Any progress on this issue? Do not add any soil to you property until you have a full drainage plan! ÃÂ Getting an engineer involved is advisable, but expensive, I know, I am one. :-) ÃÂ Consider these issues: 1. Drainage should take water away from the house, as quickly as possible, w/o flooding or causing erosion to you or others. Water near the house can cause many problems: ÃÂ movement near the foundation can move soil, which could cause the house to move. More immediately is the dry rot the moisture will cause to the wood of the house. Mold can form ÃÂ Maintaining any vegetation is a problem. Mosquitos will love it.ÃÂ 2. Adding fill material improperly could make matters worse.ÃÂ 3. Water always flows downhill. So, where is the water going. Try to follow it. The best way is to get the elevations of your property surveyed. I love the ability of a contour map to communicate slope of the ground. And water will follow the slope.ÃÂ 4. Decide on the outlets for water from your property. ÃÂ Drain water to the street, if possible. ÃÂ If not, build dry wells, but check percolation rates carefully. ÃÂ Be very careful about draining water on to neighboring property.ÃÂ 5. Find the sources of the water.ÃÂ 6. ÃÂ Create drain paths from (or near) sources to the outlets: There are several options to do this: (a) ditch, which needs a slope of at least 1%, 3 % is recommended; (b) Underground drain, such as a French Drain, which needs no slope, or a mini-storm drain pipe, which only it needs at least 0.1% slope, or combine French Drain and pipe; (c) pressure pipe,collect the water at a central spot and then pump the water. There are a lot of pages about all of these issues on the Web. This can be a big job.ÃÂ Good luck!

Talk to your town's planner or code enforcement officer and find out what the rules are. Get a copy of the neighbor's building permit (It's a public record), probably available on line, as is the building code. You may need to talk to an attorney. But between the rules and their permit, you may find the answers. You want to think clearly about your proposed remedy if they are violating the rules, don't settle for something the propose. (Among other things, make sure the pony wall is on their side of the lot line.) If the building code is incredibly long, don't be intimidated. In the city nearest me, it's nearly 1000 pages, but most of it is highly repetitive. They repeat the same definitions in every zone and you only have to read about your zone.

There are several water-permeable patio options you could look at instead of the pavers. One option is to go with a block with either planting or gravel in the void - here's an example. You can also put down the pavers, but leave a gap for either pebbles or stoppable plants, like this one: Or you could switch from a paver extension to compacted gravel, like this: Any of these options would allow you to keep your grades pretty much as-is and not disrupt your existing drainage, which seems to work for you. The other option is to add a trough drain between the existing concrete and the new pavers. Since you don't have anywhere to direct a drain right now, you'd probably need to add a drywall at one end so you can capture any runoff and allow it to seep into the soil slowly. You might even be able to direct it along to provide additional soil moisture under your raised beds, which will help insure healthy, deep-rooted plants. Here's one example where someone has done that: Your idea for drainage would probably work, but an 8" gap between the two paving materials could be a trip hazard. We're having a pathway installed in our backyard and the landscaper highly advised a gap of no more than 4" (3" is ideal). 8" doesn't seem like that much for a healthy teen or adult, but becomes difficult for either young kids or more elderly people.

>Does the proposal from the plumber make sense? No, not really. See below. >Because the water from the steam oven is so hot, I assume the extension has to be copper hose. Correct? The install specs I've seen for Miele CSO ovens always state "Only genuine original Miele hoses can be used with this appliance." And "Do not shorten or cut the supplied drainage hose." This clearly means do not use your own supplied copper tubing. A few things you wrote don’t make sense, probably because not all details are listed. The main thing is how you phrased what the plumber told you. Did the plumber a.) “suggest” this high loop after looking at your setup? Or b.) did he review the installation specifications and then “suggest” this? Based on what you posted my guess is he did not look at the installation specifications. I do not see that ‘high loop’ as satisfying the installation requirements and specifications. Here’s my suggestion: Get both of these documents (from the mieleusa.com website) for your exact oven model: a.) Operating and Installation Manual, b.) Specification Sheet. These are two different documents, and depending on the model and model year may use use slight variations on the document name. The first document is about 200 +/- pages and you want the section on drainage connections. The second document will be about 20 +/- pages and it will also have a section for drainage connections. Preferably find a different plumber than the one you talked to above. Tell the new plumber you have a problem with the drain connection on a high-end plumbed in steam oven, and you want to employ him to review the specifications for the oven and tell you if the plumbing on the install is done according to the manufacturer’s specifications. Because you suspect it is not. If new plumber grumbles or resists “we don’t need to read no specifications…” find another plumber. Good plumbers who do kitchen and bath remodels are used to researching things like this and will have no problem doing so. If the install already meets the specs and you still have a problem then it’s time to contact Miele service. Last point, suggest you question who ever designed your arrangement to find out if he/she followed the manufacturer's specs (it sounds like they did not), and if not why not? Isn't that what you paid him/her for? Why all this talk of and fuss about manufacturer’s specifications? Because no matter if you are talking basic drywall, regular old concrete, hardwood flooring, roofing and rain-gutter systems ... or multi-thousand dollar hi-tech ovens, having something installed correctly -- to exacting manufacturer specs -- is the key to long life, to full warranty coverage, and to minimize failures. Short translation: If you want your oven to work correctly make sure you follow the manufacturer’s installation specs.