I have the same situation. Since I do not actually want a window on the patio, we are going to block the window. The foundation is a long, rough, concrete block (the type typically seen on victorians built in the early 1900s). We intend to seal the perimeter of the window and contour whatever material we use to fill so that it blends in with the rest of the foundation. With the type of foundation we have, it will be relatively easy to match. Other types however (e.g., brick), may not be as easy without a matching veneer.

Our foundation is a poured wall. The current windows are the tilt in type, approximately 15" h x 24" w (rough estimate). We only have 3 basement windows and 2 are in the area of where the patio would go, so we really can't close them in. The patio guy recommended replacing the windows with glass block units, so I have a glass block guy coming tonight for a quote. Though I'm not sure why glass block windows would be better.

As a rule of thumb, any hardscape installed or soil grading should be several inches below the sill plate or else you are just inviting flooding into your basement.

If you have to be higher than the sill plate, do you have the room to install a patio long floor drain between the house and proposed patio edge that doesn't distrub the original grade and can drain away? In this way the patio is not up agains the house or window, but there will be a drainage channel to take away water from the sill plate/house wall.

I'm not sure what you mean by a patio long floor drain?

"As a rule of thumb, any hardscape installed or soil grading should be several inches below the sill plate or else you are just inviting flooding into your basement."

Wouldnt the basement windows be in the basement walls, which can be found below the sill plate?

You are saying that in order to have positive drainage the highest part of the concrete slab will be at the basement windows. It this is the case, how would you get ponding.

It sounds as if your grade outside your home is very close to the top of the foundation walls. Why cant you excavate down in order to stay below the windows. Because really when you talk about a patio, you have 4" of concrete with 4" of stone under it.

Pictures would be helpful also

It so happened that shortly before we poured our patio, we waterproofed the basement, so drain tile was run around the perimeter of the house. Two years later (with one winter of heavy snow/melting and one summer with record-breaking rainfall), we're still dry. The ground beneath the patio was graded downward away from house which probably helps as, even during heavy rains, I never see standing water on the line where the patio meets the house.

Two suggestions:

The first is not to pour the concrete right up against the house. Leave room to plant between your patio and house. That area will be dead space on the patio be cause no one sits that close to the house anyway.

The second is to install window wells. Whether you pour the patio right up to the house or have a bed, it sounds as though you will need to raise the grade. The inexpesive metal semicircles can be found at any home center. They'll be fine in a planting bed, but not very attractive with concrete poured up to it.

I don't have a patio near my basement window, but a garden path and retainig wall. My basement window sill is even with the top of my foundation wall, which is about two inches above my soil level. During heavy rains I would get some seepage into my basement over the top of the foundation wall (contractor left a depression near my window).

I installed a small grate near the window, which was connected to flexible drainage tubing, and it drained further down slope into my ditch.

Install a window well. I live near Buffalo and that's what we have. If designed properly with drainage consideration,
you should be happy with the result. We've had ours for 4 years and zero drainage problems, because there are drains under the gravel and patio to take it away from the house.

This link shows you what they look like, and several of the links tell you how to install.

Here is a link that might be useful: images of window wells

Gottagarden,

Do you have any pictures of your window wells and patio? Thanks.

Someone had asked me for some photos of my basement windows so here's some:

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As you can see, the bottom of my windows are just about level with the ground. I could do window wells, except I'm worried that the steps coming out of the door would interfere with the window well closest to them. At the very least, I think it would create a danger right at the bottom of the stairs. I could also leave the patio out from the wall about a foot or so and create a planting area, but again, I'm not sure how well that would work with the stairs coming down from the door.

After seeing these, does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

treebeard: We've been debating what to do for a long time (as my first post states). We've gotten quotes for both stamped concrete and a composite deck and the concrete option is about 1/3 the cost. I couldn't even build a deck myself for less money than having a stamped concrete patio poured. And price is definitely a big factor. You're right - with a deck we could just cover up the basement windows and not have to worry about it. But I have 1 more deck guy working on a quote for me.

I posted these pictures to see if anyone else had a similar situation and to see how they handled it. Anyone?

The slider should open from the other side giving you an opportunity for two treads (three risers + threshold) coming up for the full width of the slider. The window well would not be in the path of the circulation. In fact, you could make just one level on that side of the step that a pot could sit on.

There is no reason to pave up to the foundation as it takes away planting opportunity that would enhance the space and no one sits hard up against a wall (especially with windows). Planting between the building and seating is one of the things that makes a patio nicer than a deck. Don't cancel that out.

I would suggest going out from the house some distance because there is a creepy feeling you get with a window close behind you. Make sure that you have enough room that seating will be at least 6 feet from the windows.

Here is a very crude sketch. (not my usual media)

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That is supposed to show your window half submerged in a window well and your patio raised up to just 8" below your siding, but I'm no master at the Windows Paint program and won't take the time to draw it right with all my free time. The siding line on the left should be lower in the sketch.

Very nice drawing. I vote for Laag's plan. I had a patio poured right up against the foundation, also with a basement window, without any problems, but I now wish that I had left some planting room in between. It's very barran where the patio meets the house.

Laag,

Nice drawing but that won't work since my patio door is a French door and not a sliding door. The inside door opens to the right as you are looking at my photos. To do as you suggest would mean the door would have to open the other direction into the room and into the flow of inside traffic.

I do like the idea of leaving a planting strip between the house and patio and this would seem to solve all my problems except for the stairs interfering with that one window. If I started the patio the same distance out from the basement window that the current stairs are then that might be OK. As you come down the stairs your natural direction would be to go towards the open part of the patio - you're not going to go straight down the stairs and then turn left towards the open part of the patio. This could work. We have another concrete guy coming Monday night and I'll discuss this with him.

Thanks for the advice. And others please feel free to post more ideas! Thanks.

Mark

"The slider should open from the other side giving you an opportunity ..."

I know that it will mean changing the door (slider or french door). It is worth it in my opinion. It is a poorly placed door (not an insult or attack) and/or poorly placed basement window. It is an architect or builders error that you are left to deal with. If that is a french door, it looks like it is opening outward, you need a landing on the top to meet code adding more complication.

If you can find a smooth solution to work with both of these, that will be great. If you can't, you could consider changing the door, or infilling the window.

The door probably works fine from the inside, but it is awkward on the outside with or without the basement window. It is not comfortable entering a door into a corner. That is why I think it is worth changing the door so that it is no longer awkward, works with a patio, the window, and with a planting around the patio.

Again, there may be a good solution that someone will come up with that works with it.

At the risk of being considered mean spirited, it is clear that the project is driven by an architectural design mistake. With the absence of a clever solution, it should make sense to fix the mistake rather than keeping it and fudging together an awkward compromise. Does that make sense?

When looking at the door from the outside (as in my photo), the right side is fixed and the left side swings in towards the right side and into the corner of that room making the sliding screen door completely and freely accessible from the inside. Not sure why you thing it swings outward?

No real problem with the door or it's placement. If the door were reversed, then it would be hard to exit the house as you'd have to walk into the corner of that room to get out. The problem is that window. We talked some more last night about leaving a planting strip and we both like that idea. We'll bring that up with the next concrete guy that comes on Monday night.

My place has a "French Door" like yours with one half being a fixed false door. I don't quite understand the idea of this design. I thought that the basic advantage of a French door over a slider is that you could open both doors for more access. We built stairs out into the yard and made them the entire width of the doors and included a small landing on the top (24"?). At some point I would love to install a set of real French doors or a sliding door and the eventual plan is to install a deck or screened room.

I cannot see laag's mockup (I am at work where they block access to photo sharing sites). The solution that I envision starts with replacing the steps. I see steps built the full width of the two doors with a small landing on top and a set of stairs that come out at a 45 degree angle. Something that would not direct the flow directly along the house and your basement windows. I also like the idea of a planting area along the house with your patio stretching out into the yard.

- Brent

Brent,

You read our minds in terms of the new steps being as wide as the entire door and the first step down from the house being nice and wide. We are definitely going to do that. It's just from there that we're a little undecided! We'll figure it out eventually I guess.

It is the screen slider that threw me off. I first thought it was all a slider. When you said it was french doors, It appeared to be on the outside of the door frame which would not open inward and the handle is on the left. So from the outside, it is effectively a slider on the left side as I thought.

The part that is no good is the fact that it puts the user walking out along the face of the house wall whether it is a french door, slider, dutch door, or conventional pass door. That is compounded by the cellar window. If budget is not a big issue, I'd change the door. It would be an issue for me, so I don't blame you for sticking to it (but it is poor building design).

The sensible solution, barring changes to the door, is to build a wood landing the full width of the wall with the door on it. Then have the steps coming down off of that onto a conventional patio layout away from the house. There are many good ways to do that.

Put in two standard metal window wells so that you can fill to proper grade for your slab. Keep a planting bed between the slab and the house where there is no landing. You may as well have the concrete guy waste his extra mix in the area that will be covered by the landing (what they call a dust cover). That will keep burrowing varmints from taking up residence (see that that also pitches the water away). The dust cover does not need any fancy finish, so should not cost very much at all.

As long as you resign the idea of keeping both windows open to daylight this is a very standard wood frame step and patio.