That sounds rather serious. I think it's time to consult a soil engineer as to what will be required to stabilize your slope.

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Plant trees and shrubs. Go native for low maintenance.

Then mulch to the teeth.

to sense
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If the source of the water is from your uphill neighbor, you'll have to address that issue. If they can't/won't cooperate, you'll have to ditch the edge of your property to divert their runoff. Once that's handled, the rest is under your control. You may have to resort to terracing the steepest parts of the yard to stop the runoff. French drains can help with underground water flow.

My yard is unique in that not only I am located on a multiple level hill(s) but also the slope is from left to right. Pretty sure the water is coming from around the front porch area so I have been putting rocks and stones around where I believe it is going underground (actually think it may be more than 1 area around the porch)Just put out more yesterday and we are expecting a big rain starting tonight and through early morning Sat so will be interesting to see how my new rocks hold up. I will try to take some pics after the rain tomorrow and post a few urls as it is really hard to convey my yard layout in a text message.

Thanks, Fletch

We are addressing a similar problem with some concrete stairs going up a hill to the memorial garden at my church. When water hits concrete or other hard surfaces it tends to erode the soil right next to it and sometimes tunnels under the concrete once it has eroded enough soil away in a spot. It's been a challenge for us and there has been some prior trial and error. We did a bunch of things several months ago which now appear to be working (hope, hope). 1. We used a bunch of old landscape timbers (from the prior wooden stairs) further up the hill to slow water velocity and redirect some water. 2. The erosion gully was dug out a little more, filled with 3/4 crushed stone and then topped with soil which will be planted with grass in spring. 3. More crushed stone, small soil berms and natural rocks were placed at some key flow points further uphill from the stairs and places where the water seems to pick up velocity and where water comes together.

It helps to address the water as close to the source as you can. Terraces and French drains are sometimes needed as well (we've used those in some other spots at the property). Deep rooting plants, native plants, erosion control blankets and coir logs, etc. are all things to consider as well. Good luck.

Thanks Bob,

Your # 2 is what I have been attempting to do. At first I used small drainage rocks but the water flow was so strong I started seeing some of them blast out and fall to the lower sidewalk by the street. Now using combo of egg rocks, marble rocks, old pavers and such to fill in the larger holes. As far as addressing the source I think you are right and I did not do this as first but pretty sure after the erosion continued I have may located the source (ultimately my own roof which is very steep for single story). I am about to post some links of pics I took this morning and if you see any specific suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Fletch

If you have the time to look at my pics, please let me know if you think my theory as to source is correct. I know other side of roof arch is a problem as previous owners had put in huge landscaping rocks to prevent further erosion on that side of the yard (and it appears to be working). If you can think of anything specific please let me know. What I don't understand is why I went 3 years without any problems and then suddenly this started last fall. Just finished school and have big tuition payments so have to do any fixes myself. ..Thanks, Fletch

Link 1 shows canal along my steps and at top of steps to the left you can see my hollow sidewalk someone had added on.

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1674.JPG

Link 2 Shows erosion along the steps. It actually looked much worse but I have been filling in with rocks and recovering some of the top soil from the lower sidewalk.

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1676.JPG

Link 3 shows top of stairs where hollow sidewalk connects.
First signs started on left side where you can see my repair. Repaired worked for the most part but then water then redirected to the right where you can see my temp repair. Once I discovered sidewalk was hollow, I started filling in with rocks...probably 1 full bag (lowes) is now inside sidewalk. Only problem is until source is cut off, flow will continue to move to the left and whole thing starts over again.

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1677.JPG

Link 4 shows one source of the problem and where I originally thought was the sole source. Back in early fall, I noticed this small bare spot had a tiny hole pointing towards sidewalk. At first I thought it was caused by a mole or something. I have stuck plenty of rocks inside to attempt to plug it up. After awhile, I noticed a hole appearing behind it towards the shrubs and staircase (rear part of pic). That is when I realized this area was probably not the source of the problem (but certainly part of it).

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1678.JPG

Link 5 shows a wider view- I recently found signs of erosion to right of sign along the stair case. I also found previous attempts to address (some rocks) but I don't think they went far enough. Run off from roof lands in these shrubs and I think it has been digging holes and just generally running under this staircase and coming out on other side where you see my rocks. Thursday, I put out more rocks along with spare landscaping bricks to block off area around staircase. Water can still get under there, but it's flow rate should be much less now. Still may put in a bag of marble rocks just for extra protection.

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1684.JPG

Link 6 shows source of run off (wish I had a shot showing how steep roof is but you get the idea). Water lands in area between front porch and staircase.

http://n4szo.servebbs.net/myhouse/CIMG1686.JPG

Hopefully this gives you an idea of what I am seeing. Now off to Lowes to buy some top soil.

Hi Fletch,
First off ,your home looks lovely (I was anticipating something in much more disrepair)
Quit saying "hollow sidewalk" as though the sidewalk was built wrong....it wasn't, it looks wonderful,and had the landscape drainage been done correctly, you wouldn't have had an issue with the sidewalk, as a general contractor for the last thirty years, I think you should immediately ,install gutters and downspouts to your home,then ...instead of splashblocks put in temporary 4" accordian style (no hole) piping laid directly on the ground and 1 side hooked to the bottom of the downspout and the other end taken down to .....anywhere it doesn't do any damage to your landscaping....then ,when you can..... bury the pipes so they do the same job of moving the water away from your landscaping ,but are no longer visually unappealing...

I agree- your house is very lovely!

This is off topic, but one thought I had is that the concrete stairs aren't quite in keeping with the style of your home. The house has some interesting lines, whereas the stairs are a bit more generic. I notice that you have a nice brick planting area or retaining wall on the other side of the driveway - at some point in the future, you might want to take this opportunity to replace the stairs and walkway with matching brick. At the same time, you could address the drainage issues.

I agree that dealing with the drainage issue before it hits the ground is a good thing. It's hard to believe that the big rocks and bricks that you are filling the holes with will do anything to help. As long as the water can still flow with any velocity, it will continue to pull out soil from the surrounding region.

As another note - installing gutters is something you can do yourself if the roof lines are simple and not too high up. We added some to our garage last year (don't know why the previous owners guttered everything but the garage!) and it has noticeably reduced moisture issues in our basement.

John,
Thanks for the reply. I replaced/extended the gutters in the backyard about a year ago and do have it hooked to one of those tubes (but not buried as of yet). For appearance sakes I am hoping I won't have to do it in the front but will as last resort if nothing works, but not ready to give in just yet. That is a good idea I should have thought of!

RE: hollow cement- I made that comment because the original sidewalk (parallel to the house) is solid and shows no signs of wear. The House/that sidewalk were built in early 80's. The stairs/second sidewalk, driveway, patio, second smaller stairs in backyard were all built circa '96 from what I was told. Yet they show much more "water wear" than the original sidewalk. You can see the little rocks very easily and some of the stairs are starting to get holes in them that I will have to fix with quikrette/etc. Have already done minor repairs on driveway. Wouldn't you agree that something is wrong when the newer stuff actually looks more worn?

I'm no soil engineer but from what I can tell, I agree the source of the water is your roof. If it t'were I, I'd be looking at eave troughs and downspouts to channel the water to someplace I could control it better. With the your slope, the volume/force of the water is very conducive to erosion so the choices are to control it (piping/tubing) or build a {{gwi:262335}} that can handle it (not soil).

Interesting conundrum.

Lloyd

Fish,

What I am aiming to do is stop the water stream coming from the roof arch from hitting the actual ground but rather hit the rocks, then divert the water from running under the wooden staircase so it hopefully goes down the left side of my yard where the yard is not as steep. On the right side of the house there is about a 3 foot square area of prior erosion. Someone had put in some large rocks in this area and the water hits these rocks when coming off the roof and it has worked fine so hoping I can duplicate.

Thanks for the comments on the retaining wall. When I bougt the house the wall was built out of landscaping timbers and was very rotten. First thing I did after graduating in May was to build that wall along with an even larger one in the backyard (it was also made out of timbers and even worse shape). I don't really like the stairs but don't have the $$$ to do anything about it right now. House/backyard has been neglected by previous owners (I had to cut down 19 dead trees 14 smaller ones myself, the rest I had to hire out). So right now trying to stay above water and do what I can myself till I get out of some high interest debt :)

Now to get back on topic I need to ask a silly question about top soil. I picked up some soil at Lowes yesterday but what they call top soil did not look like "dirt" to me but rather compost. I ended up buying Lawn repair/seeding soil by Scott as it looked a little bit better but still not really "dirt" looking. Lowes garden guy said it should work , but just wondering....

Your situation does not look horrible. The situation my church dealt with was more severe. It's good that you are dealing with it now instead of after it gets critical. I agree that the water is most likely coming off of your roof. Above comments make sense for dealing with the roof runoff. In one spot at my church we did run the gutter to a drain/sediment trap that then ran to flexible pipe that was buried and daylighted at the bottom of the hill. Running the gutter to a dry well is another idea to consider but I/m not sure how much room you have to work with and I'm pretty sure you don't want a dry well close to the foundation (you should check me on that last bit but that's how I remember it). Find out the location of any underground utilities before you start digging. I also like the idea of installing a rain barrel to catch the roof water but you would still need a system in place to deal with any overflow once the barrel fills to capacity. 3/4 crushed stone would be better for your purposes than filling the gullies with pavers or round rocks in my experience. A contractor who did some work for us gave us a pile of of left over 3/4 crushed stone from another job for which I have found endless uses on my hilly church property (and I could use some more, in fact).
Purchased "top soil" is whatever the merchant decides to put in the bag. There is no standard. There's a good chance that a large portion of the top soil you purchased is compost. There are "top soil" manufacturers that basically make big compost batches and sometimes mix in sand or whatever. No need to replace your concrete stairs if you are on a limited budget. There are things you can do to make the existing concrete look nicer but I suspect that's not in the cards for you right now and may as well wait until you are sure your drainage issues are solved.

Bob64 - did your solution to stop erosion under the concrete stairs at the memorial garden in your church work for you?