Topography sends groundwater onto your home site
If the topography slopes groundwater to the areas surrounding your home you must act by constructing hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems. I completed two systems as described above this week where the homeowner had a sump pump in the crawlspace, and always had a lake under the home when it rained hard even with the sump pump installed.
The homeowner had purchased the home with the assurance that no groundwater problems existed with the property, although a sump pump was installed in the crawlspace. She is now in litigation and trying to find the former owners with her attorney. The neighbors that I spoke with this week told me that the home always had water under it in the winter Oregon rain season. This was not disclosed to the buyer prior to closing as the law mandates.The seller never disclosed the issue in the “sellers property disclosure form” mandated by Oregon law, and thought that the “as is clause” in their earnest money agreement would protect them from being sued. Yeh, right!
As I have said many places in this blog, the installation of a sump pump should be done only when all work to pick up the water with hand excavated french drains has been accomplished, and the amount of water remaining, if any, is assessed and collected. Work the groundwater problems from the surface on the outside of the foundation stem walls first. Most every groundwater in the basement or crawlspace problem is caused by rain water on the surface when it is raining hard or has already saturated by some other topical means. Sprinkler systems bleeding out next to the foundation can do it too.