Covering weep holes with planting bed...

[djmn]

Hi. I'm going to be building a retaining wall/planting bed in the front face of my house (I attached pictures of the area and a crude drawing of what I plan to do).
The fill material behind this wall will go about 3 or 4 bricks high and would therefore cover the weep holes on the house.
Do I need to waterproof the brick and mortar with Dry-Loc or something like that? Do I need to create some sort of drainage system for the weep holes, and if so, how do i go about that?
Any help before I start would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Derek

[Thumper]

You don't want to block your weeping ducts they are essential for the health of your inner wall. Lay a couple lengths of weeping tile along the base, cover with an amount of gravel and cover this with a geotextile layer up against the wall nearly the height of the planting bed (or at least a few inches above the weeping ducts. this will maintian their functionality without affecting the looks of your plans.

[djmn]

Ok, bear with me, I think I'm following you. I attached a pic of a sideview of what i think you're ttalking about. Am I right?
So the gravel will "cover up" the weeping holes, but still allow for drainage? The landscape fabric goes over the gravel, and the dirt over the landscape fabric?
Does it matter where the weeping tile tubes would "run" to?
Or do i have this totally wrong and the gravel should only be a little amount that covers the the weeping tile and run the landscape fabric over the gravel and up the face of the house covering the weep holes in the brick?
Also, would you waterproof the outside of the bricks and mortar to stop it from absorbing moisture?
Thanks again!

[Thumper]

Essentially what you have is on the right track, basically the gravel is just there to provide an easy passageway for the water to go, how thick this layer is a matter of choice and budget (it need only be higher than the weep ducts). Ideally you would want some sort of barrier between the soil/dirt and the bricks that will prevent the premature disintegration of the brick due to successive frost/thaw cycles - also constantly damp earth can cause bricks to chemically dissolve and break up under the weight of the others above it, thus it's a good plan to have the fabric up the wall to the height of the soil. The drainage tile need only be one width (I was attempting to describe an end-to-end connection if you had purchased the short 4' lengths - this is just an escape route for the water collected in the gravel to run out the length of the planter box)

[djmn]

Thanks a lot...This is very helpful.
So is there any special barrier I should use, or will any landscape fabric do the job? Also, does the weep tile need to run downhill and through the retaining wall to the outside?
Someone else has suggested building a rearwall about 4" away from the face of the house out of solid concrete blocks and then just top them off with caps that would hang over the concrete blocks and meet the brick wall.
Would this be any easier/cheaper? Would I still run into the same problem with drainage now that there would be that 4" space between the walls?

[Sweep]

If the wall behind your brick is wood you should keep the exterior grade a few inches below the lowest level of untreated wood.