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Landscape Design Porches & Decks

is it normal to have this water puddle on pavers?

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

my paver patio was completed last Friday and today (Thursday) after an overnight rain, I saw this water puddle on the pavers (please see below video for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwJJiQDaKaE):

Is it normal?

(the water hang around for about 3-5 hours after it stopped raining)

thanks! any comment is appreciated!

another angle:

Featured Answer

l pinkmountain

6 years ago

That's what I thought. It looks like the patio should drain into the lower section of that area. But hard to say because I doubt it all drains to there, need to see total overview of slope of yard and how patio fits in. Slight changes can have big consequences when it comes to standing water . . . Your patio looks to be somewhat at the bottom of a hill, so runoff is a factor that needed to be dealt with in the patio design. Almost seems as if the entire yard drains to that spot on your patio from both sides . . . Do you have a french drain around the back of your house? It sort of seems that runoff was not factored into the design, but hard to tell . . . Water has to drain away from the house but then it drains into sloped area . . .

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Comments (8)

l pinkmountain
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
No, and the culprit is improper pitch, a common installation error. Also, what is that blue green thing in the background?
alex thanked l pinkmountain
Olga Kramar
6 years ago
They forgot the pitch. We had the brick layer redo our front porch three times till he got it right. Simple guidelines exist for how much pitch is required on hard surfaces for proper water runoff. I’d have him redo this because it will drive you crazy, unless you enjoy tennis court style squeegee-ing as a hobby.
alex thanked Olga Kramar
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I can see exactly why it happens right from your pictures. You probably do not need a french drain, you do need an extension on your drain pipe. Its draining right on the cement. It should be way past that cement, so that water drains into the ground. Hopefully, the staining I see, is not permanent, because of lack of proper drainage extension. Its a very easy fix, and certainly a very cheap one. Go buy a piece of downspout material, the size of your downspout and hook them together. Alternative, would be a piece of plastic drain hose, and if you go that direction, also buy the piece that has the fitting to fit right on the existing downspout, so you dont get overflow water out of the back side of it. If you have any other downspouts, without an extension on, do those too. All that water puddling around your foundation is not a good thing. Unfortunately, you will have to walk over the one you have by your doorway, so you may want to change that to the other side of the doorway, so the extension will be in the flower bed, rather than right in the middle of your sidewalk. Its not a hard thing nor an expensive thing to do, and is well worth moving it. And if you dont have a downspout already on the other side of your garage door I would also add one there. It was very poor planning, on whoever installed those downspouts, to put one that has a sidewalk in front of it.
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You don't need much slope....just 1 inch per 8 feet of run. That is barely noticeable when looking at it directly :-) So it is quite possible to get some temporary puddling after a heavy rain. But it should dissipate pretty rapidly. Especially if the joints are water permeable.
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alex
Original Author
6 years ago
thanks for the comments. and the blue green thing is hydroseeding, which saves us some money but will need to wait for 4-6 weeks
Leland Lehman
6 years ago
That is not normal at all. The contractor who installed it did not pitch and level it correctly. If they have a warranty they should readily come back out and correct it. You need to always pitch patios down 1inch for every 10feet away from any house or building. If the water comes back toward the house it may eventually erode your foundation.
alex thanked Leland Lehman
PRO
KD Landscape
6 years ago
@alex The video and photo were enormously helpful. To echo others, the installation does have a flaw relative to drainage, but apparently is isolated in the center. If pitch were incorrect across the whole patio then the whole patio would be holding water. You simply have a low spot, albeit a large one.

Your issue is solvable and falls within the normal terms of most landscape contracts as a warranty item. Call your contractor and show him or her the video

For the record: Standard pitch on 99% of brick patio installations is 1% or 1" every 8'. Standard pitch on concrete patios is 2% or 1" every 4'. Brick patios therefore do drain a bit more slowly. Your wall and patio are nice additions to the home! Congrats.
alex thanked KD Landscape
alex
Original Author
6 years ago
thanks @K&D, @Leland, @l pinkmountain for the comments! I have contacted my contractor and they admitted they didn't do it right and they'll come back to fix it.

@l pinkmountain, i don't have french drain around the back of my house but the water is supposed to go from my patio to the yard and then to the other side of the yard (the fence at the end of the video is the lowest point). My contractor did mention that once the lawn area fully established, we might have standing water at the spot that connects patio and yard (see 00:34 in the video) and a french drain might be needed, but he'll wait his foreman come take a look first and then we'll decide.
l pinkmountain
6 years ago
You could have problems in two potential spots. 1. as we have discussed, the water has to drain away from the house and away from the patio. 2. the water has to go somewhere and it could cause erosion in that spot, or puddle up. In that case, you can "drain" it away, but again, it has to have someplace to go. Or, it can sink into the ground at the "away" spot, so as not to cause a problem. Most yards have a combination of the two strategies. This is usually calculated and worked out before hardscaping, since hardscaping ipso facto causes a drainage concern since the hard space is no longer absorbing water. One can determine how much water will run off by calculating the area of the hardscape plus the annual rainfall in the area. Plan for the larger end of the possible rainfall spectrum.

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