up a lost interview with Capital Trades, I called them to reconnect, and thankfully Juan remembered the project and within the week sent a crew to the house.
As Juan suspected, when they pulled away siding, the team discovered no flashing under the front door, so they installed the required flashing.
REPAIRING WOOD ROT
While working around the front door, they noticed some wood rot which extended into the front door, into the door jambs.
Pulling up the floorboards of the foyer, they discovered a wood rot in the subflooring.
All because there was no flashing under the front door.
After a new front door arrived, all wood rot was replaced and the door was installed.
Joyfully we were water tight until the next year, when we had our first major rain in months. after our new front steps were installed.
Perplexed, we soon learned we had technically been in drought in the last year.
KNOWING VALUE OF FRENCH DRAINS
Knowing the value of French Drains, I added that to the removal of the garden on my contractor interview list.
In the last three houses I’ve lived in, there were soggy areas around the house that was addressed by the installation of a French Drain.
I’ve learned from all those experiences that French Drains perform amazingly well in soggy spots, efficiently moving water away from the house.
INTERVIEWING CONTRACTORS
Interviewing contractors to remove the front garden AND install a French Drain, I agonized because all the landscapers refused to perform either of those actions.
Highly disagreeing with them, I insisted to my husband that if we undo as much as the garden as we can, that will mitigate our problem for future rain storms this wet season, while we find a contractor who will cooperate with us.
MOVING DIRT OURSELVES
At my request, my husband first dug out the hostas so I could transplant them in the new garden out back.
Although I was sad to move the lavender hostas that looked so gorgeous against our new front steps, this was a difficult garden to work in since the only place to stand when gardening was in the neighbor’s side of the garden.
Removing all the soil away from the foundation he could, so water could more easily flow away from the house during storms, he noticed less water entering the storage unit than previously when another storm arrived.
With this proof, he confidently encouraged me to continue my interviews.
HIRING NORTHERN VIRGINIA LANDSCAPE
I was so impressed with my interview with Kinisi from Northern Virginia Landscape, we hired them!
Agreeing to the need to remove the garden and install a French Drain, Kenisi also highly recommended redoing the downspout, which was only dumping more water onto our property…and wasn’t to code.
Since our neighbor wanted to keep her garden, we also contracted them to install a retaining wall.
Our wonderful neighbor heartily approved, as did the HOA!
Finally, excavation day arrived!
For all the moaning and groaning the previous contractors made that it would be to laborious to remove the garden and install a French Drain, Kinisi and his team from Northern Virginia Landscape conquered in one day!
Specifically, Northern Virginia Landscape did all this in one day:
- removed the dirt
- built the retaining wall
- properly reconstructed the downspout
- found that the drain from the downspout to the sidewalk was excessively winding through the garden, so they replaced it with a direct route
- created a French Drain
- graded our side so that water would flow away from the house
- layered our side with weed preventing cloth, pea gravel, and river stone to create this draining rock garden.
They did a great job!
