I just bought an older house (’67) and moved into it in January. Due to unseasonably warm weather in February, and the beginning of March, snow has been melting and water is everywhere. I happened to look into the entrance of my crawl space today, and the water was about 1 1/2 inches above the bottom of my main beam. That means that it was about 18″ deep under the house. The previous owner was a carpenter, and did a lot of work rebuilding the mudsill and a number of joist ends that had rotted out. The area we live in is clay soil, and right now the basic grade of the lot is toward the house. I would raise the grade with a couple of loads of fill, but the house is only about 6″ above the current grade level.
My question is this: Does any one have a good, cheap (relatively) clean way of fixing this, or am I going to have to lift the house and dig a basement under it? The inside of the house has been renovated, and looks pretty good. The total floor space is just under 600 sq. ft. Any opinions at all would be helpful.
Sincerely,
Jon
Replies
Does the entire lot slope to the house? Or do you have someplace on the lot to drain the water downhill... without encroaching on your neighbors?
How much land are we talking about? And where is the primary ingress for the water? Underground? or is there a leak in your foundation of a substantial nature? Is there ANY egress for the water currently?
I have a very similar situation with my new house. The house was built below the grade of the street... and slopes to the rear of the lot. If you have a similar situation... I will be more than happy to share my experience with abating the water.
If not... don't want to bore you with a very involved post.
Normally to fix the out side is the answer. There are a lot of homes that have your problem to some extent. Ill share one answer not used very often except for basements.
Water is comming in from the out side . It will also leave to the out side when the water table drops.
You can trench the out side or inside of the footing which is enough for the inside. You can install pipe and gravel to a sump pump at least a foot below grade. It will suck it out and push it below the house .
it's all about the swale ...
U gotta find a local dirt mover that's on top of such things.
without seeing the house ... I'm thinking there's a 50/50 chance on re-grading the surrounds in your favor to re-direct the flow away or around your house.
after that ... french drains and sump pumps should be taken into consideration ...
but ... the first course of action should be deciding if the property can be properly graded ... or ... if lifting the place is the best option.
I forget the sq ft ... but I know it's smaller than this old house ... and our old house is tiny .. so either way ... shouldn't cost "too much" in the long run ... so do it right from the start.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry in Carpentry
Pgh, PA
I'd definatly get a sump pump going as soon as possible. Then like Jeff said.
Free Sancho!
First, get yourself a pump (small electric such as a PortaPump is probably best) and pump it out. This will reduce the chance of mold or rot and make it possible to get into there sooner.
After that, you need to do two things:
1) Keep the water from getting in.
2) Get it out if it gets in (and avoid having to use the pump for this).
For the first, you need to grade the area near the house to drain AWAY (possibly creating a swale for surface drainage), and you may need to install drain tile about two feet down to keep the soil dry near the foundation.
For the second, more drain tile, run downhill to daylight, is the best approach.
Don't try to simply seal the foundation -- though it will help a little it will never be sufficient.
Jon, steer the outside water away and install a sump pump.
blue
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
And your home inspector didn't mention this...?
Thanks all for your fast response. I bought the house without an inspection, since the owner and I are pretty good friends, and I crawled under the house with him to see the job he had done to insulate the boxing joist and rebuild some of the joist ends. He mentioned that I might have to put a sump pump in there and drain out some of the water, but he didn't mention anything about having had any major problem before. There was about 18" of snow when we moved in, so I had no idea about the drainage, or lack thereof (ha ha). The lot is 50'x150', and is the lowest of the neighbors' on three sides. I considered lifting the house up and building a 2-3' pwf foundation under it, but I may be in for more than I can chew.I have pumped it out twice in the last two days, but the water keeps on coming in from the lot to the back.
Thanks for all your help!! It is much appreciated, believe me!
Jon
First off, decide if there is sufficient down-grade in any direction to "drain to daylight". If so, you should be able to handle the problem with appropriate drain tile.Also, thought it's not going to get you in good with your neighbors, if any of the adjacent property owners have changed their grading in such a way that it routes more water onto your property or prevents your property from draining, you may have cause for legal action.
Sump pump
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Project house I'm working on now has the crawlspace just flooded. 6" straight throughout under the house. There isn't any room really for fill. The general decided to dig out a trench around the uphill side of the house,fill with gravel, french drain leading to pit with sump pump. Eventually he will make it permanent, but his plan is 2 pits, 2 pumps, and routing it out onto the other side of the house to the street. hope that works, but I think while we had a lot of the floor up, he should have dug it down and put in gravel. Personal preference and opinion, I guess.
Young, poor, and eager to learn
I'd start to think about an attorney and failure to disclose issues. Some "friend", if he's a contractor he knew what he was selling.
Mike
That's a good point medicmike!
I'd be looking to see what the disclosure said.
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
Put your sump pump below the frostline. No need for it to be under the house, you can just run a pipe to somewhere outside the frame and make the pump accessable
Also many times a large percentage of the water comes off the roof. Make sure the downspouts get channelled away from the house. If there is nowhere for you to do that then while you are running pipe for the sump also run pipe from the downspouts to the sump
With a house that small, adding a basement could be a nice thing to do. You could put your HVAC and water heater down there and gain some space on the main floor. Ask a local house mover about the lift. It might not be as expensive as you think. Also consider the views from your windows and what the house would look like from outside if it were lifted.
-- J.S.
Jon: Here's what my son & I did on a house in an old soy bean field in Urbana, IL. Had pretty much the same problems you have. First - he could not change the grading - established neighborhood & pretty much flat, except locally. Determined that the main problem was along the rear wall. crawl had about 3 inches of water in it at one time. Had a sump & pump, but ground under crawl had never been graded to drain into the sump. Was typical crawl - too low to do anything in. Introduced Son & grandsons to "The Great Escape" for a training film. That's exactly what & how we did the job. On our bellies, w/ entrenching tools & extremely small picks. Built carts to haul dirt to exit hole. Ran them on plywood instead of rails. Dug a trench around inside of footing so that drain pipe was below bottom of footer. Filled w/ gravel - taken in the same hard way that the dirt went out. Graded everything so it went into sump. That took care of inside - in about 3 extremely hard days of digging. Dug same trench along outside of footer, did same thing w/ gravel & drain pipe. Ran grade of drain pipe in outside trench to low spot along foundation & burrowed under footer. Connected pipes together & sealed penetration spot. Built gravel "Chimney" above drain on outside after parging foundation wall. Now water that perced into area drained into interior sump to be pumped out beyond the high spot in back yard - namely the alley.
Did it work, you ask?? Like gangbusters. Rain started while we were filling outside trench. Got first water inside in about 1 hour. Crawl dried out in a matter of weeks.
Bottom line - son sold house next summer. People bought it & paid asking price because it was only house in neighborhood w/ dry crawl.
It was one Heck of a lot of hard, demanding physical labor by a whole family. We generated a ton (literally ) of muck that had to be hauled away. Used at least one dozen heavy plastic buckets to haul in & out of crawl. But in the end it was worth it.
Don
That sounds like a job for one of those vacuum excavation machines. Has anybody here used one?
-- J.S.
I've seen them being used, from a distance. They use them in the plant where I work when they need to excavate pipes, etc, burried in the floor. Not sure of the economics, but on a commercial job getting the job done fast is often important, plus it keeps the mess down and probably limits contamination concerns.
John: Don't know if it would work in the muck & clay we had to go through. I don't see how soy beans ever grew in that stuff - must have carbide tipped roots! We had to bust everything up w/ small picks before we could shovel it out. Wer even used the "Great Esxcape" method of getting rid of the stuff (modified). Took it out a dozen buckets at a time & distributed it along the roadside.DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!
Thank you all!!!! I am currently in college, getting my level 1 carpentry apprenticeship, so I have not had a lot of time to respond to all this. Thanks for your input. I live in Northern British Columbia, where there is a lot of Oil and Gas activity, and there are vacuum trucks all over the place. Thanks for the reminder on that. They cost about $325 per hour. I will see if I can find out the price of lifting the house and putting in a proper foundation. The house is built on a grade beam, and I don't think that there is even a footing under it. I have to double check that, but I didn't see one under the access hole in the grade beam.
Thanks again for the friendly advice!! I appreciate all the help I can get!!