Why do problems exist with home groundwater
Home groundwater drainage problems are some of the most destructive processes that degrade your homes living health and value. Hand excavated french drains, old and little understood science that is largely ignored, if known at all, by city and county jurisdictions, home builders and homeowners alike. Why are there so many problems with home drainage and groundwater? Let’s look at a some of the major reasons. First let’s use older homes as a comparison example even though the science existed at that time those homes were built as well. The technology of hand excavated french drains was seldom used in the construction of homes prior to and after the turn of the 20th century. Many of the reasons they were not used are the same ones that still fuel the problem today.
Hand excavated french drains are still seldom used in the construction of new homes. Homeowners are not prompted by the city and county building organizations, like zoning and planning, to include them in the permitting process during the construction of the home. Builders do not want to discuss the need for them because the homeowner is not likely to want to increase the price of the home to fund the installation of hand excavated french drains.
The city or county might mention that they believe the hand excavated french drains would be helpful, but they seldom mandate the installation of french drains. The lack of importance applied to the subject leaves the homeowner/builder to conclude that hand excavated french drains are fluff, like the ornamental tops for their fence posts. It is not until the rainwater starts causing a problem and they discover the definition of groundwater that they begin to learn the importance of hand excavated french drains.
To make matters worse in regards to the original information given to the homeowner or builder, the suggestion to install french drains, if there is one, includes the installation of huge concrete tanks with everything going to one huge location containing huge concrete cylinders with holes in the side so large they can not be placed by hand. In addition they require a hole large enough to bury an elephant in most cases. The whole overkill nature of this type of system prevents hand excavation and therefore requires a backhoe. The price can be 4-10 times the amount that it would cost to split up the flow from the downspouts and hand excavated french drains to perhaps 3-5 drywells of smaller size that are rock filled. This leaves both the homeowner and the builder without much choice but to pass on the installation of hand excavated french drains.
In so many locations the rear yard which is below grade to the home cannot be even used as a huge concrete drywell site because no machines can get access to the area without destroying the site.
To “throw the baby out with the bath water” and not do anything is the usual course of action taken by both builder and homeowner as a result. Call AAA HOME DRAINAGE for options that may save the integrity and health of your home before giving up on this scenario. Hand excavated french drains and rock filled drywells may very well be the best choice over huge industrial sized, and sometimes mandated, storage tanks that just sit on the dirt and perk the same way the rock filled drywells do. In addition rock filled drywells split up the amount of water being discharged in one area, and do not have concrete tops to crack when someone backs over the location with a backhoe years after it is installed. New owners probably do not know where these large industrial sized drywells exist. Utility locates do not identify their location or if they exist at all. Ignorance by city and county officials and a conspiracy of supply and information created by concrete supply companies and planners, are partly at fault and fuel many of the home groundwater drainage problems out there.
Some cities would rather you just dumped the water in a shallow soaking trench surrounded with rock and only a couple feet deep, which will just overflow and create a huge mess in most cases. That is called in “infiltrator system”. Just a plastic hood that has a place to vent the abs downspout lines with rock surrounding and covering it. The system is just sitting on the ground as well. A 4 foot deep by 4 foot in diameter rock filled drywell will create better drainage through the depth and amount of water collected and the hydrostatic pressure that is created. Rock filled drywells were around thousands of years prior to plastic infiltrator systems.
I once asked a city planner and head of the plumbing department why he thought an infiltrator system was more efficient or better than a rock filled drywell. His response was with respect to an area that I know perks, and had no need for one huge location to collect all the water. The response was, “don’t argue with me”. I went ahead and installed the infiltrator system for the homeowner as the city wanted because they were doing an addition and the city mandated it. Most homeowners will never be forced to do an infiltrator system, which in my opinion is a waste of money, because they are most likely mandated on new additions or homes where the city believes that the ground will not perk.
Most often the city planners are wrong about the sites they say will not perk. Most all those areas were on septic for home greywater removal prior to sewers being installed after world war 2. The ground perked then, why wouldn’t it now? A sump well with a pump discharge installed below the home to prevent overflow is a better way to protect the flooding of the vent area if the area does not perk at first.
These are just a few of the reasons we have home groundwater drainage problems. More on this issue in the future.