These are the two most common stupid drainage remarks, usually sump pump installer remarks actually.

And there are others too. They are as old as the moon, and are still causing the same effect among homeowners that they always have.

The most common motivation for the installation of a sump pump is for a home seller to convince a prospective home buyer that a home drainage solution has been installed, once the home is in escrow and the poor home buyers are without a home yet.

Almost always, used by the sump pump industry to promote fear in the homeowners, during hard times especially, and to promote acceptance of the sump pump guys story, as the home sellers or buyers are desperate, confused, and vulnerable, just days prior to closing that home escrow, finally.

Most often sump pumps are wasted money, and worse drainage and monetary problems than before. They follow right along with the sump pump installation, even if it is done right, because the source of the groundwater, almost always being heavy sustained rains, has not been dealt with.

Whether it is topography of your home site, or your gutter, downspout, rain drain discharge system, it must be in working order and installed properly to achieve success without falling into the trap of ignorance and becoming fodder for the sump pump guys. S.O.L.

Are these sump pump guys funny, or what? Most sump pump guys just crack me up.

They are always telling poor home drainage plagued homeowners that the water table in their area is high. What an old worn out line that one is, as well.

Between that one and the,”this neighborhood is famous for underground springs” line, my sides just won’t quit hurting from the laughing.

The water table is where we pump our wells from folks. On the average, that is from around 75-300 feet down. Not right under your home. The top 2 feet of the ground may be holding enough groundwater to make you swear you were living on a floating bog out in the ocean, but it just isn’t true. It is a lie. Pure and simply, the lynch pin to a weak argument, when not defended with logic, turns into a homeowner rip off about 95% of the time.

Saturated top soil areas are not sources of drinking water, are they.

Most often this comment is made to a homeowner living in a platted and approved 20th century subdivision as well, making it even more laughable.

That is so unlikely, it is a joke to hear it advanced as though it was a common occurance and a valid argument. Cities and counties scour U.S. Geological survey maps, satellite photos, past groundwater and rain challenged hillsides, and more. They seldom make the big mistakes it would take to build a home on a year round spring.

When someone starts talking about the water table, remember that they don’t understand what they are talking about, most likely. In very rare cases, it may be true, but in those cases, you won’t get a permit to build a home on that lot anyway, as it is probably in the 100 year flood plane, or has slope issues.

100-200 feet average is how deep you need to go to drill a well, and hit the water table, and get groundwater safe to drink. That is way down there. Not right under your home.

I live on the Columbia river. On one side is the river, the other an island my home is built on. All winter heavy Oregon coast rains pound us, and the flat fields behind my home fill up with groundwater, in lakes and ponds up to 4 feet deep in places.

We are actually in a 100 year flood plane that has never flooded from the Columbia river since the corp of engineers re-constructed the dykes in the early 20th century. I have flood insurance, for example with FEMA.

Within a week after it stops raining, and the rain water stops feeding those ponds, the groundwater is gone completely. Not evaporated in 35 degree weather either. Perked into the already saturated flood plane. But it has a long way more to go, ie. perk, to get to the water table in our area as well.

Even the Columbia river bottom itself is perking.

How does that bend your home drainage consciousness? Even my neighbors, when I moved down here, said that dry wells would not work here because of this and that.

Many are now asking how I do it.

So, let’s ask the hypothetical sump pump installer a question. “Mr. installer, are you telling me, Mr. sump pump guy, that from the ground level down it is nothing but saturated water, merging with the water table many hundred feet below. No air between right? The ground won’t perk, right?

Absolute consumer fraud in my opinion, perpetrated by people trying to get a buck, through scamming drainage affected homeowners into a feeling of desperation and lack of hope; sadly, through the homeowners willingness to belief in the sump pump dudes stories.

If the pump guy can talk you into excavating right against your interior foundation wall, replacing the dirt with rock and a perforated pipe, and not installing your exterior foundation hand excavated french drains, he will look even better when bad weather comes, as he has told you that it is futile for you, because of the conditions he contends exist.

He knows he is not stopping any groundwater entry.

Remember the underground river and springs story? Oh, if you haven’t heard it, you will sooner or later if you are so unfortunate as to be the owner of a home drainage problem.

And it does not matter whether you live in Korea or Kansas, the story is so well told over the decades that it is the default method of homeowner drainage abuse around the world at this time, I am told by many, who live around the world.

The wonderful world of e-mail connections and information.

Truth is, you almost never need a sump pump.

Better read that one twice folks.

And when you think you do need a sump pump installed, you probably shouldn’t, and don’t really need one anyway, no matter how he dances and prances around acting like “the king of anything”.

You need to concentrate on stopping the groundwater on the outside of the foundation, quickly, during hard rains, to prevent the groundwater saturation and the hydrostatic pressure that comes as a result of continuously adding groundwater weight to the soil around your foundation walls.

If a french drain groundwater removal system is vented to a dry well location, that after testing it, does not perk well, a sump well is created, out of the dry well excavation, and the groundwater is pumped away from the sump well, so it never fills up, but still is the end of the line for your groundwater. This system is installed on the outside of the home, not under your home or in it. That is the last resort only.

A groundwater overflow can be installed at the side of your dry well, that overflows down the hill, away from the location of the dry well/sump well, in solid pipe, and daylights below the home. This can be done in lieu of installing an exterior sump well, if you can make the gravity work with your distance required to flow the groundwater away to. Consult a professional for best results, or just keep reading this site.

You most likely need to collect and pump the groundwater, properly, on the outside of the home first, and not under it, after the groundwater damage and dry rot is already done.

And that is if pumping is the only answer, because it is suspected during the dry well installation that the soil at the site will not perk. Which is very rare actually, even in clay soils. Once every two to three years it happens that we make a sump well where a dry well does not perk well.

Keep in mind that if you went to the city of Portland, for example, and applied for a “perk test” on a bare piece of ground with no sewer, that you wishes to build your new home on, the city would dig a large dry well sized hole with a backhoe, and fill it full of water. Then they would give the hole around 2-3 weeks prior to inspection to see if the water had started to drop and perk into the ground.

This is a common standard for a standard septic permit most everywhere around the United States.

The sump pump industry has advanced the same old weak stories for decades. No one should believe these stories, but lots of homeowners do, and some even take it to heart, willing to defend their drainage failures, as compared to admitting and correcting them.

As a result, fear and loathing is a default reaction at times. One favorite old weak story is, that “dry wells don’t perk in clay soils.” Wrong. Not true at all.

Another premise of sump pump installers I do not agree with is: that underground rivers and springs, although undefined and/or unproven with respect to the actually existing under the home, and not substantiated by a geo-technical survey, should automatically destine the use of a sump pump, rather than a method to prevent the groundwater from entering into crawl spaces and basements in the first place, prior to the groundwater saturating and creating the need for pumping.

Duh. Basic home drainage. Unless your knowledge level is next to zero, unfortunate but often true, and you look vulnerable to one of those sump pump installer characters.

Groundwater deposited into dry wells make cracks on the bottom of clay soils, everywhere around the Portland area. Few approved building sites do not perk.

The Portland west hills and outlying areas consisted of various farms back in the mid 1800’s, and those homes and barns were all depositing groundwater, septic waste, animal wastes, and groundwater into dry wells, drain fields, and leach systems designed to vent water from barns, cow operations, and waste water from homes and buildings on the farm.

Hundreds of dry wells in the Portland west hills are in service at this time, that were installed by me alone, where the city of Portland water bureau will tell you dry wells don’t perk, and don’t work. The same old story with a new set of words. I think the sump pump industry taught the city the bad behavior and drainage ignorance actually.

So there you go, home drainage ignorance starts, in this case it appears, at the top levels of city government, and works its way down to the even more ignorant. Sorry to report folks. Do you think for one moment I would waste precious fishing time by sitting at this lap top day after day, just talking home drainage garbage?

I have never had a dry well fail. The ones I thought would not perk, were installed as sump wells.

Keep in mind that the standard for approving a septic tank, where a hole in the ground is filled with water to see if it perks out, completed by the city or county, is around 2-3 weeks for a standard septic approval.

In other words, the county expects to approve your septic tank location based on the fact that the original water placed into it will take weeks to saturate and break in the dry well, but after that will accept groundwater in huge amounts.

For home drainage purposes, If it looks like a particular site won’t perk, you install a sump well or overflow, while still collecting and pumping the groundwater around 18″ from the foundation wall, in a hand excavated french drain, and then gravity flowing it away from the home, and venting it at least 10 feet from the foundation, where it can be collected in the sump well, and be pumped out, or perked into a dry well, or overflowed, if the site does perk fast enough.

In the summer time Portland clay is so hard that it needs to be wet down for days prior to hand excavation, in order to carve it correctly. Yet if you run 12″ of hose water in the bottom of one of the average clay excavated dry wells in the Portland area, after it is first excavated, the water will be gone most every time within hours to a day or two, even without the dry well being broken in, which would perhaps take a few rain events and a few weeks to break in the cracks on the bottom of the dry well with wider cracks. A typical tougher dry well will take two to three weeks, but when broken in, will function well.

Once the dry well is broken in, and has 1/2″-1″ cracks formed on the bottom of it, no debris will fill them in, as the dry well is fed with clean river rock filtered water, run through the river rock in the hand excavated french drain system with the perforated pipe and weed cloth.

Dry wells do perk, nearly everywhere. Go pick out the most clay lousy site that you can find, anywhere in the world, above a designated flood plane or lake/river bottom. Dig yourself a pond. Do not put a liner in the pond.

Fill the pond with water and order many colorful expensive fish and plants.

Pay all the labor and material fees required to pull it all off. Grab a beer and enjoy.

Then, stop feeding your pond with more water, ever again. Sooner than later, your pond water will be gone. Probably around the same time that your fish croak and your plants die.

Most all sites, even lake and river bottoms perk.

Don’t prove your ignorance of geology and home drainage to a sump pump installer scammer by buying into his stories of underground rivers, springs, and a world floating on a bog, floating itself on our drinking water water table.

One last point that any rational mind might conclude is that, “even if the sump pump guy was correct, long shot; in that your water table within your crawl space was so high that it was the source of your contended up welling groundwater problem; installing a sump pump below the level of the groundwater river itself, or indeed within the water table, as he contends exists under your home, would only mean that you were going to be continuosly pumping the underground river or spring itself.

Without consideration of the amount of groundwater that could amount to be either. Likely it would just run forever.

Like I said, you can’t make sense from non-sense. Don’t try to figure out how they can be so stupid as to even try to sell that. Just don’t fall for it.

A more rational decision than installing a sump pump would be to pack up the kids and head for a motel. Start looking for a new home, without a home drainage problem, if you can’t afford to fix that one.

The building sites that do not perk, once the lots are platted and approved, are very rare.

I sold land to developers, as my specialty, as a licenses Oregon realtor, for 25 years before I started this company, and almost always those problem sites become common area in the development plan, and a community park, or a drainage ditch or bio-swale, for example.

Many groundwater drainage affected homes, where normal dry wells are not good candidates, are still not good candidates for the sump pump guys interior crawl space french drain system or sump pump.

His idea of what a french drain is, would likely be just a shallow ditch with no grade and a little rock and a pipe. Not even close. No cigar.

Collecting and venting the groundwater on the outside of the foundation walls, with hand excavated french drains is always the most important first step, along with raising and compacting the grade at the foundation where ever possible.

A sump well on the exterior of the home, away from the foundation wall, connected to hand excavated french drains is most likely the answer if the dry well site won’t perk. And not a system installed right near the foundation wall in some deep tube made of plastic either. Those are all over town, and are a liability to the home actually.

A favorite sump pump installation, still done everywhere.

The answer is certainly not basement wall moisture trapping plastic to cover the wetness, while not stopping it from even coming in.

The solution is not sump pumps installed without need and/or improperly installed, or other stupid waterproofing tricks, mostly advanced by a group of sump pump installers and professed “waterproofing” guys.

Yeh, waterproofing. What a joke. This type of sump pump guy preys on homeowners, with a premeditated coldness in order to spread a feeling of fear, confusion, and misinformation. Sump pumps do not stop groundwater from entering below grade.

The most common motivation for the installation of a sump pump is for a home seller to convince a prospective home buyer that a home drainage solution has been installed, once the home is in escrow and the poor home buyers are without a home yet.

Never go for the common old failed installation, placing a sump well or river rock directly against the foundation wall, with a shallow, low grade to no grade ditch connecting the mess together.

Install sump wells the same minimum distance from your foundation wall, the same as you would with the installation of river rock filled dry wells. 10 feet minimum for a 4 foot deep by 4 foot in diameter dry well from the foundation is code in the city of Portland, Oregon for example.

Always subject to adequate engineering, so as to not put too much water in one location. Split the flow up into many dry wells rather than one large one if at all possible.

Common sense experience and ground and roof square footage calculations are needed to determine how many dry wells are required for each home, their size, and their placement.

Most cities have this information available for the homeowner to consult, if they are not using a home drainage professional in their area. Expect the information to be expensive to do and not effective or correct in most cases.

Splitting up the groundwater into dry wells, perking into various areas around the home, is better than buying into a massive concrete tank installation, as mandated sometimes by the city of Portland,as well as many other cities around the U.S.

These systems contain a huge hole, dug with a back hoe in about 20 minutes, with an open center concrete tank created out of huge concrete cylinders, stacked, and surrounded only, not supported like a dry well should be, with a foot or two of river rock around the concrete cylinders only and the middle open, and probably finished with 2 feet of dirt over a concrete top.

These systems are ones that I do not do, because the tank tops can crack over many years, or be driven over by a back hoe, long after someone would know it was there.

Pretty much a hole for someone on a backhoe to fall into at some time in the future, rather than a value added feature, in my opinion.

The city of Portland is in love with large concrete dry well systems made cumbersome or impossible to install, by the system consisting of heavy concrete tanks with holes, surrounding air and rock only on the outside of the tank, with downspouts and french drains plumbed to one massive dry well location.

These systems all perk directly into the ground in the same manner as a typical 4 foot by 4 foot river rock filled dry well, as they sit directly on the soil itself, same as the bottom of a rock filled and supported dry well.

Seldom does this type of installation give any benefit to the homeowners, by doing such a huge concrete installation, unless they are forced to by the city to complete their project. It feels so good when they quit beating on you. Homeowners will be stuck at their mercy if they are building an addition, and a new rain drain discharge system for the proposed gutter plan being installed to vent the downspouts mandates that type of system.

The neighbors at the home you wish to buy probably know more than you know about the drainage history of that home. So ask them.

The neighbors probably know what the over all drainage health of the neighborhood is like. Just ask them. And do it before you write the earnest money agreement, if at all possible.

Come back when the realtors are not there, after the work day. Knock and introduce yourself. Neighbors that do not seem to be good ones for this plan should be valued for their ability to tip you off, and this plan should not be used in the worst of neighborhoods across America, or anywhere else.

The next door neighbors very likely know the drainage health of that particular home you wish to buy, as well. They probably know the entire history of those former homeowners attempts with home drainage.

Neighbors talk about and share home drainage information.

If for no other reason, they want to find out if their neighbor is wet too, and what they did to stop it.

You will be amazed at what these neighbors think they know about groundwater problems and geology, in their subdivison or area.

Be prepared for stories of underground rivers and springs, located right under everyones homes however.

These stories will first hit the stage when the home inspectors report says, “contact a drainage contractor,” and after the home inspector has had a chance to first give the homeowners his card, and the card of his buddy, the sump pump installer contractor in many cases. And that is exactly what happens many times.

Sweet little deal they got going. Let me hip you to it.

Information to follow in other articles on this ripe subject within this website further explain this mutual admiration society in detail.

Some of these types of homeowners, or neighbors, will aggressively attack any other suggestion that a french drain contractor may have, that would invalidate, or even challenge, their premise that a river or spring exists under their home. Why? They already have thousands of dollars spent on a worthless system that does not stop the groundwater from entering at all. It was a failed groundwater prevention method by design, the day it was installed.

That’s why they blew all that cash on something that they know has not stopped the groundwater entry. They were told those dumb stories of underground rivers and springs existing under their homes.

That is a mistake most homeowners are not able to admit easily, from my experience working with homeowners over 35 years as a real estate broker-developer, as well as contractor.

These homeowners probably have already dumped thousands of dollars American on a failed home drainage system. Not only are their egos challenged, they want to convince the new buyers that it is the best they can hope for, even if disclosed.

They are pumping proudly, forever; until someone cuts the wire, or the electricity just goes out during the worst of times when it is raining inches per day.

When confronted, with a different logic, these types of homeowners can be very defensive, to the point of reminding one of a dog on a short leash, that has developed a knee jerk, fear biter type of response to an approach.

Approach them with caution to avoid getting bit.

The former neighbors might even make statements that everyone in the neighborhood knew that the former owners of the home always had groundwater problems, from day one on their watch. As many of the neighbors still do have groundwater problems, and sump pumps installed in their crawl spaces and basements. This is often the case.

That is why they all have sump pumps. Right? It is those pesky underground rivers. But fathom this: In your platted and approved subdivision. Ya, right. Not very often folks. Just garbage talk.

Neighbors will make those types of statements in front of witnesses after the home is closed too.

Gladly. Why not? You are their new neighbor, and they love your kids too.

And when the new buyers have discovered the groundwater problems, and the old sellers are long gone into the sunset, to what they think is “parts unknown”, your neighbors will be your best starting point at building a case as well. The sellers probably even told them where this planned get away stop was. Bingo. You got’em. Your attorney does actually.

Try to get the neighbor to talk to you earlier than after closing. My advice. lol

As a practical matter, many of these same neighbors can and will be, supporters of yours in court, whether they like it or not, following their comments about the former drainage problem being common knowledge, and that the sellers knew about it specifically.

This does not really get cooking until the homeowners have been burnt, have recovered after their move in finally, and finally, after their resolve evaporates to plain pissed off.

Then the game is on. Even mom is flexing.

Those new nice neighbor folks, most likely wanting to help your case in any way, may be more than happy and thrilled to reiterate there former statements about the homes former owners and what they said they knew about the drainage, in front of a judge in court.

Seems like many of these former home sellers are so stupid as to think that after they have gotten the check from the escrow at the title company, and boogied off into the sunset, that they have become untouchable.

Invisible, after an old worn out scam is pulled off again. The perfect “get away”.

Many non-disclosing home sellers think that an “as is” clause in their earnest money agreement, written by their realtor, to sell their home, is going to protect them after the closing of the home escrow, despite the fraud that these former home sellers have perpetrated on the new buyers, and the lender as well.

These homeowners may have broken state and federal laws that pertains to bank fraud, as well.

Many times home inspections do not identify the groundwater problems from last winter, because the “smart” sellers have had the formerly mud covered crawl space moisture barrier and have dried it out, and have replaced it.

They can be slick. They remove the signs of groundwater and effloressence stained moisture barrier before selling it, with a new one that looks ever so nice to a home inspector in a hurray that day.

Painted exterior foundation walls to hid lime effloressence marks on the foundation, which are made as evidence of groundwater saturating against the foundation wall and entering below grade are also used to cover the evidence of groundwater saturation.

The most famous of these ploys is when sellers just paint the basement walls with dry lock paint, which is worse than doing nothing if you have not repaired a damaged basement wall prior to painting it.

These types of homeowners will be selling the home well before the rains come next winter too, giving them time for a clean get away somewhere to parts unknown, if possible. Most drainage problems undisclosed are bought in the summer.

Lenders as a rule, in the past at least, have NOT REQUIRED home sellers to do groundwater drainage work, even after it was offered and the groundwater problem disclosed by a home inspection, as well as a solution offered by a licensed, bonded and insured Oregon home drainage contractor.

The banks can’t make the home sellers agree to anything, or physically make them spend the money to fix anything, if these types of home sellers don’t want to. And these types of home sellers don’t want to part with a dime.

So the banks and other lenders opt for controlling the time line of the closing as best they can, to get those loans closed, and fees generated for the bank.

The subject of other articles on this web site, that are critical to the understanding of how it all works against you, unless you know how to make it work for you. The default action is home buyer abuse, without my home buying information, with respect to home drainage problems.

If the lenders made the home drainage problem a condition of financing, like dry rot, which is most often caused by faulty rain drain discharges, and the lack of groundwater removal at the foundation walls, they would kill many transactions themselves that conform to this non disclosing type of theme. So no one at the bank wants to get between the buyers and sellers, understandably.p> If the home sellers or home buyers did not comply with the lenders ultimatum to fix the problem by stopping the groundwater entry below grade, and no one agreed to pay for it, the deal is toast.

The bank just shot themselves in the foot.

Lenders have for decades allowed the drainage problems disclosed during a transaction, to just be passed down from one home buyer to the next, simply to hold their transactions together.

The result of home buyers complying with something they feel they cannot change, is part of the big home drainage lie, told thousands of times a year in the Portland area alone by sump pump companies.

As a result, home buyers take the home with the groundwater problems disclosed, and all inclusive. They learn to give up easy, and be victims. Oh me. p> “As is,” between the seller and buyers.

In other words, the sellers “walk”. They get a pass, just like they knew they would. And voila, another generation of weasels are born.

And the perhaps young, first time home buyers are stuck with the drainage problem. usually only days before financing and closing of escrow, and with absolutely no alternative than to do whatever is said to them if they don’t want to be on the street without a home.

The bank cooperates enough to stick the new buyers with the home drainage problem they know should be handled, but won’t be.

Lenders and legislators are not going to change this money stream facilitating scheme, unless this information starts becoming a problem for them.

In other words, public knowledge.

Lenders today will still mandate that the carpenter fix the dry rot prior to closing of escrow, but not mandate that the drainage contractor fix the cause of the dry rot and structural damage.

Much more serious than that is the structural integrity of the home and the future health of the homeowners and family members.

Doesn’t make much sense does it? It is never the less, just as I have said. And not a small percentage of teh time. Nearly all the time.

Some home buyers accept the statement from the home sellers that there are no drainage problems, and that there never has been any home drainage problems, without any of their own investigation. Not smart.

Prospective home buyers want to believe that, never ever, has there been a home drainage problem at the home. The answer fits the status quo and isn’t questioned in most cases, unless the focus is already in place to do so.

Someone not focused on home drainage will just take that statement as fact, as most homes do not have home drainage problems.

The home buyers find out way too late, after closing escrow on the home.

Indeed, the groundwater drainage issue was public knowledge, and a big problem for a very long time for those former homeowners.

And indeed, the home drainage issue is, and has been, making the home “sick with mildew and mold spores for decades perhaps”.

Now those home buyers are really hot.

Pissed off.

The worst part of this story is that occasionally people are living in groundwater damaged homes that could be making them sick, without them even knowing it.

Here comes the lawsuit.

A smart attorney will turn that into a pay check for the newly groundwater damaged homeowners, almost every time, if those homeowners can prove former knowledge by the sellers of the groundwater problem itself.

Judgments, as well as liens on properties owned by these former home sellers can be used to secure eventual payment.
p> Proving pre-existing home drainage problems may not be so hard as you think.

p> Fun for everyone. The day of justice.

A friend of mine built a home on the pacific ocean along the Oregon coast.

This home was really cool, and was sited on the confluence of a bay and the ocean. Ocean front.

When my friends decided to have the home built, the real estate market was strong, and it was a sellers market.

Developers and builders get away with more cost cutting procedures in this kind of a real estate market, than if it had been a buyers market, like we are currently in, where it is not easy to build or sell a home, and the spot light of intuition and investigation illuminates home drainage problems better, due to a slower pace of the real estate market and agents.

The property was listed for sale. The buyers were found. Everyone was happy. The mood was pretty strong to the positive on the stress meter. No worries.

Along came the results of the home inspection, and everything changed quickly to panic mode.

The report indicated that the home had standing groundwater 2 feet deep in the crawlspace of the home, and that the insulation had even been pulled down, and fallen into the crawl space full of groundwater.

It was a floating mess of wood and insulation in the crawl space around 2 feet deep.

The home was only 5 years old.

So the call went out; ‘deep into home drainage land” lol, for someone brave, and experienced; to swim the terrible dangerous waters of the deep brown crawl space delta.

Just another day at the office folks.

Removing the groundwater from the crawl space, while installing a low point drain under the foundation wall, to gravity flow all groundwater existing in the crawl space, out to the beach, was the solution to that particular drainage problem.

It took only about 30 minutes to drain the entire crawl space two feet deep in water, once two days of excavation was completed, from the beach up to the home, and under the foundation footing around 12 inches wide.

I excavated from the beach wall, hundreds of feet away, but down hill to the home, where my french drain passed under a wall at the beach, and day lighted at the sand.

The french drain sloped uphill slightly, and I was able to run around 300 lineal feet to the edge of the homes foundation wall at the rear of the home.

When I completed the excavation, the french drain extending to the home, around 300 lineal feet up from the beach, and under the foundation footing, the groundwater formerly flooding that crawl space flowed out like a raging river, 12″ deep. It ran out quickly, on the bottom of the hand excavated french drain, and onto the beach below.

The neighbors clapped their hands, grinned, and asked for cards. Quite a show.

Soon everyone was happy again, and the mood between the present and prospective homeowners was like, “let’s go fishing sometime buddy.” “Yeh, thanks buddy, cool house.” When do we close escrow now?”

In the end, after the french drain and rain drain discharge installations were completed, and bank funded the new buyers loan.

I wrote a letter for Richard and Susan, my long time friends, memorializing the former groundwater condition at the beach house, and what was needed to solve the problem, and enclosed another copy of the drainage proposal he had paid for to be sent to the weasel, who we had an attorney find.

Richard, an insurance company owner, wrote the retired home builder, who had already retired in Arizona comfortably, a very direct letter about the situation. Richard can be very direct in his business, and is good at it anyway.

The builder just wrote Richie and Susan a check for around $8000. after reading those letters.

It ended friendly, I’m told.

This particular builder constructed around 20 homes in a “build to suit” sale, of ocean front lots and new home construction, that he had originally developed.

In most of the homes, he just stuffed the downspouts into the sand at the corners of the home, and never complied with conditions to install rain drain discharges to vent the roof water from the downspouts.

This was the case with Richard and Susans home.

He was obviously thinking that the ground, which was sand, would take the roof water as fast as it would come off a large roof like that, just like a river rock filled dry well. Or was he even thinking?

Big mistake of home drainage logic on his part.

As a practical matter, crawl space issues are seldom found prior to a home inspection that is required for a buyers loan on the home. Do your own home inspection, as I teach in this web site, and protect yourself from this kind of nonsense.

Buyers are striking out in anger, and simply put, “not taking it anymore”. Home drainage problem non-disclosure is peaking, even in a bad real estate market.

Attorneys I know have had many cases where the home sellers have moved to another state, after closing of escrow, and are still nailed down in court, and brought to justice in lovely Oregon. Sometimes felony charges.
]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/706/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/400 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/400#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:01:07 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/400 Are some professional Oregon home inspectors getting kick backs from the sump pump installers? I do not have any evidence that they are.

But, curious is the degree to which many of our Oregon home inspectors are, from my experience watching them operate, in love with sump pump installations and the massive amount of money those installations generate, without stopping groundwater entry into basements and crawl spaces.

Just wasted money in almost all cases.

This is a story. Not fiction. A true story, about how your community works.

This is a story about how home inspectors and many home drainage contractors attempt to weigh in as home drainage professionals, during your most vulnerable time, as a home buyer under stress, with a time line to boot.

This is the story of why there are so many continued home drainage problems, everywhere in the world, but especially in lovely Portland, Oregon.

Read on and I will show you how everything operates to stream line you down the tubes as home buyers and sellers, and slammed into a sump pump installation, over and over again, with no chance of stopping the groundwater entry below grade.

Only the buzz of hearing that sump pump running more often than before.

If a lender and home inspector is involved in your home transaction, you need to read every word of this and take it to heart.

A true cycle of deception, lies, and ignorance, as sump pump installers backed up by home inspectors bilk homeowners around the world of billions of dollars in home drainage contracts that are absolutely scams, and worthless.

Most of these voo doo drainage projects, are so bad as to be laughable, unless it is your home, while additionally being detrimental to the overall health of the occupant family as well.

So, hear we go.

Many of the home inspectors I am familiar with in the Portland, Oregon area, that fit this modus operandi seem quite cavalier about openly attempting to influence the acceptance of one particular home drainage method over another. And this all comes down during a stressful time for sellers and buyers, during the last week of the real estate escrow closing at the title company.

The real estate transaction. So check this out folks.

Lights, camera, action.

In this case, the subject is always sump pumps. The need for which is always first spoken by a guy who admits he is not a drainage expert, and does not have an advanced, experienced, professional opinion to offer, yet does, over and over again.

To drive business to his buddies the sump pump referral fee types.

Even more curious to me, watching this scenario since around 1978 in Oregon myself, is the fact that, time after time home inspectors say that the prospective home buyers should contact a professional home drainage contractor, which they are professionally bound to do.

But they are doing this charade while still attempting to weigh in as a home drainage authority themselves, suggesting home drainage solutions in their inspection report language. Their buddies just happen to install sump pumps, and are licensed and bonded too. Wow. You should just be tickled, right? Hum.

Most Oregon home inspectors are not so stupid as to recommend solutions outright though, they are just the warm up band, and drop a name or two at the right time. Like in the beginning of the conversation with the homeowners, which then makes everyone else coming along the new theory in those homeowners for whom home drainage ignorance haunts and challenges.

The real entertainment has yet to arrive. That will come in the form of perhaps one or more sump pump installers most likely, from my experience buying and selling hundreds to thousands of homes for customers while in the real estate business, during a 25 year plus career prior to starting this home drainage business.

The home inspector simply smiles and does the dumb guy act after he gets the chance to talk first. He knows it is his game to lose now. All he has to do is shut up and get those homeowners his sump pump buddies card, and fat referral fee is guaranteed.

The common home inspector report with a groundwater issue will say something like,”the interior crawl space needs grading, and french drains, plus a sump pump installation, or just trenching along the inside of the crawl space walls

This is absurd stuff folks. Don’t buy into it.

Home inspectors seldom will shut up and quit talking after they admit they are not a professional home drainage contractor. And that should be your first tip off. You have no idea at this point how well this whole deal has been made part of every day business, from a homeowner perspective. Sump pumps, which are worthless at stopping groundwater entry below grade into crawl spaces and basements, often cause more problems than they attempt to solve.

Many Oregon home inspectors will continue to recommend and postulate, within their home inspection report, albeit unsolicited and without professional licensing or knowledge, about home drainage.

This charade is most always accompanied by a statement saying that the home inspector recommends this or that: or grading in the crawl space, or a sump pump.

This garbage is what follows the home inspectors recommendation to contact a home drainage contractor for an evaluation.

This is called “the last word on the subject”.

Note, they admit the home needs professional home drainage evaluation, and that they are just blowing smoke up everyones posterior. So why does anyone pay any attention to home inspectors trying to influence the drainage work bid anyway?

Because the recommendation comes during a crisis situation, where home buyers and sellers are both in crisis, emotionally stressed to the max, trying to close escrow on a property they need to own, in order to go on. And just days ago, only a week before closing they all got this drainage bomb laid on them at the last moment, always, in the rear perspective of the way the game is set up, which includes the lender, home inspector and the sump pump default industry inc.

Everyones judgement is clouded during these stressful times, and folks may be just flipping out too.

These types of home inspectors and sump pump guys know it. They are like the bears waiting for you, the ripe salmon to just swim by, so they can harvest you without much work and effort expended.

Many of you readers are nodding your heads right now and chuckling, because you know I have seen it, just like you have seen it just like that.

The combination of the sump pump contractor and the home inspector, both recommending the same thing, within 24 hours, usually will tilt the scale quickly in favor of the acceptance of the sump pump method over any other method, nearly every time. The first word is a powerful thing. Welcome to America folks.

That is why they do it. It is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to them over a lifetime of scamming sump pump installations.

Due to the homeowners buying into the typical sump pump installtion “guarantee”, many of these homeowners just throw good money after bad, sometimes over and over, installing more than one worthless sump pump system of some sort after another, like gambling addicts at a slot machine, yelling for more quarters.

Most of these guys basically cannot be sued for anything in the end either, unless you are really good, and have a better attorney.

They may be deceptive, but their contracts seldom say things that pin them down firmly without enough wiggle room to spin things around if needed.

Many will have a contract that is only specific to installing sump pumps, a good tip off too.

Every homeowner I ever have spoken to about their failed sump pump system, said that they got a ” sump pump installation guarantee”. When I ask them what it covered, and under what conditions, and with what limitations and exclusions, and other questions, they most often just say nothing more about it, and my perception of the mood change, means that I should stop asking about it, and that the homeowners would simply not like to talk about it anymore, but to say that they were not able to get any money back from the sump pump company, or get the Oregon contractor builders board to rule on their side in the end.

Nothing could be done in arbitration and mediation to bring the parties together to solve the dispute over the “guarantee”, and the lack of specific teeth in the supposed “guarantee”, made it the homeowners loss, for lack of their own due diligence I guess in the end. Sad but true, often.

Home inspectors and sump pump installers have shined a spot light on themselves, by virtue of their own decisions, actions, perceived motivations, and the way they treat the public in general. I may be the most vocal publicly but I am by no means the only one thinking it.

I have watched home inspectors and sump pump installers mix too well, over a 4 decade period in Oregon, on my watch alone, while serving as a professional real estate commercial-investment and residential broker and brokerage owner, as well as a licensed, bonded, and insured home drainage contractor in Oregon.

I have watched these pumped up, pun intended, characters, pulling off the same scam over and over, year after year.

“Sump pumps for everyone, whether they need them or not.” This seems to be the overall business plan between the home inspectors involved in this activity, and the sump pump installers. Nice work for them at thousands of dollars per pop. Sell. Sell.

These guys are messing with everyone, and no one is standing up to them with logic.

This is the dark ages of home drainage, going into a transition that does not bode well for homeowners around the world who have home drainage problems, and find themselves part of this scam.

If no one starts understanding and teaching this, when old farts like me are gone in the not too distant future, a new era of ignorance will descend upon home drainage land, like the home drainage “nothing”.

The void that just sucks your brain and money out, and still leaves you with a home drainage mess.

I know what homeowners tell me over and over about their experiences with groundwater following the sump pump guy and his “guarantee”. They are pissed off homeowners with anger that has been unable to be vindicated, validated or recognized, after extensive measures to do so.

What makes me believe these home inspectors, used in this example are dirty, from a professional standpoint, at the very least, comes directly from their own statements, albeit those statements being untimely, rude, and unsolicited.

My opinion of these types of home inspectors, not all of them, and sump pump installers, not all of them; the ones who own and built this game of deception.

In my business as a professional home drainage contractor in Oregon is see hundreds of failed systems per year. They are installed in just about every wrong way possible. It is amazing the collective stupidity in the existing sump pump installations existing all over town.

I remove these failed systems, at my suggestion, as well as the homeowners request, prior to the installation of hand excavated french drains to collect the groundwater on the outside of the foundation walls first. They are never going to run anyway. Sometimes they are just left there, but never work again, because no more water comes in to feed them after I install hand excavated exterior french drain groundwater removal systems around the homes foundation.

The pissed off homeowners that call me following this experience, as a result of this abuse, have been ripped off by sump pump installers more often than any other complaint I hear, probably at least 10 times over.

I hear 10 times more complaints about sump pumps than any other complaint having to do with home drainage. Year after year.

That is the reason for this article. They fool you guys. They don’t fool any professional home drainage contractors.

If you think this is not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, go hire a sump pump contractor guy yourself, and disprove me. Happy trails.

Nothing will change, and the crawl space will just get pumped out partially, if it works at all, while the depth of the groundwater in the crawl space will drop a bit perhaps. If it works at all.

My original study of this home inspector, sump pump, sump pump contractor love triangle began years ago, while I was first cutting my teeth in the home drainage business, and still owned a commercial-investment real estate brokerage.

When I first started studying this accusation, I was buying and selling real estate as a commercial-investment as well as an Oregon residential real estate broker.

Little did I know at that buying a home was full of games and tricks to watch out for.

I never saw that the drainage industry was so intrenched as to be able to influence the acceptance of one method of home drainage over another, and could set home buyers and sellers up to give a distinct advantage to the inspector, lender and sump pump installer, while absolutely violating the spirit and intent of the earnest money that was written by the buyers agent to protect the buyers, if only they had found out the condition of the property, prior to literally the last minute.

It was discovered to be a far more serious than had been previously thought problem.

A problem of deception and greed, fleshed out by example over and over again. If I would have had a blog in those days I probably would have been talking about it in the 80s.

From early on, I have wanted to follow home inspectors and sump pump installers around with a camera and mic. 24-7, like a mouse in their pocket.

I still think this is a great topic for some bright investigative reporting writer, with tons of money and a huge staff, for some major tv show? Call me John Stossel.

There is an important story to be told here, ladies and gentlemen. It is not just an Oregon story. It is a world wide story of how slam dunking the home buyers works every time.

The numbers of home inspectors that are involved in this game would be anyones guess in Oregon alone. I believe the number to be at least hundreds of them in Oregon alone, and probably in the same percentages around the U.S. as well, per capita, given the remarks that come from homeowners from both coasts and the islands of the United States, and literally from all over the world as well.

I think it is part of a now little spoken tradition, made legal in the average home inspectors eyes probably.

Many home inspectors are just happy with the opportunity to rake in some more cash.

The gratuity referral system is quite normal and standard in everything from a to z in the sales world, everywhere. Except this is one example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This referral ethic, and mutual admiration society, between the home inspectors and the sump pump installers, has proven so massively profitable to them that they now would fight to the death for it, I now suspect. And may have to, if homeowners play them like they are trying to play you.

The standard was probably established a very long time ago, and handed down from one inspector to the next new inspector, along with a connection to a sump pump guy, for over 50 years, as everyones memory of groundwater removal methods from the old country has been all but forgotten, and described as outdated ancient technology.

Everyone now says: what’s a french drain? I heard about a sump pump though, that must be the right choice. It’s only money.

Old world systems got disrespected, and were replaced, with the better, new type of system, run by power. OOOh Power.. I can just hear Homer Simpson saying that line, which seems appropriate in some ways given the sad sick humor in watching homeowners shoot themselves in the foot, installing sump pumps to prevent groundwater entry. Instant validation at the price of hot air. Sweet.

Or home inspectors are simply out of constructive input, and default to what they have heard everyone else writing in their home inspection reports. Stuff like “adjust the low point drain, install a sump pump”, blah blah.

Bingo, it’s the fact. It is the, just established, need for a sump pump or crawl space system to be installed.

This “fact”, now needs to be disproved by anyone coming behind it, instead of the remark being treated as an allegation, that additionally needs to be supported with evidence to become a valid charge, and additionally proven, before it becomes a fact.

My personal evidence, not here-say, that I have observed, watching home inspectors practice over approximately 40 years in Oregon, as they write words in home inspection reports that include sump pump referrals, directly by name, make my conclusions very true to me.

In over 25 years, previously as an Oregon licensed real estate broker in Oregon and brokerage owner; I started in my 20’s in Oregon, it never came to my attention that the additional language that home inspectors added about home drainage was there for a reason that paid off for the home inspector in dollars, as well as in mega bucks for the sump pump contractor.

That is, until I started losing jobs to this bull, as a home drainage contractor.

Oh sure, it costs me money. I am pissed too.

I’m sure you got that vibe right away when I started discussing it. But I wind up coming behind these clowns over and over, and have to deal with their emotionally damaged homeowner victims, who at that time resemble dogs that were beat too much.

They stare and shrink a bit, ever fearful that you really could be one of them too. Really.

You would be unhappy too my friends.

Too often this business borders on therapy and understanding more than crafting home drainage solutions.

Some of these folks just need a hug and someone to listen first. I usually pass on the hug part. Hugs from strangers, who are already in question may not be the best effort.

Just listening basically, and then trying to help if you can.

Real home drainage contractors laugh their butts off reading home inspection reports and goofing on home inspectors and the stuff they write. They are a real hoot.

Who knew home inspectors were actually self, and pump promoting devices, used to sway the minds of homeowners and buyers during a real estate transaction.

A home inspector in Oregon, that I know to be honest, tells me he is sad to say his industry, is in fact influenced by sump pump installers and their pitches.

He tells me many Oregon home inspectors just figure it is money on the side, and that homeowners want sump pumps anyway.

They have no problem with doing it at all.

A referral fee is not against the law that I know of. Even though in this case, it is a conflict of interest and a fraud, in my opinion, from a party that purports to be an independent source of unbiased home condition information, even though they disclaim their reports dozens of times, and their contract with the homeowner limit their liability to not greater than $175. which is probably less than you have spent on him. His opinion is literally worthless on home drainage in the first place.

Like many good old boy industries, this honest home inspector friend that I know, who made the above statements, would not go on record for this article, as his own organization, Oregon home inspectors, would surely have something unpleasant to say to him about his public attitude, and his diminished future respect with the association as a result of his published opinions about his fellow members, blah blah, or something else like that to get his attention.

In the end, if his Oregon home inspection peers wanted to spank him, they would.

Two home inspectors that I have met personally in Oregon exemplify the need for discussion of this problem. Other home drainage contractors tell me the same as well of many Oregon home inspectors that they have met and have become aware of, doing the same thing.

Home drainage information of quality is little to none in the public domain on the internet.

You can find videos on you tube with 40,000 views, and the film is garbage, with absolutely no professionalism what so ever. Their supposed french drain thing has to fail.

The home drainage information that is out there in the public domain on a local level is distorted, not factual, manipulated, and controled by the sump pump business and their agents.

These joint efforts are orchestrated underground, and behind closed doors, like a secret society, against home buyers and home sellers.

These home inspectors and drainage contractors, doing mainly sump pump installations, are referring work both ways, while postulating on the abilities and strengths of each other, and touting the other persons system or reputation.

The intention of both parties is to elevate the other party to a higher standard in the eyes of the home sellers and buyers that need to choose a home drainage contractor to solve their groundwater problems, and to be the first one to do it, making everyone else the new concept that needs to be defended.

Just good ol boy stuff that happens everywhere, at every level in the construction world, around the world, as well as in America specifically.

Kick backs are part of our lives, whether we like it or not.

From congress to the streets, they are common place.

The consistent, always present, burning theme and practice of many home inspectors in Oregon seems to be to share the word to the public about what they know about home drainage, while writing a home inspection report about just how cool and effective sump pumps really are.

They insinuate or actually say that sump pumps “may”, be needed at that property.

They spin stories of underground rivers and springs, as they additionally postulate on the source of the groundwater. They act like they know geology, but most of these players are looking to accomplish a very specific goal. Get the homeowners to call his friend the sump pump guy and collect a referral fee.

Perhaps a year ago now, one friday night about 8:30 pm. I was called by a home inspector person whom I had once met before through a realtor customer. This inspector, and former president of the Oregon home inspection association did not remember that meeting, when I reminded him. He just was calling to find out why I was recommending the particular system I had bid for a customer in Lake Oswego.

wanted me to discuss my business with him at 8:30pm on friday night, even though it was none of his damn business. So I thought, this is interesting, and went along with the dude.

He said he had his friend, a local doing very well sump pump waterproofing company guy speak at the Oregon home inspection convention in 2009, and how his methods were not consistent with what I was proposing for another customer in Lake Oswego. He wanted me to defend, weakly I guess if possible, why I was doing what, and where. In other words this dude was just fishing. He thought he had just landed another stupid drainage contractor that could easily be out talked and dis-credited.

In other words, this dude was totally a back set driver, bent on steering me into a conversation about a proposal I had written, that was competing with his sump pump buddies deal, the acceptance of which was apparently required in order for him to collect a fat referral fee.

I don’t really know why he would have weighed in on a transaction that was none of his business, unless he thought it was his business.

A good part of the 2009 Oregon home inspectors convention was a sump pump business info commercial, I am told by another licensed home inspector I know who attended.

I am told by the home inspector that was in attendance that day that it was just another sump pump stump speech, talking nonsense about home drainage, underground rivers and springs under homes with drainage problems, as well as stories about how dry wells don’t perk. What garbage.

Many home inspectors are totally up to speed with home drainage. Not like the dudes.

Many call me and refer me. I am confronting only those home inspectors and sump pump installers who are involved in this default scam.

Lots of home drainage professionals and real estate professionals are hip to the intentions of home inspectors and sump pump installers, and how they work together.

We are sad to see they fool homeowners. They do not fool many of us.

Statements from this particular sump pump installer I refer to here-in, working in the Portland area, were thrown out to the Oregon home inspector association crowd in 2009, as home drainage facts.

When in fact, the many home inspectors that knew the difference could easily see the room divide off between those that support the game, and those who do not operate that way.

He said it was a very interesting display of good old boy power.

Many home inspectors questioned this particular self professed waterproofing sump pump contractor guys statements about things like, “dry wells don’t work”, and other stupid statements.

He was unable to discuss specifics. Just hot air, I am told.

These guys have crossed the line of mis-information and decided to specialize in just being big fat liars, instead of just a bunch of punky scoundrels.

They come on to informed home drainage professionals as crooks that resemble a wild west preacher, perched on a stool in front of a room full of wealthy widows and orphans. Trying to get them to buy into the new proposed wealth builder project for their community or church. Perhaps that new railroad, coming in a few years down the line, or never, literally; that will need some advance cash now however, and some blue chip stock investors right now. Right?

This example, and other examples not shared with you at this time, all show me there is a money trail between many sump pump guys and the home inspectors. Their opinions should be taken with less than a grain of salt. They just work too hard for each other to be straight up.

The plot is so easy to discover with respect to the inspectors, once you suspect it exists, and watch for the signs I have shown you.

They don’t just refer work back and forth, they attempt to influence the placement of it with lies about drainage in their report.

Many home inspectors function actually as part of the sump pumpers business, in many respects, in my opinion, due to their actions and motivations, and perhaps beliefs, even if in ignorance. Many of them benefit from placing work monetarily with their sump pump buddies to the tune of thousands of dollars every year. Like having two jobs basically.

The home inspectors playing this unethical game earn their referral fees by providing the sump pump contractor with a copy of the inspection report that indicates, in the home inspectors opinion, which should not be in there at all, that the homes crawl space or basement may, perhaps, require the installation of a sump pump, or grading, or low point drain replacement, or low point drain adjustment; or any one of the many other b.s. attachments that could be added to it by his buddy.

The sump pump guy is always called out first, by the home inspector himself. That is the real hook up and the lynch pin.

That secures his referral fee too.

The home inspection report is usually handed to the sump pump friend from the inspector right away, so he is the first one out to the home to postulate the need for a sump pump installation, just like his friend the home inspector says in needed in his report.

You lie about it, and I’ll swear to it, all within a day if possible.

The evidence of a mutual admiration society in itself, like that which exists between home inspectors and sump pump installers, is not direct evidence of, or an indictment of anyone at all, even if these home inspectors practices, by themselves, or simply their intentions alone, could be determined by a blind man in a snow storm.

I have watched Oregon home inspectors inject themselves into a position of authority, during a real estate transaction, through their language and recommendations, written in their home inspection report, for over 35 years in Oregon alone.

I have observed this hundreds of times over the past 35 years, since I first started in professional real estate activity in Oregon in the 70’s.

The words in the home inspection report, such as, “adjust the low point drain”, “install a sump pump or crawl space drainage system”, “grade the crawl space”, come up on almost every one of the Oregon home inspection reports that indicates there is groundwater in the crawl space or basement, and also contains a recommendation to contact a home drainage professional as well.

Other articles on this site explain how home inspectors work with lenders to plan the late disclosure of home drainage problems, in order to further their buddies chances of a sump pump installation, as it pertains to the home inspector, and to control the buyers better, and prevent them from backing out of a transaction where drainage issues are found that the sellers will not pay to fix prior to closing of escrow.

The sump pump guy has always been to the home first when I get there. Not just occasionally. Every time.

That might tip even the not so drainage aware home buyer off right away, but in time, over and over again, duh. This is a fact among my friends and me.

The home owners have most often been told that their home inspector would be happy to send a professional home drainage contractor, his sump pump contractor buddy, which he does not tell them; by to look at the homes drainage problems. Would that be o.k? Would it be ok for the inspector to give this person a copy of the report so he can study it?

Like it’s not going to be o.k. Right? Slam dunk. First in, first out. The stealth hit. Everyone else to follow must be compared to it, as the already accepted default need, unless otherwise convinced.

First point in the match automatically goes to the sump pump guy and home inspector, as he is the one that can do what the inspector wants him to do as well, right out of the gate.

Wow. What luck. Hum. Install a sump pump. And he even knows someone who does it. Are we lucky, or what? “Sounds good huh? A guarantee is nice too, I think.” Right?

Ya, I’m down for that alright. lol

The home inspectors report always makes the recommendation for the home sellers and buyers to contact a home drainage professional, but it never stops there.

If the home inspector can arrange for his sump pump contractor to be marched through the home first, planting mis-information in the minds of sellers and buyers, getting everyone talking sump pumps, then every other qualified home drainage contractor will be forced to compare their proposed installations with the sump pump method, and waste their time while explaining to the homeowners why my system is better than, etc. etc.

The fact is you are talking apples against oranges. One system prevents groundwater entry, french drains, and the other does not, sump pumps, period.

The first battle of the drainage mis-information war is won, in favor of “team sump pump”.

This is a very old political trick as well. Do you own a tv? I do not. And have owned one for years.

I get news off the internet and major services without the hype of Fox or some other station franchise to sell an agenda.

The stage is set. The home inspector gets the house warmed up, and in comes the sump pump guy to validate everything he just said about needing a “sump pimp”, oops, I meant pump.

Sorry. lol Well, no, I’m not sorry actually. So hate me if you must.

The home inspector postulates, and then he brings in his friend the sump pump guy, when he is not present of course, who backs up what the home inspector has unprofessionally told the homeowners, or eluded to in his report.

A sump pump or interior crawl space french drain is required, perhaps, according to the “sump pimp” guy.

I have read home inspection reports shown to me by homeowners, and after inspecting the home myself, I have told the homeowners that there was no drainage problem at all.

This was all after they received a sump pump proposal from the sump pump guy, who bid the job at around $8,000.

A near perfect crime of ignorance and deception, perpetrated on so many smart homeowners, it would amaze you.

This is not going to just change overnight folks. It will take everyone talking about it, and finally people with legal abilities to change the laws in Oregon and enforce them. Legislating over the top of this mess and re-educating public awareness on groundwater sources and home drainage methods that work.

Do not listen to what home inspectors say about home drainage. It should be obvious if you have read this far.

Whether the sump pump guys business buddy, the home inspector, speaks out first and attempts to establish a standard or not, your preparation for his theatrics will be sufficient to end the whole thing, should it occur, with an early curtain call, should you find yourself playing the role of the home seller and/or buyer.

When he sees you are not falling hard for his stories of underground rivers and springs under the home, he will go on to easier pickings. They are basically lazy, like most thieves.

Just keep asking your questions. You are in control.

Read articles on this site that teach you how to interview contractors and stay in control of the truth of sump pump installer and home inspector intentions and abilities, as well as always research their referral base well prior to hiring them, after checking them out well.

Gravity, compacted soil grade at the foundation, and again, more gravity is what works over and over again, century after century around the world.

Hand excavated french drains are not a mystery school of yet to be proven success. They existed thousands of years before any sump pump ever came along. They were just called aqua ducts in those days, and took even more forms and uses then in society than they presently do, if history is to be believed.

Whether you are building a new home, or have an existing home, the area chosen for the installation of your drainage system, as well as the groundwater removal and/or prevention method proposed, and your contractors honesty and history of success, over and over again, year after year, will have everything to do with whether you have blown your cash, or actually solved your home drainage problem.

It is often the case to see homeowners blow the cash and still have a worse drainage problem than had existed before the bad deal with the sump pump guy.

Following numerous calls to the builders board, they homeowners are back looking for a drainage contractor. And that is when they meet me.

City and county planners, don’t advise or mandate the installation of french drains when additions or new construction are being discussed, unless it is brought up by the applicant. And then it becomes an option for the homeowners, who cut it from the list for lack of spirit in its necessity, in the prospective homeowners eyes, due to the passive response from the planner when french drains are brought up.

Many planners also know that the drainage business is off the wall, and many kinds of problem methods and people exist. So they don’t want to refer anyone, and because they hear about the failed systems, they too feel french drains and dry wells do not work. Ignorance does not need an excuse to exist actually.

City planners and architects, from my experience watching them over 30 years in the real estate arena, in general do not know the difference between a ditch dug with a trencher, that someone called a french drain, and a hand excavated french drain.

Does your home make the home drainage foundation grade? I am talking about how the soil grade at the foundation is engineered and compacted, and to what degree the proper slope and compaction is used to prevent groundwater entry into your homes below grade areas, such as the crawl space or basement.

That is your first major consideration when renovating or building new. Especially when finishing below grade basements into living area.

Home drainage plans are not created equal in any sense of the word. Just like home drainage contractors abilities, no matter how they confidently throw around the words french drain in their pitch.

Planning departments, architects, as well as home builders, should have nailed this home drainage quandry thing right down, long, long ago. But they have not. Why?

Ignorance rules home drainage status quo. And lenders are busy playing other game to harvest cash during the home buying process. They don’t give a damn if the home buyer winds up with a sump pump and still groundwater coming in, as long as it closes. So they do their best to control late information to limit a buyers options if a drainage problem comes up in the inspection report.

.

When you flow groundwater away from your home with a hand excavated french drain aqua duct, pipe, and river rock, you will out perform everyones attempt at groundwater removal.

Problem over.

The Portland building code says, that a sufficient grade away from a home, for rain run off, away from the foundation walls, when compacted and not dug up, is 6″ per 10 lineal feet away from the foundation, for adequate home drainage.

That means you are not suppose to plant tomatoes or what ever, in that area, and loosen the soil, if you want good drainage around your foundation.

In a high number of newly constructed homes, as well as existing homes, the grade winds up flat against the foundation, or sloping to the foundation, from day one, which is a smoking gun for a rain created, home drainage groundwater problem.

From that point on homeowners around the Portland, Oregon area line up to install sump pump systems of every sort, good, bad, and ugly. Homeowners get ripped off on the hype of a guarantee that is not worth diddley.

Sump pumps do not stop groundwater entry, and should not be installed closer than 10 feet to any foundation, if at all, same as a 4×4 dry well set back.

Homeowner home drainage knowledge is big protection power, to the fifth power; when it comes to dealing with those professed home drainage contractors that show up on the scene when it starts raining.

These clowns think you know nothing about home drainage, just like it always has been on their plunder.

Sump pump guys are a real hoot, when you know who they really are, scammers, very often. Very often.

Those clowns are counting on homeowner ignorance and fear, in the face of their dire stories of underground rivers and springs under your home, that in their pitch mandate the need for your installation of a worthless sump pump system that will never stop the groundwater entry, and will probably be plumbed wrong and will do more damage than was present before they relieved you of your cash and skipped off into the sunset. Call them about that guarantee, and you will find out what everyone else does. It is worthless. You got scammed.

Getting back to working with planners and architechs.

To make matters worse, these privileged and self professed professional pundits of home drainage planning, are there to facilitate your home drainage demise without your input.

Planners may talk a bit to the public about french drains, by calling them curtain drains, or something like that. Often this is too little too late. The plans are drawn and you are already showing them for approval. And they did not include any drainage, because in your initial meeting with them, it was never brought up.

Remember the architect meeting about drainage? So most often these city and county home building department planners look over their glasses at you pensively, and often frame the need for french drains around your foundation like they were a cosmetic option.

Somthing like those fancy copper fence post caps, or maybe even something closer to lawn flamingos, in their eyes.

Meet with your architect in the beginning, to discuss the placement in the foundation for window wells, foundation vents, siding height from the ground up, how much concrete foundation wil be exposed above ground level, before the siding is nailed on.

Test his home drainage knowledge and make him design your home around home drainage function, not drainage dogma and lack of form, when it comes to making home drainage a priority.

Discuss what drainage considerations have been designed for ingress-egress windows, and in front of foundation vents.

Raise foundation vents up along the foundation wall when the foundation is first designed. Entry level ranch homes suffer worst with low foundations vents poured too low, where groundwater can run right into the foundation, as the vent is below grade. I see this hundreds of times a year myself.

Your architect or builder may tell you that you are wasting money on concrete. Not true.

Next to the cost of major home foundation post beam reconstruction, bad home air, lack of habitability years down the line, when everything is ruined from bad grade and no french drains.

No. This is not candy. This is meat and potatoes, working in the form of substantial good drainage.

Not a ditch full of gravel, bundled up with the pipe suspended within, many inches off the ground in a mess of non functioning garbage, like some clowns will preach.

I know that they fail every time.

I clean lots of stupid home drainage tricks up, and haul it all to the dump with the rest of the junk, prior in installing the real deal, hand excavated french drains.

Skimping on concrete, which is cheap, is penny wise, and pound foolish, in my opinion.

If you want to have no home drainage problems, get the soil grade at the foundation right from the beginning.

Homeowner home drainage knowledge is big protection power, to the fifth power; when it comes to dealing with those contractors who think you know nothing, and are counting on that for your appreciation of their stories, and to win the game by getting an order from you for a sump pump installation perhaps, or something else that does not stop groundwater entry below grade at all.

I live in Seattle, in a home built in 1919.

As far as I can tell no drainage system was installed when it was built.

We purchased the home 20+ years ago and were advised to install french drains, which we did, ourselves, by hand.

They have worked well, although there has been “sinkage” of dirt areas above them, and a lessening of effectiveness over time. I think we did not add landscape fabric to keep dirt from clogging the well, and sifting lower over time.

As I was researching what to do, I found your article. I now understand the “science” behind hand digging – e.g. don’t disturb any more dirt than you have to, and have clean, flat bottom and edges.

I was horrified to learn that excavating to the foundation and backfilling with gravel was destructive. A former (dirt contractor) husband did exactly that for our neighbor — using his backhoe, of course. I now fear that the problem he was trying to solve will only get worse for them.

I’m very grateful that you took the time to share your expertise.

Thanks again –

Dash

Dashiel Wham
Executive Assistant to Dan Brettler
Chairman and CEO
CAR TOYS, Inc.
206-443-0980 x 202
206-443-2525 (FAX)
dwham@cartoys.com

Hello Dash: I appreciate your comments so much. Sounds like you were into french drains a long time ago. You understand them.

Your neighbor may have gotten away with it however, if the soil around her home perks very well below the footing, which is more rare, but it can, usually because of crushed or river rock under the top layers of dirt, and especially far under the footing as well.

This condition lets the groundwater slide by the foundation footing, instead of backing up at the foundation footing, and entering below grade, as the groundwater is forced to change directions, as the course of least resistance changes.

If this is the situation, the groundwater has a chance at perking deeper than the foundation footing, quick enough to not produce leaking into below grade areas.

If this was not the condition at your neighbors home, your neighbor might already not like you so much Dash.

Are your neighbors getting any groundwater coming in where the basement floor meets the basement wall? At the cold joint, where the wall meets the floor? That would be a sign it was not sliding by the footing stem wall, or basement wall, which ever they have, crawl space or basement.

Many contractors think it is actually o.k. to do this back hoe deal. I could probably start a few bar room fights over this subject alone in Washington and Oregon.

I do not agree with them, as you know. I come in behind there b.s. jobs too often.

Most often the back hoe excavation stops at the foundation footing level as well, where the clay floor begins, and a perforated pipe with a sock over it starts.

The pipe is laid on the bottom of the sloppy ditch, with no grade, backfilled with river rock, and vented to nothing. A worthless attempt in my opinion.

I am jazzed every time I get one of these messages. The last one was from a homeowner in New York.

Texas, Florida, California, Hawaii, and many other states have also weighed in with home drainage stories of some sort, that relate to my experiences with drainage; except Washington, right next door, until now.

Thanks again for your comments and your continued site support Dash. Home drainage is not rocket science, but it is science, albeit misunderstood and misrepresented science, more than simply understood science. Does not make sense, does it? The results speak for themselves.

As for your home foundation dirt behind the french drain sinking at the wall: You can raise the grade at the back of your old french drain with compacted dirt and clay, covered with some rock to prevent erosion. That is, if the french drain is still running well.

Compact it about 6-8 inches higher at the wall, to the edge of the old drain at a slant away from the wall.

Hand excavations can be opened and cleaned out too, replacing the pipe, rock, weed cloth, and excavating a new french drain inside a slightly widened former french drain aqua duct. An option sometimes.

It is much more cost and quality efficient and effective however just to hand excavate a new french drain and dry well.

Excavate your french drain after completing the dry well first, and the foundation grading and compacting, with the dirt from that excavation, prior to excavating the french drain.

Proceed excavating finishing about 5 feet at a time, installing your french drain about 18″ from the foundation wall, at the base of your new foundation splash block. Cover the splash block and french drain top with 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock, which is also used in the dry well.

The splash block is installed with the dry well dirt, and then the french drain excavation is completed.

Grade stakes are set out every ten feet. That will tell you the projected depth of the french drain aqua duct at that point, as the excavation travels up the grade getting shallower, to the top at around 6-8 inches deep and 12 inches wide.

Start at 18″ deep and 12″ wide for the french drain, at the dry well. Ten feet up the system the depth should be approximately 16″ deep, and so on up the grade. Two inches per ten lineal feet of grade, on a flat surface.

Thanks again for your kind comments Dash. I enjoyed your message. Keep in touch, and let me know if I can help further.

sincerely, Darrel R. Lundeen AAA Home Drainage aaahomedrainage@gmail.com
- Show quoted text -

e-mail to … Mark Barry, world respected Portland, Oregon MAI Appraiser. He is one of the very best in the business, without a doubt. His opinions are relied on by lenders and individuals alike.

February 24, 2010. Portland, Oregon

Author, appraiser, real estate professional, gifted speaker, and Portland property historian, Mark Barry. Howdy Mark: Thanks for returning my call so promptly, and even while on jury duty. What a guy.

I appreciate you offering a digital copy of your Barry Apartment Report, for my discrete use.

Please send it to aaahomedrainage@gmail.com

My website is accessed by entering hand excavated french drains, hand excavated dry wells, home drainage, Portland french drains, groundwater removal, and other keys words, on any browser.

I teach home drainage as a service, and out of necessity as well.

It is great institutional advertising and good will for my company AAA Home Drainage.

I am a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor in Oregon, since 1999. CCB#138340. I was a residential and commercial-investment real estate broker in Oregon, from 1978-2000. My specialty was land development, as well as residential real estate and IRC 1031 tax deferred exchanges.

My web site subject matter covers groundwater problems, water in crawl space or basement, home drainage solutions, hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems, the difference between a ditch done with a machine, and a true engineered french drain, as well as other pertinent groundwater home drainage related information.

I teach groundwater removal strategies, bad advice on home drainage, how to spot home drainage scams, and how the lenders control late disclosure of home drainage problems thru late disclosure to principals of home inspection reports, in order to control the closing time line of closing, and lock down home buyers so they can’t back out because of the drainage problem.

This often forces Oregon home buyers to take the property in escrow “as is” with drainage problems intact and pre-existing, and not necessarily, but perhaps, a few bucks from the sellers to the buyers, in the way of too little, too late compensation, for something that will not even be fixed by the new buyers.

The money is just pocketed by the home buyers often, and the cycle continues, as the home still suffers from groundwater problems.

The lenders have not cared much about what the buyers wound up with, in the form of continued home drainage problems, in the past, as they would mandate a dry rot repair, but not mandate stopping the groundwater entry that causes the dry rot.

The same stuck home buyers, with groundwater problems, become the next generation of non-disclosing home sellers, pissed off that they got stung, as many homeowners become convinced it really is not their problem anymore.

This often leaves Oregon home buyers with few choices, only days before closing of escrow.

Multi-family buyers are much more seasoned, and do their due diligence within reasonable time frames, or they tell the sellers to take a hike.

When a home drainage problem most often is found in a home, due to the late disclosure of the actual home drainage and structural conditions, it is too late for home buyers to back out without significant changes, both monetarily and emotionally.

Lenders feel they are locking the buyers in harder by doing this decades old ploy. And they are right, they are locking those buyers down hard. Most often, in opposition to the buyers given rights in the repairs clause in the earnest money agreement.

I discuss, from my perspective, how many home inspectors, work with many sump pump installers, to control public opinion on home drainage.

They spin stories constantly about underground rivers and springs under the homeowners home, as they also talk about why dry wells really don’t perk.

They attempt to, and succeed at driving sump pump installation business to their buddies who install sump pumps. This is completed through misinformation and lies, without so much as an intelligent discussion about the source of the groundwater, and it being rain on the ground surface, and within the top 18″ of the soil around the foundation, in almost all cases, during hard rains, as well as how to prevent groundwater saturation and hydrostatic pressure against the homes foundation. Prevention, not solution.

I concentrate on teaching how to stop the groundwater entry below grade into crawl spaces and basements. Not just sump pump it for life, until the electricity goes off.

I teach home drainage, and related subjects to a world wide reader group, most of whom naturally are the Portland audience.

I teach home buyers that they have additional rights, if they plan their home purchase better, how to hire a patient buyers agent, and how to discover home drainage problems early in the looking process, before loan application, or even writing earnest money agreements, if at all possible.

This is accomplished with “buyers drainage due diligence”, through their own drainage based inspections, based on my check lists of items to observe, and what they mean to the health of the home.

I teach them not to fear, but inspect, accept, or reject, without worry about all the drum beating for urgency that goes on between realtors and sellers.

I advocate my readers ordering their own home inspection reports early, after the home is tied up for a day or two, at worst, after first clearing it with their prospective lender, to make sure they will accept the home inspection report, prior to ordering an appraisal.

Without this plan, home buyers are likely jumping head long into a home purchase, without even knowing the quality of the home.

Naturally, most realtors see this as a deal killer. Oh well. I teach home buyers that the home drainage and structural volatility is just too great to be conned by that kind of logic.

I’m sure many realtors are now screaming, “time is of the essence”, and “you will lose the home if you don’t write that earnest money agreement right now, without that garbage”, but never the less, the volatility for new homeowners is simply too great, from a structural and health perspective, not to see my opinion on this as compelling to the success of them owning a healthy drainage problem free home, so I advocate listening to those plaintiff cries only to a degree.

I am attempting to change the way these good old boy standards damages home buyers and sellers. Changing public opinion takes lots of money.

The trap of late home inspection groundwater problem disclosure, is always created by the lenders, with help from the home inspector.

This is done, in my opinion, for control purposes alone, all set to the tune of how busy those home inspectors really are, and why, every time, the home inspection report just happens to come out just the last week before closing of escrow.

I write about a home sellers obligation to disclose former home drainage problems to buyers, as per the disclosure laws already in place in Oregon, and how home sellers lie their butts off to home buyers. This is a massive problem right now in Portland.

I have published articles on lenders who locally, not named of course, are currently attempting to market homes and apartment buildings with massive drainage problems. The larger institutional owners, like lender REO departments and insurance companies are some of the worst non-disclosing slip sliding home sellers I have ever seen.

One lender last week was quoted as saying, to one of my real estate agent friends, that the Bank who owned his listing was not interested in even installing a dry well and two new rain drain discharges, as per code, on a 3 year old home in their REO department. They had it sold and in escrow.

The groundwater had from day one filled the crawl space with roof water, because of two dangling downspouts dumping roof water into a pit at the side of the foundation, carved by overflowing roof water for 3 years, on the lenders watch.

Yet a three year old failed sump pump was sitting in 12″ of crawl space mud and groundwater.

This is just a basic code violation that in this case, the lender will not even fix.

The lenders request to my realtor friend, even after my proposal to solve the problem was delivered to the Bank, was that they would like to see a new sump pump installed, and for the drainage contractor to tell the buyers it was going to be ok.

I passed naturally, after giving my speech.

I write about the huge numbers of non-disclosed home inspection conditions in the Portland area alone, and the obvious lender/home inspector traps that I have mentioned. I teach the logistics and materials to use for homeowner hand excavated french drain groundwater removal system installations.

I explain badly engineered home drainage systems, and why they always fail, from sump pumps to other bad ideas that lead to disaster.

I have free e-books published for readers on my site designed to educate how to prevent groundwater problems first, there-by not needing to solve groundwater problems.

I teach readers how to facilitate their home drainage solutions, and/or how to hire a professional home drainage contractor in their part of the world, who can help them.

I avoid sump pump installations, if at all possible, and advocate the collection of groundwater on the outside of the building first, with professionally installed french drains and properly installed rain drain discharges.

I am stopping groundwater problems before they start, with hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems, installed at the base of a compacted grade splash block of dirt and clay, compacted against the foundation stem wall, and covered with river rock to match the french drain, and prevent erosion.

This is the most important aspect, with respect to groundwater damage prevention.

Check out AAA Home Drainage on angieslist.com, to see what Portland thinks of my success with groundwater removal and french drains.

A splash block grade of dirt and clay is compacted and sloped to the french drain, away from the foundation. Raised perhaps 6-8 inches at the foundation, if the homes siding is not installed too low on the wall, or if low foundation vents do not exist, either of which could prevent the compacted soil grade increase at the foundation, without first installing a window well.

Thanks for your interest in AAA Home Drainage Mark. Sincerely, Darrel Lundeen

Is it time to buy into the Portland housing market?

Many investors think this is the bottom of the present devaluation real estate value cycle in Portland, Oregon.

Other home buyers and investors are a bit more cautious.

It is an Oregon state law that home sellers must disclose past or present home drainage problems in the home being sold, whether those drainage problems were solved or not. This must be accomplished in writing, during the home sale process, as per your Oregon home condition disclosure addendum.

The signed addendum must be delivered to the potential home buyers, by the home sellers or their agent, prior to acceptance of any earnest money agreement accepted to sell it.

Get your home buying done before prices are said to have stabilized by the end of 2010, and prices have again started on the way up, faster than expected again.

Lenders can turn the real estate game on any time they wish. And soon they will again.

Just imagine how much they are hoping the Portland real estate market recovers soon, as lenders of all sorts are sitting on huge interest spreads between the fed funds rate and the market rate, with money being thrown at them.

Huge profits are just around the corner for the banks, as the real estate market recovers.

The real estate pros will not be looking for REO’s from lenders, or bail out problem attitudes or homes, usually coming from hurting and/or emotional for sale by owner home sellers.

Working with most all of these fine folks is a waste of precious time however, and during a fleeting opportunity as well.

Remember, home sellers with drainage problems, it is an Oregon state law to disclose past or present home drainage problems, solved or not, during the home sale process, as per your Oregon home condition disclosure addendum, which must be delivered to the potential home buyers, by the home sellers or their agent, prior to acceptance of any earnest money agreement accepted to sell it.

You are not excluded from the law, or its enforcement when necessary by simply being a for sale by owner that pleads ignorance, when caught lying to home buyers about the condition of your home, and whether it has ever had a drainage problem, whether solved by your standards, or not. You must disclose it.

Top level real estate investors will be concentrating on selliing new listed inventory only, to pre-approved, not just pre-qualified home buyers.

Older classic homes, with no deferred maintenance, as well as newer contemporary homes of quality and design will be first on the tour.

Many of these types of older established homes are great long term investments, safe for “widows and orphans.” They should be bought at a premium, knowing the money is worth it.

Last of all, when the market has recovered and activity and attitudes are back up, probably next summer, it will be time for the realtors out of inventory in listings to be working the burnt out for sale by owners, as well as those homes with home drainage problems.

Not until then. That could be a long way off to a pay check on a home sale, if you are a home seller with one of those groundwater damaged homes, with no resolve, education, or cash to fix it, but still want to sell it. You will be unsuccessful without the most eloquent of miracles performed on your behalf by the man above. You chances are not good of ever even making the home qualify for a new loan to sell it in that condition.

Buying the best quality real estate architecture is for real estate pros who get in early, and know the difference in quality and timing. They have seen it all before in the past decades of market transitions.

The rest of the late home buyers, perhaps only months to days late, are just fighting for scraps left over from the feast, while putting up with the increasingly bad attitudes of home sellers, agents, and lenders, as well as adjusting mentally and significantly, for higher prices popping up over night, in a potential new optimistic sellers market.

As the spring and summer real estate market gets going, look for the expensive art pieces to go first.

The classic architecture first. Trophy homes priced well under market, but that required cash buyers, as jumbo loans are hard to come by in the present market.

These are all my opinions, by the way, from start to now. Mark Barrys contribution is coming, hold on folks. I am setting it up.

Then the homes of good quality in general, with superior locations and views. Waterfront sites, etc. always come to the top of the stack, especially if they are art as well.

The best realtors will be working existing new inventory, and specifically their own listings that meet the home buyers criteria.

Fsbo, for sale by owner homes, are a detraction from reality, and basically, to seasoned professionals in the real estate business spending their own money, a completely worthless, futile, frustrating, failed effort. By the numbers, worthless.

A program of blind faith and hope, not worth putting time into. Too much lost while fooling around with those dreaming folks.

Fsbo’s are hypothetical, and potential at best. Home values that are therefore questionable, and seldom substantiated by appraisal statistics, comps, or anything other than a homeowners blue sky dream of what their home might be worth, or how much dough they need.

It never changes. Serve and volley. Few scores. Loads of wasted time, and real missed opportunities.

If you were an agent coming into my office, asking me a question about what to put your time and money into , to bring back sales to the company, I would tell you what I have said above.

Most of the real estate pros will not be wasting their precious time running a buyers shuttle bus for home buyers looking at everything, without knowing what those home buyers are looking for specifically.

Most of those new buyers will have landed themselves on a few homes on the computer to look at, that the agent says are days to weeks old only.

Good agents hit the multiple service in the early morning at breakfast. And get clients to run early looking too.

Portland home value statistics, courtesy of The Barry Apartment Report, a well respected source of quality residential and commercial-investment property appraisal statistics and professional marketing information.

Mark Barry is in my opinion, the top MAI appraiser, and appraisal educator in Oregon.

Mark Barry has been at the top of the commercial-investment real estate appraisal and real estate development industry in Oregon for as long as I can remember.

I started selling real estate in 1978 in Oregon, as a 30 year old, and he was around then.

Mark Barry speaks often at high profile dinners to bankers and legislative members, who listen intently to every word he says.

The banks respect him for being conservative and honest, while he gets high marks from his real estate contemporaries as well, for the same qualities, as well as others.

Included is an except from a recent conversation I had with him, as well as quotes from his winter 2010 Barry Apartment Report.

Mark Barry graciously consented to allow my use of this information, here-in shared with you, courtesy of the Barry Apartment Report, a trusted source of Oregon professional appraisal information.

What has happened to Portland real estate all of a sudden?

Optimism seems gone.

Sad faces abound. Tough times. What’s up with Portland?

Portland, Oregon, the once seemingly bullet proof real estate market, seems to be going through a down cycle after all. Or at least in the last year or so, has definately tanked, albeit not as bad as some markets across the U.S.

The buzzards have come home to roost alright, as they say.

We all feel it and see it.

Statistics confirm that this is true. Every picture tells a story. “Thanks, Rod Stewart”.

The Barry Apartment Report, 2010 winter addition, written and published free to commercial real estate industry professionals, by Mark Barry, MAI appraiser, Portland, Oregon.
The Mark Barry appraisal team tracks all new multi-family construction in Oregon, as well as commercial and industrial development land and buildings, residential land and home sales, both new and existing, plus multi-family sales data, and new multi-family starts and appraisal standards, residential, commercial and industrial building starts, prices per sq. foot for land, residential construction starts by quarter, sales prices for appraisal comps, financing alternatives that affect residential and multi-family real estate valuation, and if you can believe this, much, much, more information than you could wrap your mind around comfortably, in one setting.

Mark Barry is hot potatoes, and knows his appraisal standards.

Check out what he has to say about where we are presently in the Portland real estate market. Where we were, with respect to home values in Portland, Oregon just a year or two ago, right on through to the present, where we are now; and perhaps, for a bit longer, into the future, where we may be going as a real estate market in the Portland area, as well.

Quote. Mark Barry. “2009 will go down as one of the toughest years for the Portland economy since the early 1980’s, with only the Great Depression causing noticeably more pain.”

“While we all know how tough the second half of 2008 was, there was little to prepare us for the turbulent waters and gale force winds which impacted the Portland economy and commercial real estate in 2009.” “So just what happened here in 2009?”

Portland economy: “The big surprise of 2009 was just how weak the Portland economy was.”

“Over the twelve months ending in October 2009, we have lost 53,200 wage and salary jobs, or over 5% of our employment base.

In addition, our un-employment rate rose from 6.8% in October 2008, to 11.6% in October 2009.” quotes from The Barry Report.

“Single family market: “Two years ago, Portland was considered one of the best single family home markets in the country.”

However, home values slipped by 8.5% in 2008, and another 9.8% in 2009.

Portland is down 20% from the peak in August of 2007.

We currently have around 8.5 months of supply based on current home sales.

The median price of a home in Portland is currently $239,000.

IHS Global insight, Wells Fargo, and Fortune Magazine are all forecasting a decline in Portland housing values in the range of 5%-10% in 2010 due to lay off, mortgage defaults, and expiration of the $8,000. tax credit on 6/30/10.”

Mr. Barry feels that albeit a slow first half of 2010, the last half of 2010 will produce a more productive real estate market in the Portland residential market, although he feels that the commercial and multi-family markets will be slower to recover in 2010.

He sees continued normalization in residential by the last half of 2010, and stronger again by 2011 in both markets.

Fix your home drainage problems now folks.

Get your home free of the home drainage boogie man. You will sleep better too.

Be one of the homeowners that sells right away in the first cycle.

Prices will be strong for the best of the best, compared to the rest.

The bargain hunters will find gold when it starts, not later in the game.

Home prices, as well as home sellers attitudes, will already be on the way up when the word gets out about how home sales are up. Get in before that time.

Portland doesn’t wake up until the sun starts shining in spring and the bulbs start popping out.

Portland will again show its fine colors in many ways, and stand out again, for the same reasons as before, for the outstanding home values that our area represents.

That will not change. We are still one very fine location, Oregon.

Cash is going to be king in this market, as well as it is in every other market, except a market like we had previous to this mess, where money was dirt cheap and available, clouded by speculation and structured investment vehicles. Investment vehicles? Yeh, more like hit and run vehicles, I think.

When this market comes back, very few speculators will dive right into remodels and large capital improvement cash outlays, or new spec. home construction, to begin with. Not in the first few months, to first year, I think.

You will see a massive flight to established architectural home quality, as I have described previously.

Turn key architecture first. Commercial-investment next with hot profitable cap rates and upside. Land and fixers last.

Development is likely to lag behind the residential recovery in Portland. My opinion too.

Most capitalized astute home investors will be cherry picking quality homes for months, starting at the beginning of spring 2010 probably, when new inventory will hit the big board multiple service by the thousands in Portland.

Quality doesn’t have to be classic either. It can be just under valued, because of hard times, because of all the boards, bricks and man hours needed to replace it.

I would not waste my time looking and talking with for sale by owners, if I was a buyer in the new market.

A total waste of a day. I assure you.

That is why real estate agents must spend their money and time wisely, on something that has a negotiated fee, and a firm price.

Since almost all buyers use buyers agent representation, which is free to them, almost all your home buyers will have agents. No commission established, not any reason at all to show it.

If the buyers come up with it. Discourage it, and move on to the real values, that are real, not some homeowners idea of getting away clean, more like pie in the sky, and a pig in a poke. And always a guessing game too.

I think additionally falling homes prices forecast for Portland in 2010 are not that severe, and will actually stimulate home buyers to come into the action, given the other factors that lead us to believe we are at the bottom of this devaluation cycle.

Portland real estate value, as a real estate market in general, country wide, is rising and not falling, as our home prices fall a bit more, as compared to the rest of the countries real estate markets.

Think about the rest of the nations homeowners, sitting in some dead real estate market somewhere, who just might want to come play in this market at the beginning, when money is made, after they finally sell that home for much too little. Time to find a new game.

A great market often comes on fast.

This is what will turn the Portland real estate market around in part. Local buyers mixed in with new incoming buyers, looking for value and turn key architecture especially.

Real home value and good old Portland location, location, location, as well as quality, quality, quality.

That is why Portland was out pacing most of the rest of America in home value stability in the first place.

It will return again for the same reasons.

Many factors indicate that the bottom of the present Portland real estate market is almost here.

Slow growth may follow in 2010 and 2011, according to Mark Barry, quoted above, but lots of good properties will be traded at good prices in the first few weeks of the recovered market, before the word gets out that summer sales are hotter than expected, and tv personalities use it as fodder for their local ratings.

True real value in the Portland real estate market will return in 2010, and be again fully uncontested and recognized.

Look for a stronger Portland real estate market by 2011.

Sellers will not be as flexible, and they will all have a different attitude as well. My way, or the highway.

Cherry pickers delight in this type of emerging real estate market.

These are investors with cash, who have been waiting for this very moment in time to finally come. It is real estate Christmas to them.

Portland, Oregon is just a grab bag of interesting opportunities for investors.

The new Portland real estate market will be especially exciting to those buyers looking for turn key, value added properties, without deferred maintenance.

Most serious investors will be looking for properties with no deferred maintenance.

Real estate play makers always come up with a score.

When I was selling commercial-investment and residential real estate, I would take a quality investor out, show that investor a property he wished to buy, and tie it up, before his other home sold, if at all possible.

In a buyers market, a 72 hour first right of refusal comes about free for the asking from a motivated seller.

So, in a market like this, we would tie up a few properties on 72 hour contingency, first right of refusal.

If the customers home I had listed sold, we knew we had first chance at picking off what we believed to be the best home pick available at that time.

I would proceed to write the new earnest money agreement to buy that home, making the new offer to buy subject to the listed home closing, and go forward.

The key to making that work is always focusing on new inventory during the home sale process, watching to replace the old pick with the new, while selling the present property.

You will find this not easy to do in a sellers market. Unlike the current real estate market we are experiencing, which is a buyers market.

This method can make experienced home buyers wealthy fast, if they hit it right, and often enough.

These seasoned investors stay ahead of the other part time home lookers by light years, by just doing it more often and better, as well as with better tools and agents.

I personally am not afraid of the distance left to fall in Portland real values in 2010 and beyond. With respect to properly chosen, pride of home ownership properties only however. Architecture only.

A quality home will outpace the rest, like a race horse running circles around a mule, especially in a strong sellers market, recognized usually by quickly appreciating home prices, and tough seller terms, followed by multiple offers.

An additional 25-50% in value increase or more, in hot sellers real estate markets, is not uncommon, across the country, for one of these types of classic homes at a choice location, during a strong sellers market, with multiple offers common.

I am talking that much in value above what the appraisal price supports at the time, in some cases, where a sellers market really gets spinning out of control, as it has in California many times.

Those are the homes you make big money on, not the dirt bag capital improvement guzzling average fixer upper, that looks like everything else out there, and does not have the superior site either.

I think the upside in a superior crafted, turn of the 20th century craftsman, which could be, for example, a turn of the century 4 level historic Portland west hills brick classic crafted Tudor or Craftsman style home, that 2 years ago was priced at $300,000 more, for example, is well worth the potential downside, when the market turns.

The northwest classic home architecture, as well as the materials and building site, cannot be reproduced at all today at any reasonable price, if at all.

Even copies of old homes, such as top line neo-traditional homes, made from todays best reproductions of quality period materials, cannot come close to yesterdays vintage installations in many cases. Those are the ones you are looking for anyway.

If you started from scratch, trying to buy the land first, and reproduce one of those homes, starting with the lot you cannot find to begin with, and the old growth douglas fir beams, not available, up to the pressed hemlock cove mouldings, also not available, you can see your plan would be dead before it started.

You just cannot imagine how much these late 1800’s to early 1900’s Portland area homes reflect a period of building quality, in many cases. Not all cases.

Some of these homes are art really pieces. Not just real estate.

The best of these types of homes command high dollar, even in down markets, but a buyers market, with a desperate seller, is the only market and seller you will ever be able to buy one from.

As soon as the selling homeowners knows the real estate market is going up again by leaps and bounds, instead of down, ripping them off for their retirement money, the property comes off the market, quickly, unless survival was the primary motivation for the sale to begin with.

I love the old colorful hardwoods, art, and masonry in many of those homes. Many times the drainage really is bad however, and reconstruction of masonry/foundation may be required. Inspect prospective home purchases for signs of groundwater. Especially skim coated brick foundations, or existing brick foundations.

The game stakes are high at that end of the real estate investment world, but the return is great as well. And continues to go up as a hot sellers market grows.

Knowing where you are going, before you sell, using 72 hr. first right of refusals is a great thing for someone prepared to use it, and make it work.

The property value appreciation, during a great market for home sellers, owning a home as described above, would make up for a small dip in home price, from what they paid for the classic home now, even if prices dipped more this year as projected. That projected loss may never appear either.

When the market starts up, this amount will be made back in potential home value within months, as the real estate market recovers, even as some experts suggest.

Professional real estate knowledge requires experience, but the fuel is courage, and putting your money where your mouth is.

Selling into a buyers market requires a home priced right, without repairs of any kind. This is our present condition in Portland, Oregon.

The Portland market has way too many homes with drainage problems on the market, with many, not few, lender/owners and sellers, looking for cheap way out of their drainage money pig, never fixed and still squealing bloody murder.

A pig they intend to starve to death first in possible, ignore second, if they must, and if at last they must, coat that pig with a new layer paint, like lip stick, and put her out there again looking ever so spiffy and painted up, hoping for ignorance to walk by with a load of dough needing a bad home, and never knowing the difference.

Don’t forget the crawl space investigation required before you write that earnest money agreement.

Selling into a buyers market requires properties without deferred maintenance in the way of chronic drainage groundwater problems, and/or structural damage.

Get those home drainage problems solved.

You don’t have a snow balls chance in hell of selling that good to average home, with those drainage problems, in this market, or in any other real estate market I can imagine in the future, except a strong sellers market.

A quality historic home, especially in a sellers market, no problem. Always an informed buyer, and a budget to install hand excavated french drains, and fix that drainage problem, as that type of home buyer is not the average home buyer, who is quite ignorant of home drainage reality.

Most buyers have been fed so many lines of b.s. that they are in a confused state, at best, and would not know who to believe at all.

The new real estate market will be dominated by realistic and informed home buyers, many of them young first time buyers, not buyers from the last boom market, posing as the spoiled investors many of them were, wearing rose colored glasses, holding up high volume hopes, flying their hair in the wind, with the top down, sun going down on the ocean, looking for that new home flip lipstick pig begging, for that new coat of lip stick, and quick profit for the sellers.

Nice dream. Great work, if you can get it.

Educated home sellers that find this web site won’t be fooled.

Todays new home buyers won’t get tricked into just installing a sump pump and not stopping the groundwater entry either, and then being forced into closing escrow with groundwater problems intact and passed on, in opposition to their stated earnest money agreement rights.

Those drainage problems are a cancer to your homes structural health and strength, if not solved with a year or two, instead of never, and left forever.

Many of the new Portland home buyers have been reading this web site, and will want home drainage problems solved before closing of escrow. No exceptions.

These home buyers will find your problems, and pass on you and your lovely home right off, if you as a home seller look like you are a non-disclosing type of home seller, who is trying to hide the homes history of drainage problems from the new buyers and the lender.

The gig is up on that game folks.

Remember, home sellers with drainage problems, it is an Oregon state law to disclose past or present home drainage problems, solved or not, during the home sale process, as per your Oregon home condition disclosure addendum, which must be delivered to the potential home buyers, by the home sellers or their agent, prior to acceptance of any earnest money agreement accepted to sell it.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/425/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/426 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/426#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 20:08:16 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/426 Turn back the clock. *1946- 500 members of Portland Property Owners Union announce that they will follow the lead of Seattle landlords in not renting their units until the Office of Price Administration rent regulations are abolished.

The Oregon Apartment House Association, controlling 12,000 apartments in Portland, is considering joining.

*1948- The Housing Authority of Portland assures Vanport City residents that they are safe and secure from any flooding.

Eight hours later, a wall of water falls on Vanport, leaving 18,700 persons homeless.

Vanport city was the largest public housing project ever built in the United States. (Heron Lakes Golf Course now sites on part of the old Vanport City.)

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/426/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/419 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/419#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 18:17:44 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/?p=419 This is an actual e-mail from 2008. Real life conversations with customers. e-mail Message from Lee Ann:

We are in the process of selling our 2.5 year old home, and from the inspection the buyer wants us to install a French drain system under the house. We are on completely flat ground with no water slanting ground. I understand we live in a very wet climate, but that it’s also the end of the wettest time of year and I am sure what little water there is will be all dried up in a couple of months.

I guess my real question, being a complete novice about this sort of thing, is should the builder (arbor custom homes)have installed one of these french drains during construction? We are considering asking them to come take a look and help remedy the situation if it should have been considered during construction.

We might end up needing a quote if they refuse. What is your opinion under these circumstances. I obviously understand the buyers concern, especially if the inspector told him it was needed, but I am just not convinced. What is a rough estimate for a project like this if you were to do it?

Thank you so much for your time!

LeeAnn

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AAA Home Drainage to LeeAnn
show details 3/17/08
Hello LeeAnn: I have written extensively on the subject of city planning departments and home builders Lee Ann. Planners and architects are famous for not understanding, or mandating home drainage systems that prevent groundwater saturation and hydrostatic pressure. They are sold on the footing drain and sump pump idea, for god knows what reason.

The Oregon state legislature, in the 2007 session, mandated a new home groundwater disclosure law would be drafted, which later evolved into a mandated home maintenance schedule. The first item on the page of the schedule is a recommendation concerning home drainage.

This maintenance schedule law will actually become law soon, and the home builder of a new home in Oregon will now be required to give the first new owner, or owners of the home, the mandated maintenance schedule.

See my web site for future articles on this subject, and look on the internet for the disclosure and groundwater information forms that were mandated, if your builder does not have them yet.

The law phases in within the next year.

The date of construction on your home predated the law. It does not cover your home.

The new disclosure law basically only tells the homeowners that they are here-in advised that the home may need additional installation of home drainage systems to prevent groundwater damage. blah blah.

Mandated by the Oregon state legislature, to be given by the builder, to the first owner occupants of new homes in Oregon.

Most city planning departments completely drop the ball with respect to mandating home drainage systems that work, and therefore builders do them poorly as well, or not at all.

See my website at aaahomedrainage.com for more information on this subject.

Typically Lee Ann, the home would suffer groundwater damage in the crawlspace or basement, with flat, or sloping to the foundation grade topography, without hand excavated french drains installed on the outside of the home to flow that groundwater away from the home faster than it can soak in.

French drains are installed approximately 18″ from the foundation wall.

Not a ditch done with a machine. That is not a french drain. It is a ditch.

A french drain of quality contains a flat bottom, sloped and engineered grade bottom at around 2″ per 10 lineal feet of your proposed french drain.

The average system, installed on flat ground, around the foundation, should be no more than approximately 50 feet long to make the engineering work best.

Raise the soil grade at the foundation as well, and compact a splash block of at least 6″ per 10 lineal feet, that slopes away from the foundation, prior to french drain installation, not during it, putting the dirt to the side as you excavated it.

The problem of your groundwater entry probably is not isolated to one side of your home, if it is flat all around your home.

I can certainly come by and look at the home for you Lee Ann. Call me to set up an appointment when the time is right for you.

The foundation vents may have been poured too low on the foundation wall as well, allowing groundwater to run right into the crawl space. I will check it out for you.

Saturation of the ground around the exterior foundation walls, and eventually saturation and leaking of the foundation, and everything below it, will occur without hand excavated french drains professionally installed on the outside of the home, especially on flat or negative sloping ground.

The hydrostatic pressure will force groundwater under the foundation footing into the crawlspace. Ranch homes seem to be the most affected with respect to this issue low foundation vents and quick saturation below grade.

Doing drainage work in the crawlspace is just the kind of poorly informed drainage priority that a home inspector guy would give however. So I am suspect of your information source as well Lee Ann. They know less than homebuilders do about home drainage, even though they spend their lives, like me, in crawl spaces.

Doing drainage work in the crawlspace does no good at all, in most all cases; and never addresses the source of the groundwater problem correctly, which is sustained seasonal rains, and not underground rivers or springs like these guys want you to believe.

Or some old over worked story about a high water table under your moisture barrier in the crawl space. I’m surprised they haven’t cut those licks from the show yet.

Collecting the groundwater on the surface, on the outside of the home, prior to it saturating and flowing under the foundation footing into the crawlspace, or into the basement, if there is one, should be your objective Lee Ann. Again, read my website for this information in detail.

I cannot give you a ball park estimate on hand excavated french drains without looking at the property first, and determining if it can be done at all. I would do so if you request an evaluation.

Installing sump pumps and shallow collection french drains in the crawl space is not advised by me, prior to first solving the groundwater entry problem where it exists, if ever.

Installation of a graded and compacted splash block on the exterior foundation walls, the installation of hand excavated french drains, as well as the attention paid to properly venting and hanging gutters and downspouts, as well as plumbing new rain drain discharges, and dry wells, will almost always spell immediate success.

Sump pumps are seldom needed if you do it right on the outside of the homes foundation with hand excavated french drain groundwater removal systems first.

As a home seller, the sump pump idea will be more attractive financially to you, but will not actually solve the home drainage problem, and will leave your buyers with a worse mess in the future, costing them more money, in the future.

You are probably right about the groundwater in the crawlspace eventually soaking out as well, but the problem will become worse as the years go by.

The battle over whether to do it right, or do it cheap, is always a home sellers nightmare. I have written extensively on this subject.

The home buyers want it right, while the sellers want it cheap.

Home builders do not usually know about, or install, high quality home drainage systems, if any at all. Beware. Enter at your own risk. Don’t feed the bears… Read my website.

My average bid last year, with around 100+ lineal feet of hand excavated french drain, on average topography, not running up and down steep hillsides, and probably treating two sides of the home, installing hand excavated french drains, excavated approximately 12″ wide and 6″-18″ deep, usually with two 4 foot in diameter by 4 foot deep river rock filled and supported dry wells; with no grass lawn sod cutting and reconstruction, as in lawn drainage systems; and containing exposed river rock on the surface of the hand excavated french drains over weed cloth, river rock filled drywells, etc: my guess on what my average bid on one of those last year was, would be around $4200.$4750. and often much more extensive, and expensive as well as the difficulty, quantities of dirt and rock, as well as the distance a wheel barrow with loads must travel.

The price depends on distances to take materials, on site places for dumping of the excavated dirt, from the french drain and dry well excavations.

The average construction time was around 5 days, depending on time of year, weather, soil conditions, availability of materials and the manpower allocated to the job.

I hope I have helped you understand what you are looking at with that problem Lee Ann.

It could have been prevented by the builder doing it right when the home was built, but he probably would get away without having any responsibility to you now, if he ever did have any legal responsibility for your lack of home drainage.

Even now, with the new proposed and watered down version of the Oregon new home maintenance schedule law, finally passing the muster, the home builder of the new home only needs to inform the first home buyers that they should be prepared for extra drainage work and expense, if they want a dry home, free of wet and the problems that moisture creates.

The builders new mandated maintenance schedule is in no way a guarantee or warrantee of anything at all. Just a bunch of recommendations.

The keys to homeowners knowing how to make their own decisions on home drainage problems, are all on my website. Read it extensively, before you contract with a home builder or architect to build your home.

Talk drainage. Take control at the architect stage, hands on, early. Teach them that you want it a certain way. They will appreciate it.

Thanks for your questions Lee Ann, and good luck. Sincerely, Darrel R. Lundeen Drainage contractor, Portland Oregon. AAA Home Drainage
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]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/419/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/141 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/141#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 07:36:28 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/141 The term french drain is tossed around on the internet under many contexts.

Few of these home drainage solutions work well, if at all.

Many of these drainage concepts are simply not drainage solutions at all.

It is amazing to see that many sites on the internet continue to discuss methods of home groundwater removal that use the term french drain, but are actually, from my perspective, by their own description, nothing more than a ditch containing gravel, and other inappropriate materials all cumulatively, being referred to as french drains.

Many sites using french drain as a heading discuss the use of machines such as ditch witches and other sites talk about backhoes.

While these so called drainage experts flood the internet with sloppy science and sloppy facts, creating sloppy drainage, the real fact is that hand excavated french drains, ie. french drains, have been in existence long before the use of machines ever were thought of, and are much more effective and long lasting than any system created with a machine.

A real french drain is hand excavated, and takes much longer in manhours to construct, install and plumb.

It never contains gravel, sand, or dirt mix, and does not have a perforated pipe with a sock over it, that plugs and prevents groundwater from entering the perforated pipe.

A quality, engineered french drain does not contain road cloth, or weed cloth, wrapped up in a big bundle, with gravel and a perforated pipe smothered there in.

A real quality french drain does not have a grade of 12″ per 100 lineal feet. That is too flat.

The grade is around twice that engineering standard. More like 2″ per 10 lineal feet or greater.

Eventually the sloppy science and engineering behind those so called home drainage experts will be the very reason why so many of you home drainage readers and seekers will find their way to AAA Home Drainage, and the information available here, given freely, to educate homeowners around the world about home groundwater drainage solutions.

Each year I tear up many of these other types of home drainage attempts, so that the area can be used for the installation of hand excavated french drains.

I currently have a pile of footing drain perforated pipe with a sock over it, plugged with dirt completely, cut up in sections when removed, and now stacked behind a shed, waiting for the next dump run. This is so common.

Homeowners get hood winked into thinking that just because a certain contractor uses the term french drain, that they are getting the real thing, and that there is one definition.

Most often they are getting a ditch full of debris and rock, with little to no grade, from a contractor that doesn’t even know the difference in functional ability between the two, or perhaps does, and doesn’t care, or can’t pull the real thing off.

This is the way it turns out for many homeowners, over and over again, failure after failure..

Consequently the homeowners believe that french drains do not work, and they tell me so.

So these types of homeowners fall for some other type of home drainage scam, like a sump pump installation, to extract money from them without results.

The quality of home drainage information on the internet, under the keywords french drains varies greatly, and is for the most part, a bunch of bunk. Or is written to support a specific manufacturer that is selling a costly specific plastic drainage gadget or product of some sort, in the name of home drainage with french drains.

Many times the site purporting to teach the engineering behind the installation of french drains is marketing some specific product, like a channel drain system, that they think is a substitute for the labors involved in the creation of hand excavated french drains.

Do not be confused by the use of the words french drain as a local, as well as an internet generic term. It means very little, and does not include the right information most of the time, to tell the difference either.

Go to the internet and look up “hand excavated french drains”, “home groundwater removal”,” home drainage, groundwater problems, Portland french drains, hand excavated dry wells, and other home drainage key words, and see who is recognized as the worlds leader in home drainage information and listed at the top of the page.

Learn not only what to look for in a french drains and contractors, as well as what not to look for.

Always specify hand excavated french drains, for long lasting groundwater removal results.

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