A Sunday well spent

Some people wake up on Sunday morning, say “screw it, it’s Sunday”, roll over and go back to sleep.  Others get dressed to the nines and amble off to church.  I eat my Lucky Charms, down a tall cup of black coffee and decide that it would be a great idea to tackle this:

“This” being the low brick planter built smack against the house, a big no-no for lots of reasons.  The planter created a trough that collected all manner of evil things against the foundation and siding: water, dirt, leaves and bugs among them.

So, shovel and sledge in hand, I set to work demolishing the ugly masonry edifice. Fortunately, it wasn’t the stoutest brick wall on the block, so aside from being heavy, the work wasn’t too bad.

Here’s where most folks call it quits, take a shower and sit down for an afternoon marathon of Mad Men Season 5.  I decide to install the mother of all drainage systems:

Worried about the water coming from the east side of the house, I devised this system to divert it around the foundation and into an existing terra cotta drain I found below the brick patio.  I prefer to use rigid PVC drain pipe in these scenarios since it’s less likely to develop low spots when you backfill and it’s less susceptible to intrusion by tree roots.  But, to pick up the downspout in the foreground and jog around the stair foundation, I had to transition to the more common black corrugated pipe.  Everything works great: the first hard rain sent water gushing from the outlet at the bottom of the patio.

A Sunday well spent, the old house way.