Can I bury concrete walk to regrade lawn?

[Sage]

In our back yard, we have a concrete sidewalk along two walls of our brick garage. The garage is on a slab. The sidewalk is tilted towards the wall so water accumulates at the base of the garage walls after a heavy rain. On top of this, the lawn next to the walkway needs to be regraded.

We actually don't want the walkway but were going to raise it just to solve the water issue for the time being. Someone recently suggested though, that we begin regrading now and as part of the process, bury the concrete walkway. Meaning, the lawn will come up to the garage walls.

If we were to do this, the buried walkway would be about 4 inches below the new lawn's surface (where it meets the garage walls). But we're wondering: does this solve the problem of the water pooling at the base of the garage walls? Won't it still pool, just beneath the surface?

Any advice would be super helpful. Thank you!!

 

[nealtw]

I don't think that works, I agree the water will still go to the garage.

 

[Gary]

I'm not sure about the drainage, my guess is the water would run down to the slanted concrete and run towards the foundation. As far as grass it will be the first of your lawn to turn brown when it gets dry and hot. Not even that dry and hot really. I poured an apron in front of a shed out back. There was a little concrete left over, so I raked it out in front of the apron and put black dirt over it. It is very susceptible to drying out, not many days after a rain or even just a hot spell without the drought. If I had it to do over, I would have dug it out. it's been that way about 20 years now, it doesn't get better with time.

Neal beat me to the post/

 

[bud16415]

Most likely the sidewalk was poured too soon after the footing for the garage was done and the backfilled material didn’t compact enough and that let that side of the walkway sink. Depending on how thick it is and how it was made it could maybe be cut every 3-4 feet and pulled up and filled below it to return the correct angle. It would be some work as a DIY project but I could see doing it.


It will also be some work maybe just as much breaking it up and getting it removed.


I wouldn’t cover it with dirt and grass as mentioned above unless I rented a jack hammer and broke it up good first.

 

[Brian Famous]

I'd recommend at least breaking up and removing the last 8 feet of sidewalk before the garage so that any water running down the sidewalk can properly drain long before it reaches the garage