When you are contemplating buying a home, talk to the neighbors. That sounds like a funny way to approach the subject of groundwater drainage doesn’t it? Yet many times I am installing hand excavated french drains around a home and the neighbors come around asking what is going on.
When I tell them the story about the owners buying the home with a disclosure saying “no drainage problems”, they volunteer suddenly with the statement that everyone in the neighborhood knew the home had a home drainage problem.
Often the homeowners have just purchased the home from sellers that contended that no home drainage problems existed. Yet during the professional home inspection, wet periods in the crawl space was obvious to everyone. The inspectors and contractors all said that the groundwater problems had likely existed for years, by looking at the health of the foundation and the damage that the groundwater had done to the crawl space and the post, beam and pad structure that holds up a home with a crawl space.
Many times these homeowners search out the sellers with an attorney, after the drainage work is completed, and sue the sellers for fraud and misrepresentation to collect the amounts spent on home groundwater drainage, and to reimburse themselves for loses as a result of the home drainage non-disclosure, as well as their legal fees.
Many homeowners win without even going to court.
Case in point. I wrote a letter for a customer once stating that the customers ocean front home, which was 5 years old, had been built with no rain drain discharges to vent the downspout roof water away from the home at all.
The downspouts were just buried in the sand next to the home. The builder had obviously figured that the roof water would just drain through the sand as fast as it could come. The crawlspace had up to 2 foot deep groundwater from day one, after and during hard rains.
In that case, the entire crawl space insulation was saturated and dropped to the floor of the crawl space. What a mess, and more like a sea hunt adventure, diving in a sunken wreck.
Home drainage issues are seldom discovered because few people go into the crawlspace, or would have reason to believe someone would do such poor work. The customer mentioned above was selling the property. He called me saying that the pest dryrot and structural inspection disclosed that there was 18″ of water in the crawlspace and the buyer and the bank were not going to conclude the real estate transaction unless the home drainage problems were solved.
Time for a swim in the crawlspace with a portable sump pump. Next, the removal of a dump trucks worth of soaked insulation and construction debris. The insulation was submerged under the water and the foundation spot footings were completely under the water. Water was at least a foot up the sides of the posts, and just under beams. Around 2 feet deep in a 30″ crawl space.After installing a hand excavated french drain groundwater removal system which vented under the foundation footing and drained a river of water that came from under that home and ran for about 30 minutes, under a rock retaining wall built by the beach, I wrote a letter for the customer to the builder explaining the errors of his ways.
The customer sent a demand for payment in full, around $10,000., to the retired builder in Arizona, with my letter and a copy of the paid contract for the completed drainage work. My customer basically said,” pay me now or pay my attorney as well, your choice.” The retired builder promptly wrote my customer an apology and a check within days.
Following the completion of the work, the real estate transaction was funded by the lender, and everyone was happy about the way it all turned out. Except the builder.
Although, he probably was happy as well, seeing that he likely got away with that program for years, and on many homes in that subdivision alone, saving him enough to buy a nifty home on the hill in Arizona, I would guess.
By the time any other homeowners in that subdivision on the ocean have groundwater drainage caused problems, as a result of faulty rain drain installations, or in that case, no rain drain installations at all, that builder will have moved a few times more, not ever to be found again, new home in a corporation name, etc. and the other owners in that subdivision will be stuck for the money to cure their own home drainage issues themselves, and likely during crunch time where they are selling the home.