Home drainage problems have a way of giving themselves away, if your eyes are trained to look in their direction often enough.
Sometimes the same old events keep happening, and the homeowners say to themselves… “there isn’t much water, and it only comes when it rains, so why consider this little trickle of water a problem”.
The definition of failure, with respect to home drainage, and insanity, by the way, is watching the same old thing happen over and over again, while expecting different results.
The purpose of this article is to raise the homeowners attention to home drainage problems, teaching them how to recognize existing home drainage problems.
“17 ways to determine if you may have a home drainage problem”, one of my published e-books, free on this site, was 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 and draining spirits and bank account alike.
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, or may not have one now, or in the future.
This article is about how to come to grips with the fact that you have a home drainage groundwater problem.
Comingle good real estate and family health judgement, when it comes to making home drainage decisions, and you will very likely avert the most costly category of home drainage problems, repairing the damage that groundwater causes when not stopped early. As well as prevent problems from breathing bad air, in a “green” world.
Think of proper groundwater removal and home drainage science in the context of prevention rather than disaster control.
Once you already have the home drainage disease, prevention is not an option. You can stop it in the future, sure, but you are wet now.
The one common fact that accompanies a home drainage problem is the reality that homeowners likely do not have properly installed hand excavated french drains, as well as probably a bad foundation grade, and/or proper rain drain discharges installed, or these homeowners would not have groundwater problems.
Attempt to invalidate that statement if you must, but it is already a foregone conclusion among the home drainage professionals that I know.
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 crawl space 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 dental prevention like your life depended on it. Because it does.
In order to maintain structural integrity, as well as a healthy home interior environment within the most expensive possession you probably own, you must prevent the groundwater saturation from happening all together, early enough.
The groundwater damage is already done, when you are forced to call a home drainage professional, and seek a solution to a groundwater problem that should have never existed.
Practice groundwater prevention, by installing hand excavated french drains and proper rain drain discharges at your home.
The rest of the neighbors will flounder and install pumps, and you will be high and dry.
Like your overall physical and dental health being subject to your dental maintenance habits, like flossing at least once a day, and cleaning your teeth every 6 months, 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, and a much larger outlay of cash to solve the home drainage problem in the future, if it can be solved by that time.
Much like disaster control in dental health, which everyone knows is not cheap. Like crowns, pulling teeth, root canals, etc.
Like your teeth, sometimes the home cannot be saved, or fixed at all, or at least within the homeowners budget.
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”. It applies here as well I think.
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, and no hand excavated french drains installed properly at all.
The choice at that time is either to demolish the home, if the foundation will not support the weight of the home, due to the crumbling stem walls and/or spot footings, or support the entire home with jacks and heavy duty engineering, and spend perhaps ten times or more money to hold up the entire home temporarily, than it would have taken to install the system to prevent it.
The home must be jacked in place slowly, without busting all the windows and jamming all the doors, or cracking the cabinets, while pinnings are poured, and then a new basement is poured under the existing home entirely. 4 new walls of concrete. Mega bucks.
Depending on the homes condition and value, it is often better to lose the home entirely, and start all over again, on the same lot, with a new structure, using the money that you would have spent on a new foundation and renovation of the old groundwater damaged home as a down payment on a new home, built on the same lot.
The bad news for these homeowners is that all this disaster control is not going to eliminate the one largest factor of loss.
The homeowners will still owe the entire underlying mortgage balance to the bank.
Even if they work successfully with the bank to wrap the old existing financing into the new loan, the balance of the old loan, with all that other money added, will perhaps itself prevent qualifying for the new home loan.
It might take a financial qualifying miracle for you to still get the loan, unless the homeowners are very strong credit and asset wise.
This means if homeowners are not strong, they are probably looking at more expensive financing options, at greater interest rates, and more points. One point is one percent of the loan amount, charged to you, and added to the loan balance, when you originate the loan.
That hand excavated french drain seems like a real bargain now, doesn’t it.
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 poured under the existing home?
If it does, homeowners, depending on financing conditions and the market in general, may be better off to take the loss of the old homes value, and build a new one, if these homeowners can get financing, rather than winding up with an old home with all that money into it.
Putting a new coat of lipstick on that pig just gets you a pig with fresh lipstick.
A new home might be better at that point, if the homeowners can swing it.
Home drainage groundwater prevention is the way to prevent this nightmare from happening to homeowners around the world.
Now let’s get down to the most common home drainage problems and how to recognize them.
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 on basement floors and walls, stained with white lime effloressence, mud, iron water red streaks, or actual standing basement or crawl space groundwater.
Hand excavated french drains that are properly installed, along with the ability to raise and compact 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.
A smoking gun for groundwater problems due to groundwater laying on the foundation walls, creating mold, moss, and a white chalky substance called efflorescense on the outside of the foundation wall, or on the inside of the foundation wall, in the crawl space or basement.
The presence of one of these conditions 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 leave you in 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 as it loses its lime.
4. Basement window sashes are dryrot, and/or foul smells are present in the home, as well as the basement or crawl space shows evidence of current or past groundwater entry.
Usually where the basement floor meets the wall, or from groundwater running under the foundation stem wall footing. Evidence will be seen if looked for.
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 and the hydrostatic pressure and causes the leaking.
Install hand excavated french drains prior to renovation of the interior of the home, for best results.
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, to prevent lawns that are soggy messes.
While these types of hand excavated french drains do not work as quickly as the exposed river rock ones do, because they are out of site, out of mind, and installed in the lawn so neatly that you don’t even see where they were installed in most cases, if done professionally.
These hand excavated french drains are installed in the same manner as described in other articles on this site, except they do not work as quickly as the exposed rock systems. The definition is still success however, even if it takes a day to do what weeks never did.
They will pull the groundwater in lawn areas approximately 6-10 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 everywhere else.
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 crawl space or basement.
If your foundation vents are at grade level, look for bad problems. Groundwater can just run a grade level, right into your crawl space.
7. Your neighbor is complaining about the groundwater or roofwater from your home saturating their property, and causing them problems. They want to know what you intend to do about it.
This means that you have a groundwater problem, as well as a potential neighbor problem.
The law mandates that you must solve the problem at your expense. Read’em and weep.
Any damage, structural or monetary, that your neighbor sustains, as a result of your groundwater problems becoming his problem, will likely, eventually become your financial problem, and perhaps in addition to the money spent defending it, will encourage more prudent home drainage procedures in the future.
Your foundation footings may be sinking due to extended periods of wetness in the crawlspace where nobody ever goes. A valid defense, until you stumble across this web site. Now you can’t live in denial any more.
. Inspect often. Install hand excavated french drains to protect your home from suffering any one of these fates.
Read articles on this website on how to determine if any of these groundwater caused conditions are a problem for your home, before the damage is done, not after.