AAA Home Drainage

Always a controversy among confused homeowners with home drainage problems. Which to install, the sump pump or the hand excavated french drain. (more…)

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. (more…)

If you are experiencing groundwater in your basement or crawlspace, you likely will go through the process of educating yourself on various methods of dealing with groundwater problems and solutions.

The choice of methods is most often based on your objective. Keep pumping the water out, with a guarantee that the company will always keep a working sump pump in place, or prevent the groundwater from entering in the first place. (more…)

Exterior sump pump installations can be the answer for homes that need to move lots of groundwater quickly. The premise of necessity in this case is to pump the groundwater because the amount of groundwater to deal with exceeds the ability of a conventional hand excavated drywell to perk the groundwater into the ground. (more…)

I received an e-mail from a reader in the midwest of the United States. This homeowner has groundwater leaking along the basement footing and under his basement floor. He asked for my opinion with respect to his perceived need for a sump pump installed to pump out the groundwater. (more…)

Just another home drainage story in the big city. I must share this one with everyone.

A call came in yesterday from a homeowner in the metro Portland area. The homeowner explained that my website was informative to him, and that he appreciated my information. He asked me if I would look at his home, to help him solve a professionally disclosed groundwater problem that was preventing him from selling his home. One buyer had just backed out. (more…)

When studying home drainage and groundwater solutions, the subject of placing waterproof membranes on the outside, or inside of foundation walls, comes up at times. The science sounds good, and if pitched with vigor, may result in the homeowner believing that this method will prevent groundwater from entering below grade. Let’s examine the facts however, and you decide for yourself how the logic shakes out. (more…)

Recently I was asked to review a property outside my normal working area in the tri-county area of Portland, Oregon. While this property was well outside my comfort zone in which to work locally, the homeowner seemed nice, motivated, and educated with respect to hand excavated french drains, so I agreed to travel and give a free estimate. The homeowner expressed the need for hand excavated french drains. (more…)

The use of a hand excavated drywell is one of the oldest forms of groundwater venting. Groundwater drainage. The same science that explains why a septic tank works, also applies to a drywell. The concept is called “perk” technology.
(more…)

Happy New Year friends. It is another year and everything is changing in the home groundwater removal business. Everything but the fact that there are still hundreds of homeowners frustrated about so called drainage contractors and their failed home groundwater drainage attempts. (more…)

Let’s talk about hand excavated french drains on view properties perched on a hill with a fantastic view. Lots of views, lot of slopes, lots of rock, lots of problems. I am working on my 4th building in such a development right now. It is a wonderful condominium project high in the west hills of Portland. Every building gets water in the crawlspace due to the rainwater running to the high side of the property sloping to the foundation wall, and saturating the wall creating hydrostatic pressure and leaking into the crawlspaces.

The management knows the severe nature of their problem, and they are doing their best to correct this with the construction of hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems around the high sides of the buildings. That is to say, the sides of the building where the slope is negative toward the foundation, not away from it.

The ground consists of basalt volcanic rock with a little dirt. The slope allows for the construction of daylighted vents in most cases connected to the french drains. This is the best alternative for them. However, the buildings where there are longer distances of flat topography are the toughest buildings to deal with. In those cases we run out of depth for the french drains because the lineal distance is too long. Too many lineal flat feet, not enough drop. Therefore the excavation of 4 foot in diameter by 4 foot deep drywells becomes the only way to get the french drains 18″ deep where they enter the drywells. This is accomplished pick by pick, rock by rock and slowly excavating through the rock to a depth of 4 ft. Slow, tough and absolutely necessary. The best engineering to use is to create a slope traveling approximately 50ft. lineal distance up the affected area to the top of the french drain at a depth of approximately 8″.

The big problem here is that when the water does get sloped away from the building into the drywell, it will not perk. So, the installation of concrete cylinders, sump pump, conduit for electricity, and river rock surrounding the cylinders is a necessity. This is called a sump well.

The sump well is the only alternative to constantly remove large amounts of water on flat areas or below grade areas. The water is collected and pumped out to a low point drain installed already as part of the parking lot drainage system in this development. This system is called an exterior sump well. Not the first choice, but better than having water under the building. In this development the water is gravity flowed to the edge of the woods and drains into the creek area in all other cases. The long flat, or below grade areas are the ones that are really a challenge in time, materials, and cost, and usually require sump wells.

If the yard area that you wish to use for the placement of a hand excavated drywell does not perk well, do not worry. A sump well is your answer. If the area that was chosen for the hand excavated drywell does not perk satisfactorily, this is your solution. In most cases drywells do perk. However, when they are newly constructed they can take a few hours to a few days for the water to soak below grade.

I completed a project this week where in one location the hand excavated drywell perked extremely well because of the rock mixed in with the dirt. The second drywell on this site was located only 40′ from the first drywell, but when it was tested by putting approximately 12″ of water in it, the drywell was soaking down (perking), very slowly even after 48 hours. (more…)

If the topography slopes groundwater to the areas surrounding your home you must act by constructing hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems. I completed two systems as described above this week where the homeowner had a sump pump in the crawlspace, and always had a lake under the home when it rained hard even with the sump pump installed.

The homeowner had purchased the home with the assurance that no groundwater problems existed with the property, although a sump pump was installed in the crawlspace. She is now in litigation and trying to find the former owners with her attorney. The neighbors that I spoke with this week told me that the home always had water under it in the winter Oregon rain season. This was not disclosed to the buyer prior to closing as the law mandates. (more…)