In this month's video, Stephen and the Waterproof Team are in the courtyard of an office building addressing a problem with a retaining wall that is showing visible stress due to poor drainage. He's also pointing out the damage this poor drainage is going to present to the building itself.
Watch as Stephen explains the importance of proper drainage around retaining walls and why it's important to route water away from structures.
Transcript
It takes a minute sometimes to figure out what's going on, but what we do know is water's heavy and it's going to push. 8.35 pounds per gallon. So, 500 gallons is 4,170 pounds. I know we got more than that sitting on this wall, pushing this over.
Why am I talking about this? Only to illustrate. I believe those steps were poured in conjunction with the wall being tilted because you would see all kinds of more happening than just the breaking of the corners. Having said that, the water marches down from both of these into these courtyards. This is the office that we're talking about right now. Christie has been dealing with a lot of water getting in there. We've done some seals on the brakes outside. Just to say that we took care of the low-lying fruit. Now, I believe we're going to put in a four-inch French Drain. I'm going to put a dual run, two four-inch lines running this way, one this way, one this way, going to a basin. This basin will be below the rock, and the discharge will run over to the storm sewer. We will make sure that we're allowed to get into this.
But by being able to get into it, I see that we're coming in, there is a big, about 8-inch, 10-inch blue sewer pipe coming into this and going down. And it's about eight inches down. So we'll come in above it, or we'll come in on the backside and come in here. What's important is that we don't disturb what's there, and then we go ahead and get our system in.
We'll make sure that we have a check valve on it so none the water backs up and goes into the office. And we've got a plan for that. So at the end of the day, we'll institute that before these walls can put back in.
Just a helpful note. First, I'd take your plants out of here because this is such a critical part for the building. Go with a Southwestern look because of the sprinkler systems. But the water that does come in here, when you switch this out to rock and you put a drain in here, that'll keep these from being saturated, wanting to disintegrate. So, Steven from Waterproof Solutions, that's what I've got, and we'll put some numbers to it. Thanks for having me out.
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