How not to make a blind area: 5 jambs because of which the house is bursting at the seams

I treat the blind area not as a structure, but as a consumable that should protect the house from water getting under the foundation. After all, water is not only soaking, but in conjunction with frost, it is also heaving of the soil, cracks in the foundation and the destruction of many structures. Heaving soil + water + frost - the house will crack at the seams.

The task of the blind area is to divert water from the house. But very often, builders forget about this and use the blind area to collect all the water under the house. I'll tell you about the gross mistakes that I had to see at the construction site.

Do not dig a moat around the house

In denser soils, water seeps less. Water passes through less dense soils faster. If you pour water into sand, it will pass through it in a matter of seconds. It's hard to argue with this. So why, with the help of loose soils, do we strive to collect as much water as possible under the walls of our house?

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You make such a moat around the house with your own hands. And it's not a joke.

It usually goes like this:

1. On the site with loam We are digging a foundation pit.
2. After installing the foundation falling asleep sinuses sand or construction debris.
3. Around the whole house we dig a trench a meter wide under the blind area - remove native loam.
4. In the resulting trench we fall asleep crushed stone, sand, gravel... and all the rest of the crumbs that we see on beautiful pictures from the Internet.

So it turns out that there is loam on the entire plot, and along the perimeter of the house we all covered it with sand, crushed stone and gravel. Where will the water flow? That's right - under the foundation. And if the soil is not loam, but dense clay, the house will stand as if in a glass of water.

The backfill soil must always be denser than the main soil on the building site..

Do not arrange "Champs Elysees" on the site

Landscaping is in vogue right now. A specially trained person will ennoble the site - make everything beautiful. It’s just not clear where the designers get such perfectionism from in order to do everything according to the ruler.

If you do not want the house to stand in the water, the vertical layout must be done with a relief slope from the buildings. Yes, you may have to make the base higher or bring more than one soil machine to the site. But if this is not done, the water will flow down the natural slope of the relief under the house.

Do not turn the blind area into an airfield

One of the common problems is that the blind area “cracks” due to frosty heaving of the soil. To prevent this, builders put more rebar in the concrete. I saw a blind area reinforced with meshes of 14 mm in increments of 100x100 mm, and even in two rows in height. Probably, you can drive along it with tanks or launch planes into the sky. In my opinion, burying so much money in the blind area is pointless.

To reinforce the blind area, a mesh with a bar diameter of 4-5 mm and a pitch of 100x100 or 200x200 mm is sufficient. To prevent concrete from cracking, expansion joints are made every 1.5-2 m. It turns out that the blind area is “concrete slabs” around the perimeter of the house. In winter, due to frosty heaving, they can rise slightly, but in the spring they will fall into place.

Do not slope the blind area "tyutelka to tyutelka"

Fans of ideally adjusting everything according to the level will say: “the slope of the blind area should be 1 cm / m” (or 2 cm / m, or 3). They will give a bunch of arguments why you need to do it that way.

Now imagine you made a blind area with a slope of 2 cm / m from the house. The builders spilled it from a hose - they demonstrated that water flows everywhere. Everything seems to be great.

As time passed, the sand filling along the foundation shrunk. The blind area sank and its slope is already not "FROM" the house, but "To" the house. After the rain, there are puddles near the walls. Or it may be that during the first frosts, the outer edge of the blind area was raised by frost heaving. The picture is still the same - a counter-slope appeared in the direction of the house. The foundation freezes, and after freezing, cracks can go through it.

There is no ideal slope of the blind area. You just need to consider whether your soils are prone to heaving and whether there is loose soil at the base that can sink. Based on this, make a decision.

Do not mow with the adjoining blind area to the wall

Paving slabs are often laid on the blind area, and the plinth is trimmed with decorative stone.

If the paving of the blind area is brought under the plinth facing stone, with frosty heaving it will “tear” the wall cladding.

First, they make the lining of the wall, and already the paving slabs of the blind area are brought to it. But if the plane of the wall coincides with the plane of the basement, water will constantly seep into the crack between the foundation and the blind area. Therefore, it is usually done so that the wall hangs over the plinth or a low tide is installed around the perimeter of the house.

Learn from the mistakes of others and make as few of your own as possible. If the material was useful, put "thumbs up" 👍 and subscribe to the channel.