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Here is my dilemma: to remove the stones or not (line of stone at top left in the lawn). My plan would be to regrade the soil next to my wall and to add concrete slabs on top of the grade soil. I also have lots of limestone screening and gravel that I just removed from the bed of a shed that I demolished.

The area in enclosed by the border stones is mostly dry except for the corner where I have the problems shown in the picture. The border stones are set under the dripping line of my roof.

My question is this: Do I need to remove those stones in order to do a proper job?

If I grade the soil aren't my slabs going to be sloped as well? I am wondering what is the proper way to do this, which is to have the soil graded and the slabs level.
(The picture has some more annotations because I intend to ask a couple of more questions about this project.)

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Edit: I amfinally resuming my work on this and I wanted to see if anybody can tell me if this is recommended or not. As you can see in the second picture I am planning to add a second line of stones like the ones you see in the first picture and after that I would like to put the precast concrete slabs on top of them. The stones that are closer to the house will be set higher and that will give the slabs a slight slope. Question: do I need to fill in with gravel and crushed lime stone or I can simply add soil there? I am thinking that soil should be enough since the slabs will sit on the stones anyway. What do you guys think?

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MiniMe
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  • How deep is the border stonework? Do you need to rework the soil between them and the foundation? – wallyk Oct 12 '14 at 17:45
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    If you are putting a concrete slab in that location, it should NOT be level - it should have a slope of 1/8" per foot (1mm per 100mm) (roughly) to move surface water away from the house. The patio should have the same sort of slope. – Ecnerwal Oct 12 '14 at 17:46
  • @walky: must be 4" or so, like the bricks used for patio. I have not extracted one yet to see what they look like. The soil might need to be reworked if I come to the conclusion that I have to waterproof that wall from outside. My plan is to fix the patio issue and to see if that fixes the wall issue and some other small problems inside (light smell -which actually disappeared lately and something that might be wrong at the bottom of the crack under the window -light dampness) – MiniMe Oct 13 '14 at 05:22
  • @Ecnerwal: I was under the impression that aesthetically and practically is not a good to have the patio and the walkway sloped but have the soil bed slopped since the water might get trough the patio or around the cement slabs anyway, get through the gravel and sand layers beneath the patio or slabs and rich the soil level anyway. I could not find any recommendations regarding slopping the patio but I did find instructions that one should slope the soil bed that will be used for lying gravel on it and sand on top of it – MiniMe Oct 13 '14 at 05:25
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    If you can aesthetically detect a 1% grade you have magical eyes. Virtually every "level" exterior surface that is deliberately built by people who understand water is sloped that much. Practically, it means that surface water flows off, and not much more than that. You won't notice it standing on it, or sitting in a chair on it. – Ecnerwal Oct 13 '14 at 15:39
  • That is good hear. I never thought of that. I guess I will try to grade the soil in the backyard first to see what it looks like. Thanks – MiniMe Oct 14 '14 at 11:18

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