Pictures?

Hi, Dan,

Photos or plans would indeed be helpful. Absent those, I'll share the general comment that anything below grade--whether it's a crawl space, basement or porch is a potential moisture issue. I'd make sure it's really necessary to drop the elevation before doing so and then only if there is adequate protection in place from water infiltration through masonry or worse yet, flooding from surface water. In making that recommendation I'm discounting the value of a covered koi pond, which would be novel.

Not the best photos - I'll try to add more next time I'm at the location, but the porch is about a foot lower than the ground surface (which is even with the patio). We dropped it down to match the depth of the floor inside.

I don't understand why the slab needs to be below grade. Why didn't you fill it to a level that eliminated the need for steps and eliminated the issue with the exterior grade?

We lowered it to be the same level as the kitchen floor inside the house (to the right of the porch in the second picture).

In that case, I'd run another course of block to get you above grade, waterproof the exterior of the wall and put in a perforated drain pipe drained to daylight if you can.

I would want to put a trench drain or linear drain in front of what I presume would be a door to the kitchen on grade with the patio. This will provide another line of defense in case of heavy rain. It looks like you poured the concrete already so it might be too late? I would also want to make sure you have flashing by the brick where your patio touches your house. Luckily this is all covered, so there should be limited rain hitting your patio.