6 ways to make your home drainage problem worse
Monday, June 23rd, 2008When it comes to home groundwater drainage proposals you are likely to meet various contractors that say they specialize in home groundwater drainage and that they have the answer to correct your groundwater drainage problem. We need to talk.
If you are looking for home drainage solutions to a groundwater problem you will encounter many people who will say they are home drainage professionals. Many of these self professed drainage contractor specialists are enamored of a certain method because it is the only thing they do. Other contractors are motivated by profit alone, while still others are just plain crooks trying to make an easy days work into a nice fat paycheck. Many of the proposed methods of groundwater removal that you will be exposed to are not the correct method of groundwater removal to be undertaken, or they are just plain home groundwater drainage scams that can be made to sound feasible, especially to someone with no frame of reference on the subject.
The purpose of this brief article is to touch on subjects within the body of this e-book concerning the most common of these types of methods and why the homeowner must understand the context under which these methods are proposed and how to deal with those that propose them. I will go into more detail on these subjects within this e-book with respect to why you do not want to have this work done on your property, or in rare cases when it may be appropriate to do.
1. First up in our infamous line up of contractors is the guy I call, “bubba with the backhoe.” Here comes the guy with the backhoe. Vroom vroom, get out of his way. Both physically and mentally this guy is like a bulldozer who will not take no for an answer. This fellow is the consummate professional machine operator type. He would be digging anything that paid a wage if there was no drainage problem to attack with his machine. He really only knows one thing. The backhoe makes him money, and your home drainage problem gives him the opportunity to use that machine in a huge way. This is his style. Lots of noise, lots of dirt moved, lots of problems in the future for the homeowner at a large price.
He wants to excavate with his backhoe down to the foundation footing, completely destroying your yard and perhaps even cracking your foundation in the process. I have seen some nightmare construction projects employing this program. Lawsuits sometimes follow this construction work as well. A perforated pipe with a sock on it is placed along the outside of the foundation footing after the excavation. The exterior of the foundation is usually backfilled with loose dirt, rock or gravel, which just makes the groundwater run below grade easier. It is hard to imagine that homeowners fall for this one, but they do.
2. Next is the contractor that wants to just install the sump pump, perhaps in conjunction with a crawlspace french drain system or channels cut in the concrete basement floor. This does not address how to stop the groundwater from coming in, and is wasted money prior to hand excavating french drains and compacting a splash block against the foundation to create a better grade for rainwater runoff which will actually stop the groundwater from coming in to begin with.
3. So, next up is the guy that just says you need to dig back the foundation wall many feet below grade and tar the foundation wall. This is wasted money as well, since the groundwater will not penetrate below grade if the grade is compacted and raised at the foundation and hand excavated french drains are installed with exposed river rock.
4. Another one of my favorite dumb ideas is to place french drains directly on the foundation wall. This too just makes the groundwater run to the foundation and right down the wall. Usually this ploy is accompanied by a speech about underground rivers and a contention by the contractor that groundwater always exists at that level. If you buy into this, you will indeed prove this individual a sage. It will be a self fulfilling prophesy that there will always be water down at the base of the basement wall or in the crawlspace, which validates his statement that you need a sump pump installed. However it will be the groundwater that runs down the wall that is pumped, not underground springs. This guy usually wants you to do the sump pump right away as well. These two concepts go hand in hand to convince the homeowner that there is no way to stop mother nature. So pump that groundwater for life, and suck it up mr. and mrs. homeowner. This program is always just plain bunk.
5. One of the worst things you can buy into is that using a ditch witch or trencher of some sort can excavate a french drain. A trencher cannot make grade. A ditch witch cannot engineer a slope, carve straight clean sides and a flat bottom. A ditch witch does not feel for utilities and can not make decisions. A ditch witch does not have eyes or ears. A ditch witch cuts at the same depth and creates just what it says it will. A trench. This tool is fine for the placement of utility lines, but it does not belong on a home drainage job at all. Trenching a ditch will remove some of the standing groundwater off the surface, but it allows the groundwater to saturate deeper against the foundation making the home groundwater problem worse. This one is another pass, thank you.
6. Last, but not least, is the foundation footing drain proposal. This guy also wants you to believe that the groundwater will always be at that level due to underground springs and rivers that run through your area, which was probably approved with the help of the county using geo-technical data to determine that no underground rivers or springs existed in the area prior to the approval of the building site.
This contractor will likely put a perforated pipe with a sock on it along the foundation footing after digging back the foundation and loosening the soil. Like the backhoe guy, this fellow will talk about springs below grade and underground rivers, and put rock or gravel right on the foundation wall. If loose soil is placed against the exterior foundation wall after this footing drain is completed, the soil will soak up groundwater around the foundation area more after this is done, creating a sponge effect and more saturation and hydrostatic pressure.
If rock, sand, or gravel is placed directly on the foundation wall the groundwater will run directly below grade. The perforated pipe with the sock will be laid flat on the outside of the foundation footing and probably vent nowhere. No grade. No vent. No drainage success. The foundation area will also always be wet at the foundation footing without collection of the groundwater in the top 18″ of the soil about 18″ away from the foundation wall with a hand excavated french drain.
When you install hand excavated french drains properly and can raise and compact a better grade at the foundation, groundwater does not saturate next to the foundation wall creating hydrostatic pressure and leaking below grade into the crawlspace or basement. Hand excavated french drains upstage all these voo doo drainage tactics. Don’t fall for one of these programs when you want results.
