Compete with intelligent groundwater removal design or suffer
Time for a home drainage wake up call folks. The world has changed greatly, and home drainage is a part of an evolving new world. Real estate is changing in every way. Design, marketing, disclosure requirements, green technology, health standards and freedom from mold and airborne pollutants are all part of the new intelligent landscape of home groundwater removal system necessity.
The average home buyer and seller, just a decade ago, probably didn’t know what a hand excavated french drain was, and the biggest percentage of homeowners still do not.
Times are changing everything, and everyone, by the way we now communicate with respect to the internet. Answers to home drainage problems are just a click away.
Homeowners that expect to compete with young savvy home drainage educated homeowners would do well to become familiar with home drainage systems.
This isn’t Kansas anymore, to quote Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Many of the homes built in the past decades are full of home drainage problems because old methods were many times not good home drainage science, or no groundwater drainage was used to protect the home at all.
To top that off, home drainage and hand excavated french drains were simply not on the radar of homeowners and lenders. Homes were mass produced following WW2 and most builders of even craftsman homes did not know or care about home drainage other than venting downspouts to the street sewers. Most homeowners are still quite content with the assumption that if home drainage was such an important subject, they would have already learned all there is to know about it. Right.
If you want to compete in this real estate market against young bright and better informed homeowners, you better step up or be left in the dust. The current real estate inventory in Portland, Oregon alone has thousands of homes with home drainage problems unsolved.
Every lender in this city has many of them in their REO departments as foreclosed homes needing work to be sold. These homes will not sell, or they will be the last ones to sell, and then at discount compared to homes without home drainage problems.
New home construction laws now mandate disclosure of groundwater definitions and methods to the first owners of new homes. Builders are being lead kicking and screaming into todays mature real estate market through state required disclosure laws governing this information on new homes.
Homeowners and builders are finally starting to incorporate hand excavated french drains into the budget as homeowners spending hundreds of thousands of dollars are realizing that a few more thousand spent on home drainage systems can very well be the best money they will ever spend to protect their investment.
Ask yourself when building your next home if you plan to be an investor, or a gambler. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to home drainage systems and groundwater removal or when you get around to selling the home, you will find that you have a home with home drainage problems and you have a mentality forged in the 1950’s with respect to the necessity of home drainage systems.
Just look at the average 1900-1980’s home without hand excavated french drains and if the added circumstance of bad topography is present, you are likely to find groundwater damage to foundations, basements, crawlspaces, framing, cabinets, floors, and building sites themselves.
In the northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest areas of Portland, Oregon alone there are thousands of homes that fit this description.
Even suburbia is littered with homes suffering from home drainage problems. This is especially true of hillside locations without hand excavated french drains.
While these classic old homes seem quite charming and seductive still, many have crumbing foundations, sunken spot footings, jammed and re-fit windows and doors, sloping floors, warped framing, and other major problems caused by inadequate groundwater removal.