Read, and protect your rights to receive buyers home inspection reports in a timely manner, when it is not too late to… find another home and back out of the transaction getting your earnest money back. This can prevent you from buying a home that is a drainage nightmare, and not disclosed.

The average home purchase earnest money agreement gives the purchaser the right of satisfaction with respect to backing out of a real estate transaction if a seller does not agree in writing to fix the repairs issue prior to closing of escrow. If the sellers do not solve the problem, and the home buyers accept the problem, they have not done their home work, or did not get the information early enough to alter the situation, which is the case most often, and the topic of discussion is this site as well.

Should that home the buyers are looking at be found out to be an undisclosed drainage problem and basically a money pit, with non disclosing home sellers, bent on deceiving you, and with no money or interest in solving the home drainage problem prior to closing of escrow, you can be out of there with your cash, with only losing a couple of hundred bucks on a home inspection report, while delaying making application for the loan until you, the buyer, or buyers, are satisfied with the results of the home inspection report and your personal observation after learning the ways in this site.

This preserves the home buyers rights, and gives then the opportunity to learn about it before they have paid more fees and are locked in, in most cases, having already sold their existing home as well to buy the new one.

Finding out early in the looking process, before loan application, what the actual condition of the home is, prior to paying hundreds more in fees for appraiser and other bank fees, that will not be given back ever, preserves the rights already given to you and buried by everyone else in the transaction.

Find out before hand if the sellers plan to install another sump pump, or if they will actually “solve” the groundwater problems with hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems.

It will become your way, or the highway.

Many home inspectors, sump pump installers and home lenders are involved in streamlining home buyers through their own process of understanding the condition of the home, in the lenders time, and not the buyers time.

The lenders set up their own timing, in opposition to the home buyers stated rights to discover the groundwater problem early in the transaction. Without early knowledge, buyers cannot back out in time to prevent a crash of the entire moving plan, and perhaps the kids schools too.

Home buyers have the right to back out of the transaction unless the home sellers agree to fix or solve the problem. Not just install a band aid pump.

Everything is supposed to be made, “time is of the essence” as specified within the earnest money agreement, but then not even the realtors protect or understand that right to its fullest apparently.

Just because a realtor calls himself or herself a broker, does not mean they will discuss drainage with you. They will not in most cases, and will leave it to your discovery.

Proceed to hire a real estate buyers agent with caution, even if she or he is free to you. You could pay for it in the end dealing with the realtor, brokers, lack of experience and patience.

There used to be a many years condition for having experience required to sit for the Oregon real estate brokers exam. Not anymore. Everyone is called a broker now, no matter the difference in education and experience levels. Everyone is a broker.

Lots of these folks are nothing more than new sales associates, with a new title given to them by the state legislature, for other reasons than I have time to get into at this point.

Another area realtors often fall down on, when representing home buyers, is they do not protect their buyers with good enough earnest money repairs clause amounts or language to mandate and define what needs to be done, and at whos choice of method, and by whos bank account. Realtors see all those issues as deal killers, because they are, if left to deal with. If dealt with right away, and not successfully, oh well, on to the next home, where they will scratch their heads as you inspect the crawl space, and start all over again, with a patient realtor that knows you are a deal, and not one of the lost.

Fine. Hit the road folks. Shake some hands. Smile. Go find yourself a home to buy. Forget what you cannot change, and be smart enough to know the difference early in the home transaction by reading the obvious, which is not understood until looked for.

Realtors will not support this program in general.

Talk to your buyers agent ahead of time, explaining your priorities. If he or she is not comfortable with them, including treating their own customers on their own listings, should you wish to buy one of those and they are acting in a duel agency capacity. If the answer looks like no, shake their hands and find someone who gets the importance of it, and is not afraid to rock the boat a bit. No exceptions.

Realtors are mostly all taught the same working methodology, until they get more experienced, when everything changes, if they last that long in the business.

Most realtor brokers do not last more than a year or two.

When a few I know start crying, I remind those short sited realtors of an old Muddy Waters blues song line, “you can’t spend what you ain’t got, you can’t lose what you never had.”

Start reading if you are a real estate broker. Start really protecting your home buyers and sellers, in a market where they need it badly.

You will find that you have uncovered a massive market of under serviced home buyers out there, who appreciate your knowledge and will stick with you over the years to come as well. Provide them with access to this site, so they can learn how to solve groundwater problems and make you life easier too.

Lenders dictate to home inspectors what they expect of them, as they are interested in only their own program, and are not in the least interested in respecting the home inspectors, or the home buyers or sellers rights first off, to simply not proceed with the transaction if terms are not met, or the conditions are beyond repair as agreed.

“Just tell me in time to find a solution to the problem, or back out.”

Nothing in the earnest money agreement obligates or forces home buyers, unless otherwise agree to in writing, to be forced into accepting a sump pump installation, that the home buyers know is worthless in its ability to stop groundwater entry below grade into your crawl space or basement.

If the home buyers have no right to walk away quickly, they have no right period.

It counts for little, if the terms or conditions are changed in mid stream, under the table by the parties to this collusion.

Drainage problems are discovered too late to solve the problem, due to planned late disclosure of the drainage problems.

Without prior knowledge of the homes condition, prior to determining to go all in and buy it, the home buyers are at the mercy of everyone else, and no one will step up to defend their earnest money agreement stated rights, even if they do know the difference.

Prevent the streamlining of a sump pump installation, set up by a controlled and delayed late home inspection report, done that way in part just to give the home buyers no time to do anything else but install a sump pump prior to escrow closing.

Protect yourself from lenders, home inspectors, and sump pump installers, by reading how to proceed in opposition to their plan.

If a lender does not go along with you, with your plan to order and pay for home inspection reports yourself right away, before making application for the loan, after your own inspection for drainage purposes, as discussed first when you are pre-qualifying for the loan at the lenders office, go to the next lender, after shaking his or her hand, and telling him or her exactly why you can not deal with this lender.

That is where control starts for the home buyers, and where industry change begins.

There are literally hundreds of sump pump installers and home inspectors in every home market. Especially in the Portland, Oregon market.

Most of them are talking the same old, very old, lingo. Many sump pump installer companies and home inspectors pass referral fees back and forth all the time, and have for decades I am told. More information is available on this site with respect to this problem of collusion among people who can influence professional home installations, under the pretext of an inspection report.

These types of home inspectors are probably making as much off referrals as they collect doing home inspections, where they are really working it.

The play is fleshed out right away in the beginning, when the home inspector gets the first chance to talk to the homeowners and suggest they should meet his sump pump guy first.

The stage for the perfect home drainage crime has been set. All the actors are in place. They are on spot, and basically on cruise control by now, expecting the same old drill will work again, as it always has in the past.

I will not disclose this in detail at this time, as I have previously on this site.

Don’t be lender, home inspector and sump pump guy scammed.

Part of why the real estate financing industry is in such turmoil is from their own greedy and shady scams.

This is not one of their most profitable misrepresentations, but it offers them total control over whether they have wasted their time on a home that will not close, or have invested their time in one that most often will close, even if the drainage problem has not been solved, for what ever reason the bank does not care. This is why so many properties are in the lenders REO, real estate owned portfolios. They are stuffed with home drainage damaged homes, that they will not pay any money to fix.

Home buyers and home sellers are systematically force fed, until they could puke, stories of underground rivers and springs under the home, and how a sump pump is the answer.

It bodes well for home sellers and buyers to protect, recognize, respond, and to change this perfect crime, that circumvents the rights of both the sellers and buyers, as given to them in the earnest money agreement.

What good is a clause in the earnest money agreement, that says, “this transaction is subject to the home buyers satisfaction of a home inspection report”, containing a repairs cap clause, etc, and other protections, if the buyers will never find out about the home drainage problem in time to solve it?

Or if a home seller has already been programmed and motivated by what they believe to be less money to install a sump pump rather than take the bid to actually solve the drainage problem, what chance does another professional have in attempting to educate them on the fly, when ignorance rules.<

The planned late disclosure of home inspection reports by home inspectors and lenders is discussed in more detail in past articles.

The fact of the matter is that most home inspection reports are planned to be delivered late to home buyers by the lenders and home inspectors, usually the last week when the home is in escrow and set to close.

There is no time to install the proper groundwater removal system prior to closing of escrow, or perhaps not even enough time to get a bid for one, even if the sellers would step up for what by this time, the sellers believe is the more expensive option, after talking sump pumps and prices, rather than installing a hand excavated french drain groundwater removal system that will actually solve the groundwater problem.

Home buyers should have controled this a long time ago. Read more on other articles about this subject, as it is detailed better within those articles.

The home buyers should always be asking themselves, “what else have these sellers not told us about home drainage and the general condition of the home?

If you are a home seller, and you want to avoid the problems that can arise as a result of home drainage problem non disclosure during the sale of your home, read my site and e-books, looking for articles on home inspections, lender scams, real estate, and other articles discussing how sellers get double dipped financially and emotionally by not acknowledging and dealing with home drainage problems, prior to listing the home for sale, or at least during a home transaction, if caught having to deal with solving the problem.

Home sellers would be well advised to inspect the home themselves, or hire a home inspection person themselves, after clearing it with the bank they intend to use the home inspection report with, to get the loan.

This takes the scam out of the lenders and home inspectors hands. The home inspector now works for the buyers directly, and not their prospective bank, even after they had paid the fees to hire the inspection in the buyers name.

Timely attention to home drainage problems, prior to marketing the home, will save you money and grey hairs in the end, if you are the home seller.

The use of my buyers due diligence check list and other solutions to common real estate scams can change everything for you and your family when buying or selling a home.

This is not some fly by not information that is just going to go away. Plan on hearing more about it, everywhere you go.

If you are a home buyer, turn what would have been a home escrow sale fail, into a closed escrow on time, as projected, without getting burnt or losing your rights to back out of the home transaction early, before you are on the streets, because of some criminal act of ignorance and greed perpetrated against you by lenders, home inspectors, and sump pump installers, as well as realtors who are part of the problem, but can’t get involved without becoming road kill themselves.

No one can do this for you. You must learn and teach home drainage to not be a victim in the future. The issue is not going away folks.

There is no alternative to truth. You must step up and realize the truth, and deal with what is, and not with what they say it is. On many levels.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/191/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/123 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/123#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:05:48 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/123 This article is available below as a pdf file e-book as well.

This is published for home buyers who do not wish to download the entire e-book.

All homes are not created equal.

When it comes to assessing a home that you wish to purchase, home buyers need to… understand common home drainage problems that affect the livability of the home.

Homeowners need to learn how to look for signs that could indicate to the home buyers that a home drainage groundwater problem probably, not perhaps, exists.

Home drainage should be at the top of the inspection and due diligence list for home buyers, but it seldom is, unless a reader becomes aware of the power of this knowledge, when used as part of a preparation study in home drainage health.

Readers learn to value the knowledge here-in on home drainage in real every day use, when solving drainage problems, or when hiring a home drainage contractor in their part of the world.

Study this home drainage due diligence check list, which is written to teach home buyers how to assess the condition of the home they are thinking of buying, with respect to home drainage issues.

Learn which homes have groundwater problems that can be solved, as well as those homes that probably are a “pass”. Too much damage. Too large a problem for anyones budget. Structural problems etc. When you want to raise the bar, and ask questions, just call us.

There are too many great homes on the market for informed home buyers to buy one of those home drainage pigs from non disclosing home sellers, without serious upside in profit potential becoming a motivating factor.

After the groundwater problems and structural repairs have been completed, a new era begins for the homes worth and health.

Look for a home with exposed river rock hand excavated french drains installed, as value added, only if evidence exists that shows it actually works. As in, no water in the crawl space or basement.

Hand excavated french drains are not a sign of weakness in a home, when professionally installed, they are a sign that the builder or homeowners have taken a value added step to install hand excavated french drains to prevent groundwater entry into the home, as well as to preserve the health and value of the home.

I have inspected hundreds of homes that were under 5 years old that had been affected by groundwater from the day they were built, due to home builders drainage attempts that were doomed by poor to zero home drainage knowledge and planning skills.

Groundwater drainage issues are often misunderstood and not dealt with correctly by the homeowner during their period of ownership. Many times they are just passed on to the next chump down the line.

They are seldom incorporated into the overall design of the home when the home is built.

Once new homes are built with groundwater problems destined to be part of their legacy, they soon turn into older homes with groundwater problems, made worse by procrastination, and owned by homeowners who really may not want anyone to even suspect they have a groundwater problem.

1. When you are considering a home on a flat building site, or one on the low lying, below grade type of building site, without hand excavated french drains, think twice, or budget for hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems to be installed, and grade compaction work, as part of the move in costs.

2. Make sure the home has wide gutters with adequate downspout locations, and that they look newer and are in good condition.

Look for the proper sloping of those gutters horizontally along the roof line, sloping the roof water to the downspout location at the end of the gutter, most often.

Gutters are not meant to be installed flat. They slope to the downspout location cut in the gutter.

Gutter spikes popping out are the most common cause of roof water missing the gutters.

Gutters should be hung at a slight slope on the facia board running towards the downspout location.

Many gutter systems are hung wrong and overflow over the edge of the home causing roof water to pool next to the foundation and subsequently producing groundwater saturation, hydrostatic pressure, and leaking of groundwater, once roof or rain water, into crawlspaces or basements.

Gutter guards can make the cleaning process seem easier for the homeowners, but I am not a fan of the helmet type gutter protector, which reduces the size of the gutter opening and tends to run rain water, during hard rains, over the edge of the gutter, instead of in the gutter system designed to remove that rainwater. More plastic than air space. In hard rains it is like having no gutters at all.

Look for homes with multiple layers of roofing. If you stand at the edge of the homes overhang and step back a step or two, you will see that homes with many layers of roofing raise the height of the shingles relative to the edge of the gutters line of sight below it.

Presto. Rainwater sheets directly over the gutters. This will make a more severe groundwater problem than had existed to begin with, in many cases.

Line of sight on the roof line, over the top of the gutters, as mentioned above, is a smoking gun for home drainage problems caused by melting snow or roof water run off.

It does not have to be a home with gutter guards that are helmets either. Home buyers need to look at the way the roof height stacks up with the edge of the gutter system.

Faulty placement of gutters and lack of adequate downspout locations are smoking guns that lead to overflowing gutters which can cause wet basements and crawl spaces. The resulting groundwater damage is seldom noticed until inspected by someone professionally looking for such a problem.

Most likely discovered by the professional home inspector that will weigh in on the health of the home when it is sold. Unless the home is sold for all cash, or as part of a Irc 1031 tax deferred exchange, and like the other examples, did not require loans from a bank, and therefore was perhaps not even inspected. In those cases a home inspection may not have been ordered.

3. If you are a prospective buyer of a home, talk to the neighbors about the evidence of home drainage problems in that particular neighborhood, and naturally, specifically at the home at which you are looking.

Introduce yourself, and ask these neighbors if they know of any home drainage issues that the home you are looking at has ever had in the past.

Not all neighbors get along like two peas in a pod. Many homeowners will tell you the exact truth about the home, and do so in a more honest way than the sellers of the home would.

If the home is newly built, take the time to talk to the neighbors or former customers from a different subdivision, that the same builder was responsible for building, and ask about what they know of the builders methods, and any problems with drainage that any neighborhood owners may have encountered.

You will find out that neighbors often have lots of old world, down to earth, hand excavated french drain knowledge, and a seemingly rippin desire to educate you, with respect to what may concern you about the homes drainage strong and weak points, as well as the over all drainage health of the entire neighborhood.

I warn you however. Be prepared to hear stories about underground rivers and springs under the neighborhood and that this has been common knowledge for many years.

The story will go on explaining that they are the reason everyone has groundwater problems, and yes, you guessed it, sump pumps installed.

Do you understand what a hand excavated french drain is? Do you have one installed and engineered properly? Few will know about them, and less will have them.

So, there it is. The stories about these underground rivers only come up when the winter comes and groundwater is apparent again. As a result, in my opinion, over many years of installing drainage systems, that the stories of underground rivers penetrating everyones homes and springs, everywhere, are a bunch of suburban gibberish that got started over a pitcher of beer somewhere.”We’ll just tell them this, then”. Right? Sure you will dude.

While it does happen that a building site slips through the cracks in the approval process during the preliminary plat approval process, and is approved when geologic data and inspection indicate that because of the soil stability or springs that the area should be dedicated as common area to the subdivision and not granted lot status, very few sites slip through the cracks and are built on with geological rivers and springs under them, and coming to the surface under the home.

4. Ask the sellers and their agents about the existence of hand excavated french drains on the property. You can be sure that your buyers agent has never uttered the words french drain even in the most silent of ways.

That is the last subject that any realtor wants to have come up. What a deal breaker.

Come on home buyers, if you don’t take control of this process and turn looking into seeing, no one will be at the wheel when it’s too late to change everything back to re-do and start over, looking for another home.

If the homeowners profess that the home had french drains installed, did they specify hand excavated french drains, and when were they built? Are the sellers starting to fidget and scratch occasionally about their faces, when you keep your questions coming?

Body language will tell you most every time whether they need to be uncomfortable, because of your preparation asking pertinent questions, or whether they are just weasels caught with their tails in the trap.

Ask the sellers if they understand the distinction between a french drain and a hand excavated french drain installed in the old world way, with a hard finished engineered slope of 2″ per 10 lineal feet of grade, venting to a “green friendly” hand excavated dry well or day lighted vent.

Ask the sellers of the home to show you the placement of their hand excavated french drain, if they say they installed one. Ask the sellers to show you the rock exposed on the surface of the hand excavated french drain, and the grade work.

Was the clean river rock within the hand excavated french drain covered up with dirt, therefore rendering the effort fruitless. No french drain would function well in that condition. If the french drain was covered with dirt it would have been destined and designed for failure, unless used with weed cloth and dirt over lawn drainage, which is designed with sod or grass seed replacement over the dry well, if it is located in a yard, for example.

Lawn drainage engineered hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems are an example of putting dirt back over the river rock on the surface, but in that case the river rock placed over the perforated pipe and sloped bottom are separated by a layer of weed cloth from the dirt and sod which keeps the hand excavated french drain from accumulating the type of debris volume that would cause the drainage system to not work.

Ask how old the french drains are, and where they are located, if the sellers say that they exist at all? They say every picture tells a story, and with home drainage this statement has never been more true. Thanks Rod Stewart.

5. If you are buying a one level ranch style home, without a basement in particular, look for the adequate placement of the foundation crawlspace vents.

Were the foundation vents poured so low in the foundation wall that the addition of soil and bark dust next to the home placed them even with, or below grade to the existing soil level?

Gravity takes that ol’ nasty groundwater and pulls it right into that hole about 8″-12″ wide and long. A huge hole on the ground that can fill up with groundwater caused by rain. Well duh. I guess one could suspect that there might be a groundwater problem. Perhaps not, but my money says, go look at the crawl space and use the list of inspections items included herein.

Look to see if the foundation vents have actually been completely or partially blocked, or filled in with barkdust, dirt, or leaves when the foundation was backfilled, or at the time it was built, or by the present or former homeowners.

This is a huge problem with ranch homes, ( 1 level homes with crawlspaces), and the problem does not exist with this type of home only. Ranch homes most often have minimum crawlspace distance from the floor joists to the floor of the crawlspace, and that makes for terrible working conditions if you need to work under there, and a dangerous place to go period if you live in the southern United States or western states, in places where snakes and spiders of not so friendly intentions lurk.

I personally would not like to trade the discovery of the occasional possum for discovery within the crawlspace of a rattlesnake, face to face, on my belly with no room to even sit up or turn around. You are so toast. Watch out.

You might want to call a home inspector professional in some of these types of areas and save yourself a lot of problems.

If hand excavated french drains are constructed and plumbed in front of these low grade foundation vents, most of the groundwater can be collected prior to it flowing into the crawl space.

If the foundation wall is very low, and the siding extends down the concrete foundation wall so low that a recommended splash block of additional soil cannot be installed, that is not fortunate for the homeowners. Making a grade change against the foundation alone can be enough, without the installation of french drains, to stop your groundwater caused home drainage problems. Most often both are required however.

6. As I have stated above, when you are examining the exterior foundation of the home you wish to buy, look to see if the siding on the home is too low to the ground level, or touching the ground, preventing the addition of soil compacted on the foundation to create a splash block which can run overflowing gutter water and rains streaking down the foundation wall of the home prior to saturation of the soil at the foundation.

Most building codes specify a minimum of 6″ between the bottom of the siding and any dirt or celulose debris, ie. leaves, bark dust, twigs, etc. along the exterior foundation wall. It is nice if a good drainage grade exists and the minimum clearance or greater is there or can be achieved.

If you are building a home from scratch and have a choice in the matter, design and work with the architect to get an additional 10″-12″ of concrete< foundation wall put into the plans that can be used to raise the grade with compacted dirt and clay at the foundation grade level for better runoff of rainwater from the side of your home or what overflows your gutters to the inside of your hand excavated french drains.

The french drain should be located about 18″ from the foundation wall to collect that rainwater runoff and dry out the border of earth between the foundation and the hand excavated french drain all the way down to the foundation footing in time by starving that area of groundwater created by the saturation of rain water on the surface of the ground or overflowing the gutters off the roof gutter system or groundwater bubbling out of the rain drain discharges installed at the edge of the foundation which accept the downspouts.

7. Look for the presence of concrete poured right against the foundation wall. This is seldom a good thing. These areas cause problems most of the time if the concrete is not floated, ie. sloped away from the home at an adequate grade to prevent the rainwater from running against the foundation.

If the grade at the foundation is flat, or slopes to the foundation, it should red flag you to check the basement or crawl space for signs of groundwater entry.

As the concrete cures it shrinks and forms an air space between the foundation wall and the concrete, it happens in dirt too, and the space in the crack may be enough in size to allow rainwater to start the bad habit of running right down the foundation wall during hard rains, flooding the basement or crawlspace.

Look under decks built right on the home as well. Determine if the slope of the ground under the deck runs away from the home or towards it.

What does the ground look like under the deck? Can you see holes, or grooves made where the rainwater drips through the cracks in the deck and runs to the foundation wall. Does it look like there is a slope towards the foundation under the deck

Are there french drains under the deck around, installed around 18″ from the foundation wall? You may think that these items do not matter. I assure you they do matter.

I have advised many homeowners to demolish or temporarily remove their decks, to allow the compacting and grading of the soil under the deck, as well as the creation of a splash block along the foundation wall for better rain run off, and the installation of hand excavated french drains under the deck to stop groundwater entry below grade.

A couple of years ago I advised a very talented and educated former Oregon governor to remove a deck so I could plumb a rain drain discharge and install hand excavated french drains.

He and his builder probably thought me to be quite mad when I first advised it, but I got the nod anyway, and subsequently hit it out of the park.

The drainage groundwater problem in that home was that groundwater was perking up in cracks within the basement floor, even after two sump pumps had been installed by previous homeowners.

The home was a new acquisition for my friend our former governor, and an addition had just been completed. I designed the drainage systems, as I have described within this article, and two sump pumps mounted ever so professionally looking, encased in concrete cylinders in the basement concrete floor never ran again, and groundwater never came up through that floor again I am told.

8. Look to see that the downspouts are plumbed into black abs pipe discharges above ground, and not some other type of pipe like ads flex or solid pipe, or perforated pipe, or pvc pipe.

If the home is older, look for the presence of the old concrete or clay tile downspout discharge systems. You will see the top of them standing next to the foundation with a downspout in them.

These types of old style downspout to rain drain discharge systems, either in clay, concrete, or cast iron, are probably plugged and overflowing at the foundation wall due to the spaces that exist between the 18″ long tiles, in the case of clay and concrete tiles, and cannot be replaced or cleaned out.

Dirt plugs them because dirt is backfilled over them when they are laid and the entire system consisted of pieces of pipe with spaces between them to begin with.

In time these clay or concrete tile systems plug and fail.

Connect the rain drains with new solid black abs and ads solid pipe and vent them to a daylighted vent or drywell to protect your crawlspace or basement from groundwater damage caused by roof water running through downspouts unable to vent, and backing up along the foundation wall.

Look for a cavity in the dirt at the ground level of the foundation, behind the rain drain discharge, that has formed behind the downspout location and shows evidence of the overflowing downspout running water over the rain drain discharge, as it is plugged.

9. Look for a white horizontal chalk line along the base of the exterior foundation wall, and look for white horizontal lines in the basement or crawlspace as well.

This is called effloresscense, and it is the lime that was forced away from the concrete in the foundation wall, due to groundwater lying on the foundation or running down the basement or interior crawlspace walls.

The evidence of effloresscense is a direct result of groundwater damage that causes foundation deterioration and groundwater running below grade.

In time this effloresscense is identified by a white powder that comes off to the touch.

The loss to the concrete itself, of the lime strength in the mix, through the loss of lime as effloressence, will actually weaken the concrete in the foundation wall to the degree that, over decades, the foundation will crumble to sand literally.

Extreme cases of foundation damage like this cannot be repaired. If the condition is caught in time, and hand excavated french drains are installed, a home drainage contractor/mason can reconstruct the basement or crawlspace foundation without having to jack and hold the entire house up, while a new foundation is poured under it. This is very expensive work.

This may seem like much to consider about the home prior to purchasing it, but if a clean bill of health can be given to the home as a result of the satisfaction of these concerns, your money is likely to stay in your pocket in the future. This is especially true if the home has hand excavated french drains that are properly constructed and plumbed.

Many homeowners who become sellers are aware of the condition of their home in great detail. These homeowners know that there is a state required home disclosure that is required to be given to the prospective buyers of the home by the sellers. This home disclosure asks specifically if the homeowner is aware of any groundwater drainage problems. It also asks what was done to solve the groundwater problem.

Some sellers tell the truth and will offer the history of their procrastination that has brought the condition of the drainage to the present where it is evident that a groundwater problem has existed for many years.

Other sellers will not disclose these seasonally evident home drainage problems, and will swear to the bitter end that they know nothing about any groundwater entry at all.

The home inspection indicates groundwater evidence and these sellers dig in their heels and profess complete ignorance. These types of homeowner/sellers are the ones to watch out for.

They are easily discovered in the process of doing your due diligence.

Unfortunately there are lots of these types of non-disclosing sellers out there. Beware, be smart, ask questions, and make informed decisions. You can tell the sellers that do not disclose what they know, as they weasel around the issue and have answers to your questions that do not make sense.

This information is also offered on the web site, as a PDF download e-book, for those home buyers that wish to print it out and take it with on home showings.

Just keep asking questions, and the facts will come out. This information is designed to flush out non disclosing types of sellers, who have had a home drainage history with the home, and will not disclose it, even if the law requires it, and they know good and well they are legally responsible to disclose all issues, be it failed or succeeded.

Using the home buyers check list will leave you with a healthy home and produce a fun home buying experience, lacking any drama attached to home drainage issues during the closing of escrow on the home.

Stop home seller non-disclosure of drainage problems.

You don’t need to buy a home drainage problem, and these sellers don’t need to get away with it, and be taught bad habits.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/123/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/209 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/209#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:09:33 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/209

Exposed rock hand excavated french drains are both ancient and modern.

Hand excavated french drains cost less than they pay in any market, but especially in a buyers market, with record high home inventory and falling prices.

Todays home buyers have much to choose from. The bank will love the fact that professionally installed hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems were previously installed, as they know how well they work when installed properly. Tough real estate market? You bet.

Tough real estate marketing conditions exist most everywhere in the U.S. right now. This makes it necessary for properties to show value added features in order to get the kind of home buyers with strong credit who can get the deal done.

Many of these home buyers are first time home buyers who want “green” homes, and are home drainage smart and studied. They know it is not a subject to be taken lightly.

Eventually the home inspection report identifies the groundwater problem however, and the gig is up. The home sellers are left kicking and screaming all the way to the bank as they are forced to deal with it finally, as the new proposal price is twice what it was 10 years ago when they bought the home that way.

Now these sellers are left to deal with it, under the worst of circumstances.

Homes with hand excavated french drains, professionally installed, are value added features. They are capital improvements actually, from a tax standpoint, as they are not a home repair, and are value added groundwater removal systems, that did not exist previously at the home, and are recognized by the I.R.S. too.

Home buyers should come to home sellers with pre-approval letters in hand, solid credit, and a great plan to sniff out any home drainage problems that may exist at the home they are looking at right away. In the first 15 minutes.

If these home buyers use my home buyers due diligence check lists, provided for free on this site, and created to help home buyers find drainage problems, home buyers can pull honesty out of the most hesitant non-disclosing types of home sellers, with respect to finding out the truth from them, or their desire to hide it, and identifying any existing home drainage issues at the home that may exist.

When home sellers install hand excavated french drains at their home, the home stands out among the inventory of homes for sale. It has a value added feature that most do not.

There are few homes without the need for home drainage attention at some level around Portland, for example. All homes benefit from having hand excavated french drains installed. Some just benefit more than others.

Few homes will actually have hand excavated french drains professionally installed.

Very few homes in America that is, compared to all the homeowners wasting their money on sump pump installations that do not prevent groundwater from running below grade into crawl spaces.

Some homeowners feel they should not disclose groundwater problems, even after they have been solved. Many have not been solved, and they know opening up their mouths about home drainage will likely cause them to make a much fought trip to the bank required again, to pay for solving the drainage problem that belongs to them.

The non-disclosure of home drainage problems, past or present, as it pertains to a home, is in violation of state disclosure laws in Oregon.

Many homeowners have cosmetic enhancements, or a nice water feature to highlight when selling their home, but fewer homes have structural or environmental enhancements, such as hand excavated french drains, that positively impact the health of the home in many ways.

Hand excavated french drains are value added features that prevent dry rot, maintain the structural health and stability of the home, and remove groundwater that accumulates in basements and crawl spaces, before it saturates to that level, just to name a few. Groundwater can cause mildew, pests, mold and dryrot in your crawl space or basement.

Saturated foundation areas create moisture and mold problems in the home. When installed in conjunction with raising the foundation grade, as well as using a compacted splash block in that area, and installing rain drain discharges to vent gutter systems, hand excavated french drains pay huge groundwater removal dividends.

Be a home seller that proudly references the groundwater removal systems that were installed at the property to protect the infrastructure of the home.

Show off exposed river rock hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems proudly.

Hand excavated french drains are well known among professional contractors, by name, but poorly understood and installed by them in general, as a result of their limited experience with many types of home drainage problems.

Home sellers who have solved home drainage problems with hand excavated french drains should give home buyers a copy of the completed contract for drainage work. It probably was not cheap, and the buyers will also see the hand excavated french drain installation as a capital improvement and not a liability.

Home buyers are actively looking for properties with these home drainage solutions, and they will gladly pay for them in the home they wish to buy, unless they feel they can buy a home without them cheaper and install hand excavated french drains themselves at that home.

Sellers are obligated to at least disclose their experience with drainage problems, if not give the buyers a copy of the completed home drainage proposal, increasing their chances to be seen as honest sellers. Provide a copy of your completed french drain contract and many buyers will believe the honesty of your statements there after, and they will have a connection to whom ever did the drainage work, and likely be more inclined to meet you half way in negotiations, as a result of your honesty.

Stand out in the crowd and sell your home by showing off and promoting the ownership of hand excavated french drains when many homeowners flounder with groundwater problems and do not even have the courage to disclose them, and in legal opposition to state home quality disclosure laws that mandate them to disclose everything they know about the former and present health of the home, to include home drainage.

Show off your success with stopping groundwater entry. “Green home buyers” will like the fact that this will not be one of the many homes that they will find on the market with seller undisclosed groundwater problems, at least.

Many home sellers do not have any moral or karmic problem at all withholding information on home drainage systems that were formerly installed at the home, or anything to do with the subject for that matter, because they feel that the disclosure is a deal killer. Pure and simple and worth being a home drainage liar over apparently in many cases.

Actually it works just the opposite. The home buyers who go on to the next home, after the disclosure, would have done so anyway.

If a home buyer wants the home, a home drainage solution is value added, not an encumbrance. If they don’t want the home, it does not matter to them either way really. If they want the home and a problem exists, they will negotiate to fix it prior to closing of escrow and still buy the home in most cases.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/209/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/298 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/298#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:34:45 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/298 10 home drainage conditions the buyers need to investigate. This is an Overview, read further for detail on each point: 1. Check the quality and age of the gutter system.

2. Inspect the rain drain discharges that vent the water from your gutter system away from the home.

3. Inspect the overall topography of the earth at the foundation walls.

4. Look for mature trees and shrubs planted within 2 feet of the foundation, or even up to 6 feet for large trees.

5. Look for evidence of a hand excavated french drain installation.

6. Ask the homeowners about home drainage issues.

7. Look for sump pumps installed.

8. Is there curb and gutter and is the property below grade to the street.

9. Does the home contain any funny smells when you go into the crawl space.

Prior to writing an offer on a home, you would be well advised to have a prepared list of home drainage due diligence questions with you when you jump into the home buying process.

Control is everything. You must control the stream of information coming to you, or you will be fed less than the truth in many cases dealing with some homeowners who want to hide home drainage problems and attempts to solve them as well.

Learn how to swim with the big fish without getting eaten. Don’t buy home drainage problems. You don’t need that kind of garbage.

It is easy to forget to look for existing or potential home drainage problems when the families focus is more on the neighborhood, the basketball hoop, where the bus stop is, patio dining possibilities, the overall size of the home, parking space, colors, water features, pool, and other items of cosmetic nature or comfort, which are important as well.

It is human nature for home buyers to forget about home drainage items that are not spotlighted, or disclosed to them by home sellers.

Oregon home sellers must present to the home buyers a home quality disclosure history form indicating everything they know about the condition of the home and its amenities.

This is done on a form that every home seller is required to give every Oregon home buyer, most often through their real estate broker. The form is an Oregon home condition and history disclosure, representing what the home sellers know about the subject property.

Ignore it as a home seller and you leave yourself open for lawsuits.

Non-disclosing home sellers can sell the home in the summer, sly as a fox. When the return of the homes groundwater problems show the new homeowners that they someone has been lying to them about never having a home drainage problem, moods turn into filing law suits many times.

Realtors are not trained to look for drainage issues at all. Actually, most realtors are not exactly dressed for a romp in the crawl space anyway.

The crawl space fact finding adventure should be the buyers first responsibility to themselves, if for no other reason than to provide the buyers with the truth about the condition of the crawl space, and most likely the homes health in general.

A crawl space will tell you lots about the over all age and health of the home, just from the smells or lack of them.

Focus in required to investigate the condition of the home from a home drainage perspective.

I will teach you how to protect yourself buying real estate and have fun doing it.

Whether the sellers are aware of the home drainage problems or not, you will be aware of them right away, and you will get down to the reality of what you are facing quickly by asking the proper questions in real time. Thrilled aren’t you.

You may benefit from having another person at the showing with you as a crawl space and overall property condition guy. Perhaps a handy man crawl space guy or a friend, to be dragged along just to be used for such important information gathering purposes as crawl space investigation.

That person can just be uncle Louie to the realtors and homeowners and say little at all to anyone during the process, but report to you. You will teach him what, where and how to look from this site information and your prepared and printed out list. Here-in enclosed.

1. Check the quality, age, and type of the gutter system installed on the home first. Ask yourself what the materials are in the gutters and downspouts. Are they aluminum, wood, or plastic. Look for gutter spikes protruding out of the facia boards on the end of the roof joists, where the gutter is nailed. They need to be nailed back into the end of the rafter tail if the gutter is still hung correctly.

Look for cracks in plastic gutter systems and the presence of gutter helmets, or similar types of supposedly no maintenance gutter guard systems. Gutter helmet types of no maintenance gutter protectors allow rain water, during heavy rains, to run right over the gutters producing the same effect or worse than you would have sustained if your home had no gutters installed at all. In soft rains they work as intended.

Even homes with quality french drain groundwater removal systems installed professionally have trouble keeping up with the huge flow that can come off a large roof during heavy rains where the downspout rain drain discharges are plugged and everything is overflowing at the foundation, and also most likely overflowing like a water fall off the gutters to the ground next to the homes foundation.

The end of the home is many times a gable end with no gutters, as it has a severe pitch to the roof line. These ends of the home can suffer worse from snow and rain running over the roofs end in that location.

Gutter spikes attach the gutters to the facia board which is nailed to the ends of the rafter tails at the top of the gutter. Make sure that they are securely attached, and that the gutters are not dented or bent over and are hung at a slope to the downspout, where it attaches to your gutter system. Where the downspout drops to the ground and vents into your rain drain discharge, which is located at the side of your homes foundation, right where it can overflow and bomb your crawl space with roof water, turned into groundwater if your gutters plug up your rain drain discharges.

Look for drip lines under the gutters on the dirt. It could be evidence that the gutters are overflowing during hard rains. Look for rusted gutters that will likely leak in hard rains.

2. Look at the rain drain discharges, which I have described above. Determine where and how the gutters are plumbed to them and what they are plumbed with, as well as the gutters approximate age and the quality of the materials used. Are those rain drain discharges made of flexible pipe above ground, and not hard glued abs pipe, as they should be?

Usually 3″ abs glued pipe is mandated for use above ground for plumbing rain drain discharges. The rain drains may attach to a 3″ solid ads flex pipe as well for allowing underground turns and twists in your french drain systems aqua ducts.

3. What is the overall topography of the home site, and can you determine what basic type of the soil exists at the exterior foundation wall? I just mean, does it look like thick bark dust around the foundation, which acts like a sponge? Does the ground slope toward the foundation in general, and has it been dug and gardened, or is it firm and sloped away from the home, and naturally hard and compacted?

Ask yourself if the concrete areas are poured sloping towards the foundation, or flat against the foundation, like a patio at the rear sliding door. This can be a tip off to the source of the groundwater into the crawl space or basement in that area, when you see bad rainwater collecting slopes running right towards your home.

Look to see if anyone in the past has placed any kind of rock, sand, or gravel right on the foundation wall, after removing dirt against the foundation wall, either all the way down to the depth of the foundation footing, or perhaps even just a foot or two? I do not mean a thin layer of river rock covering the sloping compacted splash block against the foundation wall, which gravity flows heavy rain water away from the foundation wall.

Splash blocks are installed approximately 18″ away from the foundation walls and adjacent to the hand excavated french drain installation, which is itself approximately 12″ wide.

The finish layer of 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock is to prevent erosion of the compacted splash block against the foundation wall, and to enhance rain run away speed into the french drain.

Rock placed directly on the foundation should red flag you to look within the basement or crawlspace for potential home drainage problems. Although, like I just said above, the river rock may only be on the surface of the splash block at the foundation in a proper french drain installation.

Look for evidence of a home drainage groundwater problem at the ground level, at the exterior foundation wall, where a white chalky substance called effloressence is usually present. Put your finger on it, and you will get lime on your finger. A conclusive test for evidence of groundwater entry in that area due to groundwater saturation produced by water laying against the concrete foundations surface for extended periods of time.

The presence of efflorescense shows the lime within the concrete foundation wall that has been displaced by groundwater laying on the foundation wall over long periods of time.

4. Are there mature trees planted within 2 feet of the foundation that, in conjunction with bad topography sloping to the foundation, probably have sent roots down along the foundation, which often causes groundwater to run below grade into basements and crawl spaces?

Are there deep layers of barkdust or chips near the foundation, which will certainly act like a sponge to absorb groundwater?

Where the grade at the foundation wall can be increased by the creation of a compacted splash block, in conjunction with the installation of hand excavated french drains, home drainage success will follow.

5. Does the homeowner contend that there is a french drain installed along the home, but you see no exposed river rock on the surface of the ground which would perhaps evidence the french drain installation. This does not mean that the french drain was engineered or excavated correctly, because no one can deconstruct the french drain to determine if it has the proper slope and depth, as well as the correct hard finished bearing ground slope of at least 2″ per 10 lineal feet, to make it work well under hard rain conditions.

Digging into the sides of the french drain installation would further deteriorate the ability of it to collect groundwater over a long time, as the silt and mud created by loosing the soil sides of the french drain, and then being periodically flooded, can reduce its effectiveness to some degree or invalidate it all together.

6. Ask the homeowners about their experience with home drainage issues as they pertain to the home. Do so without much of a warning. Do the homeowners fidget, and seem a little reluctant to answer, as they find the right words to answer? Did they look at each other before responding? What is their body language like after you ask these questions?

7. Are there any sump pumps installed? If there is a sump pump installed, where and how does it vent? What do the sellers say about who put it in, why, and when? If there is a sump pump installed on the outside of the home, how close is it to the foundation?

It is not good to install a sump pump in a sump well, installed against the foundation wall, or within 10 feet of the foundation for that matter. Portland city code wants a 4 foot deep by 4 foot in diameter, rock filled dry well, to be at least 10 feet from a foundation wall.

A sump well also retains groundwater that was not pumped out. This leaves the remaining groundwater soaking into the ground below you at the foundation wall if that is your installation.

Even if a solid tank is used, the sump pump will never pump out all the water. A few inches will always remain to keep the area musty smelling.

Many failed drainage systems exist in the Portland area that also have the dirt dug away from the foundation wall a foot or two, maybe with a back hoe, maybe by hand, and are then are connected with the ditch that was crudely dug and the dirt was replaced with rock. A sump pump on the outside of the foundation wall, at the end of a ditch filled with rock is not quality home drainage. Lots of these failed attempts are out there. Thousands in the Portland area alone.

7. If there is a sump pump installed in the crawlspace or basement, does the home also contain hand excavated french drains with exposed river rock on the surface, installed on the outside of the home, located about 18″ from the foundation wall, with a compacted soil grade against the foundation which is called a splash block? This would be a very good thing to discover.

Does it appear that groundwater is sloping to the inside of the hand excavated french drain from the foundation splash block? This should be the correct engineering for the compacted splash block and hand excavated french drain installation.

Sump pump installers do not prevent the groundwater from entering below grade areas with their sump pump installations. Without hand excavated french drains installed, the groundwater will continue to enter below grade areas such as crawl spaces and basements.

If hand excavated french drains are installed, and a sump pump exists as well, the homeowners probably had the hand excavated french drains installed after the homeowner realized that the groundwater was still entering below grade, even after the installation of the sump pump. While I am sure some sump pump guy would love to try to convince everyone that it was the french drain that was installed first and that the sump pump prevented the groundwater from entering below grade, this would be a preposterous lie, without a shred of truth to back it up. Everyone knows it is just the opposite.

8. Does the home have curb and gutter at the street? The lack of these systems can send groundwater from streets onto home sites and saturate lawns as well. Groundwater problem can follow.

For some procrastinating home drainage challenged homeowners, this can really become an industrial problem more than a residential one in scope and budget, and a street rainwater problem that eventually winds up to be that cities or counties problem, if enough tax paying homeowners get together to light a fire under their butts to address the issue and probably sue the city, or work with them, to give their street curb and gutter as well.

Is the home below grade to the street?

While these conditions can many times be changed, it is extra money for you to budget if you decide to purchase the home that may require hand excavated french drains to collect street groundwater prior to it ruining you lawn and saturating the foundation walls.

Memorize or bring this list with you to the home showing, and don’t be sidetracked. Always return to your list of questions. Look for the conditions that I have showed you. Asking yourself the strong value questions puts you in control of the home buying process totally.

You will blow them away, and almost find yourself at times witnessing the admission from homeowners caught off guard and not prepared for someone that comes off like a home drainage and geology student more than a home buyer. Memorize the list, or just read from it, and everyone certainly will conclude that you are the boss. No exceptions. Not a bad place to be coming from in this case, I think.

Contractors and homeowners, as well as realtors, all are pulling your mind away from the fact finding process, and trying to turn everything into getting the buyers to accept what is said to them as fact, and move along, without their own investigation or knowledge weighing in.

My experience as a home drainage contractor, land developer, former commercial-investment and residential real estate brokerage owner and broker, taught me that you can see deeply into the secrets of the environmental and structural health of the home when you look deeply.

9. Does the home contain funny smells that seem to indicate groundwater problems may be a reality? Time for further inspection. Where is the crawl space hatch door? Probably in a bedroom closet floor. Find it, open it and smell the crawl space.

Nice. Now you can appreciated what I am saying right? You will learn lots about the home doing this simple exercise. Get a good flash light,, coveralls and gloves if you are doing it yourself, and a mask is also advised in many crawl spaces. Perhaps not all of them.

Do you have any suspicions of mold or mildew because of smells? Does the carpet look old, with a touch of funky smell, even though it looks recently cleaned or new, or at least not that old? Perhaps it was once flooded if it is in the basement, and the homeowners made the cheaper attempt to dry it out rather than replace the molding carpet. It never works.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/298/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/221 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/221#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:44:47 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/221 When you are buying a home protect yourself from seller non disclosure of home drainage problems by adding an inspection and repair clause in the earnest money agreement that obligates the sellers to make repairs, to include home inspector found and professional home drainage contractor proposed home drainage repairs.

There is a repairs cap generally in every earnest money agreement. Don’t make the amount too low if you really want to own the home and get the home drainage problems solved at the sellers expense prior to closing of escrow, like your lender wants. That is why your lender will have you contact a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor when a home drainage problem is found in the home you are selling or you wish to purchase.

Specify home drainage repairs in the language of the earnest money agreement and discuss the subject on your first meeting with the sellers while all the real estate agents are around. Indicate your interest in the home but identify your concern over what you believe to be a home drainage problem.

Write the earnest money agreement only after conducting a personal home inspection with the information I have included in my e-book on the subject of “buyers due diligence for groundwater problems prior to purchasing a home” and by reading other lessons on the subject within this website on how to conduct your own home inspection prior to writing the earnest money agreement. This is home drainage due diligence that will save you lots of money and prevent you from getting stuck with the sellers groundwater problems and you getting trapped in a well known lender trap.

Most often the seller and their agent will want to limit the repair cap amount in the earnest money agreement to $500.-$1500. This won’t even dent the cost of most major home repairs in this day and age, like dry rot or to solve home groundwater problems with properly designed, engineered and installed hand excavated french drains.

The $3500.-$5000. range is a more likely price with which to fund the hiring of a professional licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor for the average home drainage job. Large homes and tough topography are going to cost much more than small homes with home sites that are easy to work on.

If you don’t set the repairs cap amount high enough to begin with you will likely be forced to settle for some stupid band aid approach to drainage when the bid exceeds the cap amount specified in the earnest money agreement and your lender already has trapped you into paying the fees for the loan before you know the condition of the home with respect to any required home repairs needed to fund the loan.

You may end up being trapped into accepting the installation of a sump pump, under the gun, to give yourself and the lender the impression that a home drainage groundwater entry solution has been installed and to get the property financed and closed.

Read in more detail on this subject on this website.

You may not get the home closed at all in todays real estate market if the lender recognizes that there is a significant home drainage problem and neither the seller or the buyer are willing to pay for the repair work prior to closing of escrow.

Lenders are much tougher on this subject under the current home market constraints that everyone is facing with respect to the condition of the home from a home drainage perspective which will influence the lenders desire to fund the loan, regardless of the buyers good credit status.

Lenders do not want the home back, period. It is not like the old days of price inflated home markets when the logic of the lenders was to allow leveraged purchases, knowing that the lender would just make more money on the home in the near future if they were forced to take it back in foreclosure.

If you can’t afford to solve the home drainage problem yourself after closing, with hand excavated french drains, I advise you to not buy the home as more serious financial, emotional and structural damage is likely in your future as a result of the procrastinated solution to the home drainage problem affecting the homes health.

If it isn’t a monetary concern it will be a health concern from breathing bad air. If you do not solve the home drainage problem you will suffer worse in the future, perhaps with health issues as well. If you do not solve the home drainage problems, in the future you will likely become that same non disclosing seller that you bought the home from, complete with all the bad seller motivations based on immeadiate financial needs rather than doing what is right in the end.

The standard home seller cop out justifying non disclosing of home drainage problems goes something like this. ” We bought it that way, and we are going to sell it that way come hell or high water.” Appropriate I think. Kind of bold too in the face of lawsuits to correct their non-disclosure. This is quite a cavalier sellers approach alright that will likely crumble into dust as the scene unfolds.

This may be the sellers position, even if they bought the home knowing that a groundwater problem existed and did nothing nothing to solve it with hand excavated french drains, even after receiving an additional monetary discount off the accepted purchase price from the former sellers to do so.

On top of that, in time, many of these types of home sellers decided to enter fraudulent information on their state home disclosure form when selling the home and swear no home drainage problem ever existed. “You lie about it honey, and I’ll swear to it”. Great plan, right? Sounds like the military doesn’t it?

Sellers will try to play hard ball with you as home buyers. Something like “it’s my way or the highway.” The sellers, conditioned to believe they are going to skate on the problem, and their real estate agent in many cases, will choke on the amount of repair cap in the earnest money agreement you have suggested is required because many of these types of home sellers know very well how much it costs to make these home drainage groundwater capital improvements and have passed many tines in the past to pay for the professional installation of hand excavated french drains. These sellers often already know they have a serious home drainage problem. These home sellers probably have a stack of drainage proposals in their desk drawers to prove my point even as they lie to home buyers straight faced.

That’s likely why they have not installed the hand excavated french drains before. “Pennywise and pound foolish as the saying goes.” Write the repairs clause trigger subject to the home inspector inspectors agreement that a home drainage problem in fact exists. This clause covers any repairs needed to fund the loan, not just home drainage. The clause should indicate the need for professional inspection and the determination of the home drainage contractor that there is indeed a home drainage problem.

Specify that the contractor choice is the buyers and the sellers agree to pay for the selected the work to be done up to the agreed repairs cap amount in the repairs clause of the earnest money agreement. The sellers real estate agent may come off their chair on that one too. Let them dance. Stick to your plan.

That is certainly a fair proposition and anyone but sellers that already assume or know there is a drainage problem or other repairs will agree to this type of earnest money repairs clause. After all, if no problem exists, they pay nothing and the home closes. Never let the lender order your inspection. Check with your lender when you pre-qualify for the loan and specify that this is your elective and not their choice, as long as the home inspector is a state licensed inspector. The lender must agree to accept the eventual finding of the inspector and any professional home drainage contractor of your choice that agrees with the home inspector.

The home inspection, specified in the home repairs contingency in the earnest money agreement, should be ordered and paid for by the buyer prior to the buyer spending more money ordering appraisals and making application for a loan on a property that does not have a clean bill of health. If you get flack over this, walk and find a better home and truthful sellers.

If there is no home drainage problem as you think the seller is off the hook and no harm, no foul, the home closes. This is a fair and reasonable situation for both parties. Home sellers who already know there is a groundwater problem or other repairs will not want to go there. Just a word to the wise if you are the buyer, do not be afraid to walk and find a better home, no matter how much you like the pool, for example.

Unless you plan to solve the groundwater problem with hand excavated french drains and other related “green” construction techniques as described in my e-books, be smart buyers and just pass on that home no matter how the nice cosmetics call to you and your family.

If you find a home that has a groundwater drainage problem with evidence of groundwater in the crawlspace or basement and the sellers have not disclosed it in writing on their Oregon state property condition disclosure, as required by state of Oregon law, and does not acknowledge previous knowledge of the drainage problem and refuses to solve their own deferred maintenance home drainage problems at their own expense find another home without home drainage problems and truthful sellers. There are lots of good homes for sale in any market but especially in this buyers market in the United States.

Evidence of a former home drainage problem that was solved with hand excavated french drains installed by a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage professional should not dissuade you from buying the home. The main squeeze here is, “did those french drains they are showing you actually stop the groundwater entry below grade and solve the problem”.

Find a home with hand excavated french drains to protect your homes environment and subsequently your families health. You will be glad you did in the long run and that home will be more healthy than one without the benefit of home drainage expertise protecting it from serious damage, even “during hell or high water.”

Sellers should proudly show off the value added existence of their hand excavated french drains rather than hide the existence of them from buyers. Some sellers still look at hand excavated french drains as an admission of a problem rather than the proud evidence of a home drainage problem solved.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/221/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/372 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/372#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:29:28 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/372 Classic home buyers enjoy saving old structures. Yes, that would be me too. Home drainage issues can, and do, regularly pop up at the worst of times, when the home closing is in process. Most often groundwater in the crawl space or basement. Everyone is blind sided. Not good news for anyone.

Everything is absolutely wonderful until… the home inspection report is read a little closer and evidence of groundwater in the crawl space or basement is mentioned, with a suggestion to call a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor.

The lender will stop the escrow closing until the home drainage problem is solved, in many cases. Lenders know that hand excavated french drains are the answer. In our current environment, lenders are unlikely to spend the money to install them however, as a practical matter, if they are the home seller. Watch out for problem properties that are marketed within a cloak of institutional b.s. about the condition of the home, with respect to the home drainage problems. In my experience, many lenders handle home drainage problems the same way that sellers who do not disclose them do.

The prospective homeowners/buyers must ask themselves, honestly, if the home they are looking at is going to be a home drainage money pit or not? They must be able to confront a homeowner with pertinent questions and while staying in control of the information stream, find out the truth, or witness the weasels that are trying to hide the truth.

You can answer that question in 30 minutes or less if you understand what I am trying to teach in this website.

When you estimate repairs, look on the realistic side, and budget for at least twice as much as “you” think it “should” cost. The last time you heard of a contractor who did quality home drainage work was probably, never, if you represent the average homeowner around the world. Therefore, you are not likely to have a current idea of what it costs to install professional hand excavated french drains.

Homeowners are way behind the curve when it comes to understanding the budgets required to solve home drainage problems, especially on steep slopes.

I passed on bidding a job this week, at a home with 54 steps almost straight up from the busy street level, with no place to park, and no where to put excavated dirt or have the dump truck deliver river rock. That won’t mean anything to the novice, but the pro will realize that you would need a bus full of laborers just to get the dirt out, and the rock up hill 54 steps in wheel barrows or buckets.

The logistics of getting excavated dirt away from the proposed french drain site and getting wheel barrows or buckets of river rock up to, or down to the proposed hand excavated french drain location are variables that make every property a feasibility study first to determine the ability for the contractor or homeowner to excavate and plumb a hand excavated french drain system. It is on that basis that man hours need to be estimated to complete the work.

Read the information on this web site about doing “due diligence”, conditions fact finding, when buying a home, for home buyers.

Read articles about how to structure home inspection clauses in your earnest money agreement to protect you against seller misrepresentation and fraud, as well as speed the closing of your selected property.

Home drainage problems do not necessarily mean there is anything seriously wrong with the home at all. In time, those home drainage problems could cause, or perhaps have already caused the need for repair, and often have created the need for a hand excavated french drain system to remove groundwater when it rains hard to prevent groundwater saturation from happening again near the homes foundation. That is your objective.

Home drainage problems in a nice home may be just the segue you need to buy into the home at much less. Just because the homeowners know about and will not disclose the groundwater problem do not mean that it can not work for you instead of against you as home buyers.

Those are the sellers that get double dipped financially, often. They think they are saving money by being a couple of big birds with their heads in the sand, but when these troubled sellers are forced to acknowledge and fix the problem before closing, these sellers are almost always forced to take less money than they would have liked to as well, and still pay to solve the home drainage problem for the buyers to close escrow.

More money spent, even after they accepted a lower offer. The sellers will do this, or they will likely lose the transaction, if the buyers feel that they should pass, having no way to solve the problem, and not wanting their family to live with it. Sale fails result in many cases. Escrow is cancelled. Buyers are returned the earnest money in full. The buyers have already lost big on fees paid for the home financing though. Too late to cry folks. Oh well, on to the next home.

Most often the worst topography next to the side of the homes foundation, flat or sloping to the foundation, not away from the foundation, or loose soil and bark dust in conjunction with negative grade at the foundation, will tip home buyers off to the fact that there may be a home drainage problem, as well as show buyers the area that the groundwater is likely standing longer around the outside of the foundation, and therefore the area that is probably the major source of groundwater entry below grade.

White lime stains, called effloressence, on the inside or outside of the foundation wall, at ground level, are usually evident as well, and proof that groundwater stands in that area often prior to the saturation of the dirt around the foundation that produces the groundwater below grade into the crawl space or basement. Many times a green moss will accompany the effloressence stains as well at ground level.

Inspect the condition of all gutter systems well. There is additional information available within this site that goes into this subject deeper than this article. If gutters overflow due to improper hanging, age, ice, or debris, the roof water will pound that side of the home, just as if the home had no gutters at all, even with hand excavated french drains professionally installed, and can flood below grade areas as a result of the massive amounts of ground water that comes off a roof during heavy rains, or when the snow melts over frozen gutter systems and runs off the roof. That is why we always plumb downspouts into rain drain discharges that vent then with solid pipe. That way the roof water runs directly to the drywell or daylighted vent where it belongs, and not your basement or crawlspace.

Inspect homes with home drainage experience at your side. Study the information in this website to understand what very few contractors really understand.

Call a professional home drainage contractor/mason in your area today for a free evaluation of your property prior to selling or making representations with respect to the property you are planning to sell.

Read my articles about how to hire a good buyers agent. They are free to you. Why not get a good one?

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/372/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/218 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/218#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:26:25 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/218 Can you inspect a home for signs of groundwater problems? What should it tell you if you are looking at a home to buy, and the home has a home groundwater problem in the crawlspace or basement, and there is already a sump pump installed? It should tell you that the sump pump isn’t a solution to the problem.

If the groundwater is still entering the crawlspace or basement, would a reasonable mind assume that the sump pump is a solution to the problem, or a bandaid?

Let me put it to you this way. If you owned a boat, and the boat was taking on water when put into the ocean, would you install another bilge pump to remove the water, or find out how to patch the hole that is letting in the water?

If you miss that question on the test, you are likely the person to conclude that the sump pump installation is the first thing to do just because it is likely cheaper.

You are just throwing your money away by installing sump pumps and thinking they will solve your groundwater problem.

Perhaps you are the seller of the home, and you just want to con the buyer into thinking that a solution to the groundwater problem has been created.

One of the major points of home drainage logic that I continue to drive into the minds of home buyers is to recognize the sump pump home sellers ploy.

Thousands of home buyers are bilked each year of hard earned cash with sump pump installations without a prayer of changing the groundwater entry problem into their crawlspace or basement.

When those new buyers become sellers, many of them are just plain pissed off and blame their ignorance of the subject on who ever sold them the home. Some sue the sellers and prevail, and others just try to pass on the home drainage problem to the next buyer.

When the groundwater problem becomes an issue again, when disclosed in a new pest dryrot and structural inspection during the sale of the home, the sellers have an expensive home drainage problem to deal with.

So, what’s the answer? Wait until the post beam structure supporting the home and the groundwater problem has caused home damage, and has caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of reconstruction work, or install hand excavated french drains to prevent the groundwater from entering below grade in the first place?

The answer to this home drainage groundwater problem is, to not buy a home with a groundwater drainage problem. If you buy it, have the seller, or you, install hand excavated french drains to solve the drainage problem.

If you do not take advantage of free information on the subject of groundwater removal and hand excavated french drains, expect to be a home drainage victim. It’s not a possibility, it is a certainty.

The home drainage problem won’t just go away. Oh, it may go away for long enough to allow you to mellow and forget about it for a few months, or maybe even a year if we get no hard rains, but eventually it will be back, only worse than before.

Take control of the home buying process by inspecting for the signs of groundwater drainage problems during the first viewing of the property.

Write home repair clauses into the earnest money agreement to obligate the sellers to pay for any repairs, including groundwater issues, prior to closing, or pass on that home, and find another home to buy. It is a buyers market totally.

Read this web site and learn how to protect yourself from home seller fraud with respect to home drainage problems. You will find the answers you need, and will never need to hire me to solve your groundwater drainage problem.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/218/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/387 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/387#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:16:00 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/387 It seems obvious to me that the group of home buyers that were most singled out, and blamed for the sub-prime mortgage crisis is the very group of home buyers that will lead this home market out of the depressed cycle of fear and loathing that it previously suffered from. The phone has been ringing with folks needing to solve home drainage problems prior to closing escrow on a new home.

Home buyers in the Portland, Oregon area, especially the younger ones, seem to have caught on, to what looks like a great time to buy a home. For what ever reason, it appears like the Portland home market has a up swing in housing interest again, and not a moment too soon.

With tax credits that are hard to beat, and prices driven to adjusted values, first time home buyers are coming into the market significantly.

I met with 4 couples this week, concerning the results of their home inspection, on the home they wished to buy. All of these prospective new home owners had written an earnest money agreement to purchase the home, and upon the results of the home inspection were told that their was groundwater in the crawl space or basement, or evidence of past groundwater in the basement or crawl space.

Both present or past groundwater evidence will get you declined for the loan, without coming up with a home drainage groundwater solution, in almost all cases. Even, as a home buyer, if you could pocket the cash that the seller had agreed to give you off the price, by the time you got around to financing and making the home drainage deferred maintenance work a priority again, the cost would likely have doubled or tripled.

It is important for all home buyers, everywhere, to read about how to proceed under these conditions. These times require a correct home drainage judgement call, with respect to the severity of the groundwater problem, as well as the best place to locate a drainage system solution, if one is required, and if one can be installed effectively. If you do not understand the levity in that which I say, your chance of winding up with a home drainage money pit is much enhanced.

The most important aspect to protecting yourself from falling into a home drainage money pit problem home, who’s home drainage problem can not be solved, is to write the original inspection/repair contingency in the earnest money agreement liberal with respect to the cost cap the seller agrees to shoulder, should a home drainage problem, or any other repair problem that might come up arises. The best protection is to use the buyers due diligence information for diagnosing home drainage problems prior to writing offers on real estate in the United States.

If the seller does not agree to put up the money for repairs in the end, you walk away with only the money lost at the lender, for the inspection report price and the appraisal price. Still, you get burned for more cash and must find another home to buy. That is not your objective, is it? What if your old home is already closed? OOps. You are homeless my friend, looking for a motel for how long?. Ouch!

Realtors have been putting in $1500. in the repair caps section of the earnest money agreement, to protect their sellers from having to come up with any cash before closing, for 20 years or more. Home buyers are seeing the power of having the seller caught in a market where, if they want to close on the home, the home drainage repairs or any other repairs, usually known by the sellers for a long time, are finally dealt with prior to closing of escrow. If you are a buyer, do not miss this chance to solve the problem. Do not take money, given to you at closing by the sellers to solve the drainage dispute, off the price as a home buyer unless you can double that amount by the time you become the seller, which will be needed to solve the drainage problem at that time, or be just “forced” out of finances, to lie about the condition of the property when you sell it.

Home buyers, watch out. Due your due diligence. Read about how to do that on this site. Get yourself a good buyers agent. They are free to you. The buyers agent gets part of the commision fee, between 5%-7% of the purchase price typically, that the seller would have paid the listing broker solely, if he had sold the home himself.

Don’t move fast, and sometimes not at all, where a real estate agent represents both parties. Get your own buyers agent, for your own representation. You are not paying a fee, true, by allowing joint representation, but you are missing free individual representation by not getting a buyers agent. They are free to you the buyer.

Realtors still use the same earnest money agreement repairs cap figure as they have for decades, even though the price of the average home in that time may have doubled or tripled in value.

The repairs amount cap as a contingency is important and should be set at more like $3000. or more if you already suspect there is extensive drainage work needed, instead of the default, max $1500.

Home drainage problems are not solved by just installing a sump pump that does not prevent the groundwater from entering below grade in the first place. Don’t get soaked.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/387/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/331 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/331#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:55:45 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/331 Determine the real value of your home, and the air that you breathe. A huge amount of time is spent within the walls of a home. We raise our children from cradle upwards to aspiring adults within those walls most of the time.

We sit for hours endlessly watching entertainment and listening to the soothing sounds of music. Yet many homeowners refuse to fix home drainage problems that they know exist.

Homeowners are playing with fire as it pertains to the air they are breathing, and their families health. It is not something that bites you until later in life.

Estimates from world health organizations indicate that many homes contain airborne asbestos, mold, mildew, radon from decaying soils, and other airborne toxins. This fact means that millions of homeowners are willingly shortening their lives by not cleaning up the air in their home with groundwater removal systems such as hand excavated french drains.

The mold and mildew that homes with groundwater problems are subject to can cause serious respiratory illness in children and adults. Home drainage is important to provide the home with clean, dry air with which to breathe. Home drainage is not a luxury to be afforded after creature comforts are all plumped out.

Home drainage success will not become a reality when your definition of home drainage success is accepting the low bid to just pump out the groundwater continuously, after it has entered your crawlspace or basement, without collecting the groundwater on the outside of the home with hand excavated french drains to prevent the groundwater saturation and hydrostatic pressure that causes the leaking of groundwater below grade.

This basic concept of home drainage is one that many homeowners do not acknowledge.

To protect your respiratory environment, remove the groundwater with hand excavated french drains before the groundwater saturates your foundation area.

Pure, simple, and effective home drainage since before modern history. This knowledge should be a prerequisite of buying a home. The lender should require potential homeowners to certify and acknowledge this understanding. This would raise the quality of all homes on the market for sale, and protect the lenders investment as well as the homeowners family.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/331/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/349 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/349#comments Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:08:41 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/349 The following information is here-in reprinted from the Oregon Contractors Board Newsletter, in the interests of public protection disclosure, and as a courtesy of AAA Home Drainage.

The information is from the CCB newsletter that explains important rights affecting the homeowner taking possession of new construction in Oregon.

In a past article I mentioned the new residential structures warranty law, and that it was my opinion that the law was being poorly drafted for purposes of clarity and for the protection of homeowners rights. While some additional clarity has been advanced since my first article, my opinion remains substantially the same.

Contractors that enter into a contract to build a new residential structure on or after July 1, 2008, must make a written offer of warranty to the owner or first purchaser, which covers defects in materials and workmanship for the structure (ORS 701.320).

This law does not apply to manufactured dwellings.

The following questions and answers explain a contractor’s obligation under the new law. You may wish to consult an attorney for advice on how this applies to your construction business, or to you as a prospective new home purchaser.

What is a “warranty?”

A warranty is an obligation by the seller that the seller’s product (here, a new home) is free from defective materials or workmanship performed, together with a promise to repair or replace the defective items and faulty work. A warranty is not a guarantee. Repair or replacement is satisfied by meeting building industry standards- there does not need to be complete customer satisfaction. A warranty does not cover items that arise from customer neglect.

What does a typical new home warranty cover?

A new home warranty typically covers: *Structural defects: Warrants against failure of structural components such as the load-bearing elements of the home. *Major home system failures: warrants against failure of plumbing, electrical, heating, and air-conditioning systems. Also warrants against failure of major appliances, such as refrigerators, dishwashers, ovens, and stovetops. *Workmanship: Promises to repair defects in work performed, such as installation.

All warranties are contracts. The terms of the contracts will vary. Some warranties, for example, cover only major home systems. Others provide limited coverage for all of the listed items. Still others exempt certain products or installations. Some warranties allow for the purchase of optional, additional coverage. Any warranty contract satisfies the new law.

Who must supply the warranty?

Although the contractor must offer a warranty, the contractor decides whether to supply the warranty directly, or through a company that sells warranties. A direct warranty is a contract between the contractor and the new owner or purchaser. A purchased warranty is a contract between a company that sells warranties and the owner or purchaser. Either warranty satisfies the new law.

What period of time must the warranty cover?

The law does not require a specific time for warranty protection. A typical new home warranty protects against structural defects for five to ten years and promises to repair or replace major systems for one to two years.

The contractor may select the time period the contractor feels is appropriate for the warranty.

How much can the contractor charge for the warranty?

The law does not set any limit on the amount that a contractor may charge for the warranty. Typically, new home warranties purchased for warranty companies run around $250.-$500. There may also be a service fee, like a deductible, which the homeowner pays when requesting service. A typical service fee is $50.

The owner may refuse the warranty and, as long as the two parties haven’t signed the contract to build the home, the contractor can withdraw the offer to construct the residential structure.

When must the contractor offer the warranty?

The contractor must, in writing, offer the warranty either before or at the time the contractor and owner (or purchaser) sign a contract for the construction of the new home.

What must the contractor do to prove the contractor offered the warranty?

The contractor must include statements in the contract that: *The contractor made a written offer of warranty, and *That the owner or purchaser accepted or rejected the offer.

Does this law apply to all contractors who build new homes, or only to those contractors endorsed as residential contractors on or after July 1, 2008?

The law applies to all contractors that enter into written contracts to build new homes on or after July 1, 2008, regardless of the type of license that they hold.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/349/feed 0