Hi all, I looked at a house for our daughter (her First) and have some concerns after an inspection in crawlspace. House is 14 years old, poured footing and foundation wall. Some rain recently, maybe 1/8″ in last 4 days.
There’s a spot where a little water is standing on horizontal part of footing. Stem wall not wet, no plumbing nearby. A closer look and I think I’m seeing light mineral deposits running down vertical surface to crawlspace floor, like it runs off top of footing as moisture accumulates. My guess is it gets worse when theres more moisture. Dirt it pretty moist under thrown-in-place vapor barrier.
Out side there’s a downspout nearby, grade is flat to slightly inclined toward house almost all around perimeter.
I think I know the answer to my question, but looking for confirmation before I kill the deal. If this is an issue of water seeping in at footing/stemwall intersection, I’m thinking remediation would be a big deal.
No easy way to change grade to slope away from house without creating other problems. If one dug it out and put some kind of waterproofing and drainage on foundation there would still be an issue of where to drain to daylight. That’s assuming that the owner even wants to address it.
Should we bail out? Is there something I’m overlooking? Interestingly, when I brought it up to the owner, she said the house was inspected and passed 3 years ago when they bought it.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
Replies
In my experience, taking care of surface water solves 75 % of foundation moisture issues.
Especially with crawls.
Seems like if you extend the downspout the problem would go away. Is that the only problem with the house?
The downspout would certainly be first on the list. My concern is the evidence of moisture elsewhere. I'll bet if one were to look after a heavy rain it would be what I saw x 10.
Gutters in only 2 spots on the house, so guttering the whole thing would help too. The problem there is it's my daughter and the gutters would likely never get cleaned out unless I did it. Single mom, three kids, outside house maintenaince is low priorty, I'm afraid. More to that saga, but probably not important.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.