Bottom plate on concrete sensibility???

Our house is about 40yrs old, cement block foundation with full basement that is partially finished. 4 yrs ago a contractor replaced the front wall of the home, removed the old clay tile, put in plastic Big 0, backfilled with stone, sand and top soil. We are on blue clay, all of which was trucked out from the area that was fixed. The problem is we have a deck on a cement pad 12 x16 at the back of the house, grading isnt the best, during heavy rain and thaws (in Canada) we have up to 3inches of water sitting at the back door area. sometimes we have to put a sum pump in a dug hole outside the door and pump the water away from the house. There is a 1" gap between the wall of the home and the concrete slab. Water seeps in at the floor and block level on the inside, also under the back door sill, thus filling the block cavities with water till a weak spot is found where it comes through, were not talking of mass amounts just seepage, but it is anoying. Now we have a problem with black mold and white fuzz on the bricks, from reading prior postings i think it was called effervescence (sp?) would it be best to dig up and get rid of the pad at the back, can it be fixed from the inside? Would it be easier to put in some kind of drain at the back door? Please advice. Thanks :wall:

Hey all, I just bought a 47 year old home. the attic is underinsulated. the question is: 1)do i remove the existing insulation? it is matted and very dirty. It seems to be 3-4 inches thick. It does have the Vapor barrier installed down to the warm side of the house but I've noticed that there seems to be some deteriorated paper covering facing upward toward the roof in some other areas. in general the insulation seems to be in fair to poor shape, the paper is crumbly and matted, dirty and thin with quite a bit of old junk (broken christmas lights, and stuff on top of it) I don't want to be too anal here but I'd like to just remove it all and shopvac the whole space out, then reinsulate with new vapor retardant fiberglass. if I do clean it out (wearing hospital mask, goggles, longsleeves etc and dispose in trashbags) the only insulation I see at home depot with a high R value is like R-19. Do I lay it down between the joists (which are about 7" high and 14.5" wide) then lay another unvapor backed layer at 90 degrees over it to achieve a higher R value? the only issue with this is I will not be able to lay plywood over the top for storage because it will compress the insulation and reduce it's effectiveness (from what I've read). I had an idea of leaving a 10x10' area with just the 1 layer of insulation so I can put down a few pieces of plywood over the top for some attic storage. any thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks