Please help resolve a discussion my husband and I are having.
We live in a small one story house in Norththern California. The house is about 3 feet above grade, posts on a concrete foundation. Only one space has been partially finished; a deeper crawl space was created by excavating and pouring a concrete floor. It’s not usable for much – I can’t quite stand up there. When the weather’s been really wet for a period of time – I assume when the ground gets saturated and the water table rises – this lower crawl space fills up with water – 6″ to 8″ is the most I’ve ever seen. When the weather dries out the water goes away. The only thing that gets wet besides the below grade concrete floor and walls are some wooden posts that support a rudimentary shelving system.
To me intuitively this seems wrong, but my husband says there’s nothing really wrong with it. What do you all think?
Thanks!
Replies
6" of water under the house is definitely a bad thing. Moisture in the air can go everywhere in the building, condense out here and there, and give you dry rot and mold. The wet wood in the crawl is a termite feast, and from there they'll swarm to the rest of the structure.
-- J.S.
Where are you in northern CA? I'm in San Jose and some moisture in the crawl space is pretty common this time of year - particularly after all the rain we've had recently.
Six to eight inches of water, however, is NOT a good thing. Are you close to any water (i.e. creek, lake or river)?
Edited 1/4/2006 7:24 pm by Dave45
We're in Oakland - pretty close to Lake Merritt and about a block away from what was probably once a natural drainage down to the estuary so I think there's just a lot of water about. It's gone this morning after a couple dry days.
We may just ignore it, but thanks for all your responses and if anyone has anymore insight I'd be glad to hear it.
not to alarm you but I recently got these pics in for a repair bid on an enclosed porch that had sitting water without a sump pit...
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Youch, razzman. That is bleak.
You're probably ok until it rains again - lol. I think I would get that wood out of the crawlspace and not store anything valuable in there.
Ideally, you should probably put in some kind of perimeter drain around your foundation, but that would probably be a pretty substantial job. I'm somewhat familiar with the Lake Merritt area - lol.
Is the crawl space enclosed with walls or is it on open posts or piers? If enclosed, the water will encourage rot, mold, etc
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we look at a house here that was about three feet off the ground with a concrete stem wall around side. There was a underground spring under the house. It had at least 18 inches of water on dry days. The company sent the engineers out there at least ten times to solve the problem. I kept saying I can fix it in ten minutes. nobody listen, kept taking soil samples and shooting elevation, writing reports. One day the owner saw me in the store and cornered me. Ask me how to fix.Told him to drill a hole in the stem water on lower side, let the water out. The lower side outside elevation had a 10 degree slope to the lake fifty feet from house.. 2+3=7
Edited 1/4/2006 8:54 pm by brownbagg
Aikido thinking
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I live in western Oregon where water often gets into crawl spaces.
You likely need to install a sump pump. It would sit in a hole in the dirt and keep the water pumped out. These typically pump the water to your rain drains (where the gutters flow into) with a 1 1/2 pipe. You will need an outlet down there to plug it in.
Take a look at: http://www.do-it-yourself-pumps.com/zoeller-crawl-space-dewatering-pump-system.htm for the concept.
Good luck.
TTF
lularolla, welcome to BreakTime (BT).
If you have an enclosed crawlspace, you don't want standing water in it. If there isn't a vapor barrier between the water and the house, the house will absorb enough water vapor to encourage mold/mildew growth as well as potentially causing the wood to rot. The combination makes a termite smorgasbord.
jt8
"The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded."
-- Dr. Dale Turner
>> When the weather dries out the water goes away. << Yea, some of it probably drains out and the rest goes straight up into your house. This will cause decay and may eventually cause the entire structure to rot, all the way up to the roof rafters. It's not at all uncommon for moisture under a house to cause moisture problems in the attic - for example. The only variables will be how bad the decay is and how long it takes.
First step is to check/correct the grading around your house. There should be a noticeable slope away from the house, for the first 10', all around the house. If you are inclined toward labor, this could be not much expense, but a lot of labor. If you hire someone it could be somewhat expensive.
Secondly, if you have gutters and downspouts, make sure the downspout water is channeled well away from the foundation. Adding the proper fittings and black plastic corrugated pipe is not much $ at all.
Third, the crawl space needs a drain; either via a sump pump, or a pipe that drains to daylight via gravity - which is preferable. Again, if you are inclined for labor - not very expensive - otherwise
If none of that works the final step would be to dig up the outside of the perimeter of the foundation and apply damp proofing to the foundation and then encircle the house with a drains system (footer drain) which consists of black corrugated pipe that drains to daylight, gravel and fill around the house. Again, not too much materials, but very labor intensive.
I thought that I got some loonies at times! How could anyone let it get that bad?!?
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How could anyone let it get that bad?!?
Elementary my dear Watson.
Well, ya know Pif, after all the years of reading here on BT you get a certain feel of knowing some of the posters from their writings.
Seems to me, from the depth of your own experiences of interaction with the general populace, that you could probably dip into your archives of probabilities and render a pretty good analogy of the situation. Much better than my own meager attempts at understanding the human equation.
Now if we could get 4Lorn1 to stop in for a touch of discourse I'm sure it would be rewarding.
Funny in that at one time I had him on ignore when he use to more often go off on one of his mocking rants. Now I find myself enjoying about everything he writes thru his style of presentation.
I think I even saved his descriptive opinion of white decor from a year or two back.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=55558.18
Ok ok, it was this year but what do I know, I'm getting older.
Wait, what year is this again?
be a 4Lorn fan
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 1/7/2006 12:29 pm ET by razzman
i've always loved reading 4lorn's style of using the alphabet.It's his politics and negative views that get me going...I can imagine hte kind of person from my own archives who can let a floor frame get so bad Iguess. generally more out of ignorance than anything else.
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I think it is an extremely independent elderly lady who keeps the loving relatives on their toes hence their hesitation to get involved till necessary.
I believe someone got in there and demo'd enough to see what the deal was thus the pics. Originally she was probably thinking 'hmmm, that feels a little spongy over there'.
Bet Lularolla has got her husband's attention now. :o)
be deputy dawg 'ouch, my tailbone'
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
especially if the floor ing is a bit spongy over there...;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
As noted by several folks, significant moisture can (And will) rise through the house and can cuase mold issues.
Take a look at the bottom of the roof sheathing - a common place for excess crawl space moisture to rewsult in mold.
We used to live in Oakland, near Piedmont and Pleasant Valley Rd. Bungalow house with a low crawl space and clay soil. When we first lived there it got wet under the house in the winter, which is not good for all the reasons that others have mentioned. I started doing work and corrected several things. One was to route all the downspouts into pipes and drain the roof water away from the house thru 4" tight line. The second was to install drain rock and 4" perf pipe where I could, and route that all out to daylight too. The third was to discover the remnants of an old clay drain tile that used to drain a rear patio, but had collapsed in the crawl space. That got rerouted too. From then on it stayed pretty dry. There are at least a couple of drainage contractors in the east bay that can do the work for you.