Retaining Walls, Steps and Grade Level Brick in Solvay
The first brick course above the ground is where water is meant to leave a wall, and on a village lot that course is usually buried.
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What happens at the bottom course in Solvay
The lowest course of masonry on your house is a drainage detail rather than just the bottom of the wall. The state code puts flashing beneath the first course above finished ground level, with weepholes above it, so water inside the wall has a route out. On a tight village lot that course is frequently buried under a raised bed, a newer walk or forty years of settled soil, and once it is buried the water stays in. Solvay carries the highest pre-1980 share of any place in Onondaga County at 91.4 percent, so almost nothing here was built with the detailing a modern wall gets.
What retaining walls and steps involves
Dig it out, drain it, or rebuild it
In order of cost, and the order is deliberate. Uncovering a buried bottom course and getting the grade to fall away from the house is the cheapest thing on this page and it fixes more walls than any masonry does. Next is opening or forming a path so water that gets in can leave again. Rebuilding the wall comes last, and doing it before the other two is how people pay twice. Syracuse gets 38.47 inches of precipitation on 89.7 days of the year with 57.5 nights at 20 degrees or below, so there is no shortage of water or of freezing to act on it.
The bottom course is a drainage detail
The residential code puts flashing beneath the first course of masonry above finished ground level, and calls for approved corrosion resistant flashing under and at the ends of masonry sills and copings too. Those are the places water is supposed to leave, and burying them is the commonest own goal on a village lot.
There is no shortage of water or freezing here
The normals record 38.47 inches of precipitation falling on 89.7 days a year, 57.5 nights at 20 degrees or below and 7.1 at or under zero. Ground level masonry gets the wettest and the coldest of everything the site throws at the house.
Look at the grade before the wall
Stand at the corner of the house during heavy rain and watch where the water actually goes. If it stands against the brick, that is the job, and it is a shovel and a downspout rather than a mason. We would rather tell you that than quote you for masonry you do not need.
The county's highest pre-1980 share, read at ground level
Solvay village has 3,292 housing units with a median year of construction of 1947. Of those, 43.1 percent were built in 1939 or earlier, 10.5 percent in the 1940s, 20.8 percent in the 1950s and 8.6 percent in the 1960s, giving 74.4 percent built in 1959 or earlier and 91.4 percent before 1980. That pre-1980 share is the highest of any place in Onondaga County.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates, table B25034 Year Structure Built and table B25035 Median Year Structure Built, accessed 2026-09-10
Section R703.8.5 of the Residential Code of New York State requires that flashing be located beneath the first course of masonry above finished ground level above the foundation wall or slab, and at other points of support including structural floors, shelf angles and lintels, where masonry veneers are designed in accordance with Section R703.8. Section R703.4 additionally requires approved corrosion-resistant flashing, applied shingle fashion to prevent water entering the wall cavity or reaching the structural framing, at exterior window and door openings, at the intersection of chimneys or other masonry construction with frame or stucco walls, under and at the ends of masonry, wood or metal copings and sills, at wall and roof intersections and at built-in gutters.
Source: 2020 Residential Code of New York State, Section R703, Exterior Covering, via UpCodes, accessed 2026-09-10
The Syracuse normals record 57.5 days a year with a minimum temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit or below and 7.1 days at or below zero, against a normal annual mean temperature of 48.3 degrees. Normal annual precipitation is 38.47 inches, falling as a tenth of an inch or more on 89.7 days of the year.
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, 1991-2020 US Climate Normals, station USW00014771 Syracuse Hancock International Airport, accessed 2026-09-10
What is sitting against the bottom of the wall?
A patio, a bed, a path, banked soil: say which, with the Solvay address. That detail is usually the whole answer.
Other Solvay work that starts at the grade
Ground level questions from Solvay owners
The brick just above my patio is crumbling and the rest of the wall is fine. Why there?
Because that is where water collects and cannot leave. A patio, walk or raised bed laid against the house usually buries the course that was meant to drain the wall, and every splash and every thaw then soaks the same two courses. The repair is masonry, but the fix is the level of whatever sits against the house. Send a photograph that shows the paving and the brick together rather than a close up of the brick, because the paving is the part that explains it.
Our retaining wall is leaning out into the driveway. Can it be pushed back?
No, and anyone offering to is selling you the same wall twice. A leaning retaining wall is soil and water pushing from behind, so the rebuild has to deal with what is behind it: the drainage, the backfill and where the water ends up. Rebuilding the face alone is the version that leans again in a few years. On a village lot these walls are usually short enough that doing it properly is not the disaster people expect.
Get grade level masonry looked at in Solvay
Courses crumbling above a patio, a wall leaning out, steps dropping at one end: describe it with the address, no obligation.