11/09/2025
Love getting to come back to projects once the landscaping team has completed their scope.
This house has gone through quite the transformation in the last year and we’re happy to have had the opportunity to be apart of this transformation.
A special note for those rebuilding steps against your home. We demoed the existing stair case that had obviously been patched over numerous times throughout the years. This exact reason is why I often recommend a complete tear out. If it’s failing below it’ll fail on top. Turns out the way the way this was built previously, had fines and clay pushed right up against the house. Unfortunately this caused some serious rotting of the rim joist. This was able to be repaired while we shifted focus to other parts of the project. This is the importance of ensuring there is plenty of air flow between building materials/fill and the home.
We do this by:
1) Using high void fill for empty space. Specifically we use clean washed stone that has at least a 40% void space not allowing water to “climb” up via a capillary effect.
2) If this stoop needs to go above waterproofing/sill plate/or against any wall not structurally designed to retain weight we build an internal wall. This for one takes the weight off the homes wall. Load bearing walls do not mean they’re also retaining walls! Doing this can cause serious damage. In addition we build this wall just off the house allowing plenty of air flow between our work and the home ensuring that any v***r can freely escape.
3) Proper utilization of drainage and jointing. Water both in v***r or liquid form needs an easy way out. Without this water can collect and with our clay soils it’s likely it won’t go anywhere quickly, leading to costly repairs just as we witnessed here and time again.
These are just some items that can influence the price of a project like this. Doing things right comes with a higher price but ultimately save you in the long run.
