Paved Slabs and Landscaping

When many people think of landscaping, the thoughts that come to mind are only those of what flowers to plant and where they would look the best. There are other issues that the thoughtful homeowner thinks of when they are planning the landscaping around their home and one of these is the careful placement of any of the paved slabs that they plan on laying either for decorative or other purposes.

Any portion of the lot that is paved over concrete or asphalt is a critical aspect of the landscaping that will affect how the water flows and drains either off the roof or running away from the house. It’s important to remember here that when you lose any area of grass turf as part of the drainage, you lose that area’s ability to absorb at lease one inch of rain. This depends on the type of soil. But because there is no absorption from a paved surface all the water that falls must have a place where it can adequately run off.

In many cases, the direction of the flow of that water is toward the basement. Much of the advice that’s available for people wanting to put in their own concrete slabs is that they make these slabs even and all the experts agree that’s the worst advice possible for the do-it-yourselfer. Any paved slab near a structure should be poured and sloped so that the water will run away from the structure. Keep in mind that hundreds of gallons of water may fall on a driveway, walk or patio and if these structures are not sloped the proper way, all that water will flow directly toward the house.

Some of the situations dealing with poured slabs are even worse than they first appear. All these structures must be inspected on a regular basis so that the homeowner will notice right away when the slab has sunk on the house side making the situation even more critical. This situation must be repaired right away before the runoff has a chance to find its way into the house and cause even more damage.

This unfortunate situation arises this way. The soil around the basement walls are dug and then backfilled after the job is finished but the soil left is tamped down. Even after a thorough tamping, the soil can settle and when concrete is poured over this, the resulting structure will eventually settle because the tamped soil still has a way of pushing itself down. To correct this situation, care must be taken before the end of the home’s construction in that the soil must be tamped several times to ensure that it is done properly.

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