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My deck stairs sank 3 inches after all that rain and I'm out there with a shovel at 7am
Built the stringers for my back stairs in April and felt pretty good about them, then we got that soaking week here in Greensboro and the bottom of the stairs just sank into the mud. Turns out I skipped gravel under the landing blocks and the clay soil turned to soup. Spent Saturday morning digging out the soggy dirt and resetting the blocks on 6 inches of crushed stone, and my back is still yelling at me. Has anyone dealt with clay soil pulling this on them, and did gravel alone fix it or did you have to pour footings?
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riley5096d ago
Check where your downspouts dump out near those stairs. I had the same thing happen with clay and it turned out my gutter was emptying right at the bottom step, so the gravel pit was basically sitting in a stream every time it rained. Once I ran a cheap corrugated line out 8 feet past the stairs, the stone quit turning into soup. Gravel alone held fine after that, no footings needed.
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