Water in Crawl Space

My house sits on a slope and the back right corner of my house is about 3 ft lower then front left of my house. When we have heavy rains, I will get water standing at the foundation in the back right corner. The water will drain out within a day. I had the county come out and look at it and they said that as long as the water is not standing it was not a problem. My question is, could I install a small drain (2" pvc pipe punch through the block and brick) through the foundation to speed up the drainage of the water? I have diverted all the gutters to get the water away from the house.

Reply to
bslusse
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Not only can you, you should.

Reply to
Steve Barker

It the water is appearing regularly (more than a handful of times per year) I would look for additional measures to prevent the initial accumulation, if at all practical. You've done the obvious thing by diverting the gutter run off. Maybe you need to take another look at the grading?

Regardless of frequency, it would be prudent to install that additional drain to get the water out from the crawl space more rapidly.

Reply to
Malcolm Hoar

It only happens when we have more then an inch or two of rain in a short period of time . I doubt it happens more then 5 or 6 times a year. Thanks for the quick response. Any recommendation on how large of a diameter of pipe I should use?

Reply to
bslusse

2 or 3 inch will drain a lot of water.

Smaller may handle the water but it's going to be more susceptable to blockages. 2 or 3 inch will be easy to clear if it does become blocked or partially blocked. e.g. just ram a garden hose through it.

The hardest part of all this is likely to be making sure the water drains well away from the house.

Your other option would be to create a sump to the collect the water and install a water-level activated pump (i.e. sump pump). I'd probably make that decision based on the amount/frequency of the water and the risk of that water causing damage to timber/drywall/whatever. How much you're willing to spend on keeping the crawl space dry is also going to be a factor, of course.

With a sump pump you'll need to be even more careful to ensure the water is pumped well away from the house and in compliance with local codes. This may require pulling permits and may force more "disclosure" than you want if and when you sell the property.

You might also try getting some builders/contractors around. With luck you'll get some good recommendations and prices for a range of options to improve the crawl space water situation. That should make it a lot easier to make a decision. However, in some areas, it may be difficult to find any contractors interested in a job like that.

Reply to
Malcolm Hoar

I have a trailer house in the country and I always get water running under it when we get heavy rains. The front of the house is about 2 feet higher than the rear. I finally dug a trench from the front to the rear and put a 4" PVC under it, from the lowest point in the front to the lowest point in the rear. That took care of the major part of the water, but there is still some water that seeps under the skirting, even though I have solid steel barn siding for skirting. So, I also put another 4" pvc pipe under the skirting just to the inside of the skirting. The problem is that that short piece allowed rodents to get under the house. I then took some 3/8 or 1/2" hardware cloth mesh, wrapped it around the exterior part of the pipe and poured some concrete around the mesh to keep it in place, but kept the end of the pipe open. That solved the rodent problem, but I notice the pipe gets some mud and I cant clean it since the mesh is permanent. SO far I just blast it with the hose, but if I really want to clean it I will have to remove a section of the skirting. Maybe I should have used a huge hose clamp instead of the concrete?

Reply to
Freebird33

How old is the house? If it isn't too old there may already be a pipe installed and the exhaust end could be plugged. You might dig around the low end of the crawl space when the water is drained and see if you find a pipe.

Reply to
Art

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