Foundation & Crawl Space Problem

[jompster]

I have an odd issue and I'm hoping someone out there knows a contractor who might be able to help. My yard has basically become a huge sponge from all the moisture we have had. All over my lawn the water is right at the surface of the ground, and it's so saturated that it's causing my crawl space to fill with water. I've also just found out that the water is in my HVAC duct work.

Between the huge rain we had a couple weeks ago and the snow melting off today, it's been a constant battle. Does anyone know a contractor who can help me get this water out and maybe do guttering or drains? I'm completely at a loss. I know part of it is where one of my sewer pipes exits the foundation and Air Comfort Solutions (yes, yes, I know) did a horrible job of sealing around the pipe.

So maybe I need a pumping service? I'm kind of lost. I've never had this happen in the 11 years I've been here.

[stick47]

Just get a submersible pump and enough hose to get the water out to the street. I had that problem once.
https://www.harborfreight.com/catalo...f&q=water+pump

[rezman]

If you have water standing around your foundation and in your crawl space, then you have a drainage issue. Gutters may help but you may need to look into a french drain system to direct the water on the ground away from your house. Also, does the lot your home sits on allow water to drain away on the surface?. If the ground slopes towards your house, that is a problem. I had to deal with this on two different properties and I cut a swale around the house to direct water away and down hill from the house.

Just a couple things to look at.

[SoonerDave]

I'll second rezman's advice - lot grading around and away from the house, along with french drains. I'm making an inference based on the explanation that the home is slightly older, and thus the problem is likely just due to some settling. If that's the case, you should be able to correct the worst of it without too much headache - perhaps just some dirtwork/berming to direct water away from the house.

Minor aside - I selected the lot on which we built our house because it had great drainage in all directions. The lot to our south had a spec house, had a terrible and rather obvious toward-the-house grade (which is why I suspect it had a spec house). The (eventual) neighbor who bought it (apparently) never even glanced at the backyard nor noted the fairly obvious grade and drainage issue before buying the house.

As we were building my place, he had the temerity to ask me to have my lot purposely re-graded the same way (so it drained toward my house). I told him that, of course, I wouldn't, and he was a little miffed/peeved that I didn't just jump at the request..."but its draining into my house," and I said, "no, your lot is draining into your house because your lot is graded that way...which is why I never would have touched that house...." When I mentioned french drains to him, he obviously had no clue what I was talking about.

Good luck with the drainage.

[SoonerDave]

n/m accidental duplicate while editing, sorry...

[jompster]

Thanks for the advice, guys! Yes, that's exactly my problem. It slopes toward the street, so everything runs toward my house. It had never been a problem before, but my yard has also never been so wet that the water line was at the soil line.

I've been reading about French drains today and I also dug some channels to direct water away. Also going to check into that pump at Harbor Freight.

[rezman]

Here’s an interesting situation we have at our current property. I took these shots today, a few days after last weeks sleet and snow melted off. Water can clearly be seen seeping up through cracks in the street, and expansion joints in the curb in front of our house. There have been several times in the past when the water seeped out of the ground and over the curb, not just through the joints. We had already lived here about 2 years before it we started seeing it. What’s odd is that it doesn’t do this every time it rains or snows. I had the city come out and take a sample and it’s not city water.

Our neighborhood is built on a hill that slopes down to a creek. My street is towards the bottom of the of the hill and the creek runs behind the homes that are across the street from us. It seems as if this is tied to the water table level or an underground spring that feeds into the creek.

We haven’t had any problems with our home, or it’s foundation, and no water coming up in the yard. We did have just a little bit of water in our storm cellar after all that rain we had last fall.

It occasionally does this in front of our neighbor’s home and the folks that live behind us.

So,not a problem here, just interesting. As long as the street doesn’t cave in.

[jompster]

Rez, that's what we had going on with our street, also. That's crazy.
Mine is beginning to dry out some. Digging channels to take water away from the house has helped tremendously. I don't have standing yard water anymore.

[OKCRT]

Rez, that's what we had going on with our street, also. That's crazy.
Mine is beginning to dry out some. Digging channels to take water away from the house has helped tremendously. I don't have standing yard water anymore.

Did you put a drain in the yard and pipe the channels to run out to the street?

[jompster]

Did you put a drain in the yard and pipe the channels to run out to the street?

I've ordered the drain pieces. One of the big problem areas was a ponding effect I had never noticed during periods of lighter moisture. I removed some landscape bordering and immediately reduced most of the standing water outside. The drains I have coming are long grated ones that will surround my entire foundation and move it all along the east side of my property and into the street.

It's supposed to rain Friday and I'll be away, but we will see how these help. I feel like I've learned more about this crap in a week than I've ever wanted to learn.

[lindsey]

So did I miss something? Did you find a contractor? Or just read up on how to direct water away from your house? I have a similar problem and would be very interested in how you fixed yours.

[jompster]

Most of it seemed to be because the ground was super-saturated. Every dip and low spot had standing water right at the soil surface line for almost two weeks. After a good stretch of no rain or very light rain, it's dried out and the ground has firmed up a LOT. It was so saturated that I couldn't walk on it without sinking up to my ankle in mud, but I can walk across it now with no squishing. It's dried out under as well.

I have been putting in concrete drainage channels around the foundation to move water away from the house itself, and these tie in to some guttering drains to move all of it to the north side of my house where it runs into the street.

Ultimately it was because I live roughly in the middle of a downhill slope that begins two blocks south and continues three blocks north to the Little Deep Fork drainage channel. I was catching runoff from the street south of me.