AAA Home Drainage

When groundwater really becomes a problem, you will likely know it. A home drainage condition will usually be evidenced by one of the following factors that becomes apparent. Sometimes the same old events keep happening, and the homeowner says to themselves, “there isn’t much water, and it only comes when it rains, so why consider it a problem”.

The definition of failure for home drainage is watching the same old thing happen over and over again while expecting different results doing the same old thing. Which is usually nothing.

The purpose of this article is to raise the homeowners attention to home drainage problems by recognizing the problem itself. The e-book that I have written entitled “17 ways to determine if you may have a home drainage problem”, is written to be a preventive maintenance recognition system that a homeowner can use to target areas of concern prior to a home groundwater problem raising its ugly head.

This article is written for the homeowner to recognize existing groundwater problems. The fact that you have one of the home drainage groundwater conditions listed in this article indicates that you do have a groundwater problem, not that you may have one in the future. This article is about how to come to grips with the fact that you have a home drainage groundwater problem.

Practice good real estate and family health judgement when it comes to home drainage and you will very likely avert the most costly category of home drainage problems. Think of proper groundwater removal and home drainage science in the context of prevention rather than disaster control and you will have better respiratory health, save money, and protect the value of your home and personal property in the process.

The one common fact that accompanies a home drainage problem is the reality that you likely do not have properly installed and placed hand excavated french drains, as well as a proper foundation grade and rain drain discharges installed, or you would not have the home drainage problem that you face.

The health of your home with respect to the quality of air your family breathes and the structural and functional infrastructure of your home, is dependent on sound home drainage science, analysis of typical problem areas, recognition of the symptoms of home drainage problems in the making, and the installation of hand excavated french drains to protect your home from chronic home drainage damage caused by saturation of groundwater that comes when it rains hard. The rain saturates the soil around your home and creates hydrostatic pressure that forces the groundwater, which was actually rainwater before it hit the ground, into the crawlspace or basement.

The preservation of your homes value is much like the preservation of your teeth. To have overwhelming dental health you must do your due diligence to inspect your mouth often, floss more than once a day, and act on the prevention like your life depended on it. Now lets substitute “your life” with your financial and respiratory health for the sake of this example, and use the same story with a new set of words. In order to maintain structural integrity and a healthy environment within the most expensive possession you own, which is likely your home, you must prevent the groundwater damage from happening. The groundwater damage is already done when you seek a groundwater solution to the problem once you have invested in the wrong method, like just pumping rather than stopping the groundwater from entering below grade. Pay attention to groundwater prevention by installing hand excavated french drains and proper rain drain discharges at your home.

Like your overall physical and dental health is subject to your dental maintenance habits like flossing more than once a day, and cleaning of your teeth every 6 months, and getting a clean bill of dental health from your dentist often, so is the end result of having a healthy home environment due to the prevention of groundwater problems with hand excavated french drains.

Lose sight of regular prevention science for groundwater and you will be looking at a crash of the system all together, or a much larger outlay of cash in the end to solve the home drainage problem, much like disaster control in dental health, which everyone knows is not cheap, and sometimes can not be saved or fixed at all. After a long period of neglect in both examples, demolition is the only answer. There is an old poker saying that goes, “read em and weep”.

I have seen many examples of homes that have sustained decades of foundation damage due to home drainage failures, usually due to faulty french drains by name only, or no hand excavated french drains installed properly at all.

The choice at that time is to either to demolish the home, if the foundation will not support the weight of the home due to crumbling stems walls or footings, or support the entire home with jacks and heavy duty engineering, and spend perhaps $50,000-$100,000 or more to hold up the entire home temporarily in place without busting all the windows and jamming all the doors, cracking the cabinets and other things that happen when a less that qualified contractor takes it on. If the person that sustained the damage from groundwater did so due to the practice of taking the cheapest home drainage bid, and it that same homeowner continues at that time in this example to do the same thing, the home will be ready for the bulldozer before the job is even done.

In addition, if the foundation is replaced, the entire home must be reconnected to the utilities after it is raised and lowered, which is another additional cost as well. Expensive engineering work like this is way beyond the average home contractor, and anyone that is hired to do this type of work should have a world recognized ability, or stay away from them all together.

Depending on the homes value, it is often better to lose the home entirely and start all over again on the lot with a new structure, using the money that you would have spent on a new foundation as a down payment on a new home built on the same lot. The bad news folks is that all this disaster control really is not going to control the one largest factor of loss. You will most likely still owe the entire underlying mortgage balance to the bank, and with that extra debt package in, you may not be able to qualify for another loan to build a new home anyway. Few people have $50000-$100,000 grand just laying around to do it out of pocket. This means you are probably looking at more expensive financing options at greater interest and more prohibitive terms than your first mortgage to pull of a major foundation in place replacement. Now that hand excavated french drain seems like a real bargain doesn’t it. This is not a scare tactic to motivate the homeowner. It is a fact of the matter. I have witnessed this scenario many times.

The quality of the entire home must be taken into consideration when it comes to that point. Does the entire home need to be renovated as well as the new foundation constructed under the existing home? If it does, you probably are better off to take the loss of the old homes value, and build a new one if you can get financing, rather than winding up with an old home with all that money into it.

Sometimes putting lipstick on that pig just gets you a pig with fresh lipstick. Home drainage groundwater prevention science installed properly is the way to prevent this whole nightmare from happening to you.

Now let’s get down to the most common home drainage problems and how to recognize them and acknowledge that professional evaluation and a solution is required now to prevent groundwater damage that can over years lead to the loss of value in your property, if not the entire property itself.

1. When you are marketing your home and the pest dryrot and structural inspection indicates you have a groundwater problem, you most likely do indeed have a groundwater problem. You can say things like, “I just don’t think the inspector is being fair”, or “there isn’t much water in that crawlspace, I can’t imagine that there is a problem”. Never the less, you have a groundwater problem, and you are not likely to talk your way out of it. The most common recognition of a home drainage problem belongs at the top of the list. It is groundwater, or evidence of past groundwater identified by mud stains on your moisture barrier in the crawlspace, or basement floors stained with effloressence, mud, iron water red streaks or actual standing basement groundwater. Hand excavated french drains that are properly installed and located, along with the ability to raise a better foundation grade so groundwater can run away from your exterior foundation wall to the inside of your hand excavated french drain is the method most effective in stopping groundwater from causing the saturation and hydrostatic pressure that causes groundwater to leak below grade.

2. The rooms in your finished basement are wet, and it is time for carpet removal and throwing away soaked and ruined furniture and items of treasured value. The smells are overwhelming, and you sneeze quite often when you enter your basement. Yep, you guessed it, you have a home drainage groundwater problem. As in the example above, install hand excavated french drains.

3. The foundation wall on the outside of the home shows mold, moss, and efflorescense. A smoking gun for groundwater problems due to groundwater laying on the foundation wall creating mold, moss, and a white chalky substance called efflorescense on the outside of the wall or inside the foundation wall in the crawlspace or basement. The presence of this condition is reliable evidence of the fact that a groundwater problem exists. Many times the groundwater soaks away and the homeowners say to themselves, “well ok, no harm, no foul”, but foul indeed is happening and a prolonged period of this attitude will surely get your a worse condition and take more money of solve the groundwater problem.

Effloressence is lime from the concrete in the foundation being forced away from the concrete due to prolonged groundwater laying on the foundation wall. The loss of this white chalky substance from the concrete literally makes the foundation crumble to dust in time.

4. Basement window sashes are dryrot, and/or foul smells are present in the home as well as the basement or crawlspace. Hardwood floors can buckle and cup. Sheetrock may crack and become so bad that the entire home needs to be refinished. The best thing to do first is to stabilize your foundation footings and stem wall, or the home will just keep sinking. The sinking is most likely caused by groundwater that causes saturation from rain and hydrostatic pressure. Install hand excavated french drains prior to taking on the total renovation of the interior

5. Physical evidence of standing groundwater during periods of hard rains around the home and in the lawn areas. It does not matter if the groundwater eventually soaks in or evaporates away. Standing groundwater in lawn areas can also be addressed with the installation of hand excavated french drains with the sod replaced over weed cloth.

These hand excavated french drains are installed in the same manner except they do not work as quickly as the exposed rock systems. They will pull the groundwater in lawn areas approximately 6-19 feet to the side of the hand excavated french drain and gravity flow the groundwater away from the home or lawn area to a deeper drywell or daylighted vent where the groundwater will open cracks and soak into the ground just like it does in nature.

6. Rain drain discharges over flow next to your home and add to the hydrostatic pressure against your homes foundation. This causes groundwater to enter into the below grade areas, such as your crawlspace of basement.

7. Your neighbor is complaining about the groundwater or roofwater from your home saturating their property, and causing them problems. This means that, you have a groundwater problem, as well as your neighbor. The law mandates that you must solve the problem at your expense. Any damage that your neighbor sustains as a result of your groundwater problem can be rendered against your property in a court of law and wind up as a lien against your property if not paid, as well as forced compliance with the order to solve your groundwater problem so the same thing will not happen again.

Your foundation footings may be sinking due to extended periods of wetness in the crawlspace where nobody ever goes. This usually requires expensive and extensive foundation repair. Not what you want to be facing during the sale of the home, when the new one has been purchased, and money is tight.