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From The Inspector

April 16, 2011 

Spring Showers Bring More Than April Flowers

Now that spring rains are in full swing many of us will be living over unwanted water, either in our basements or crawlspaces.  This is a hard time of year for our houses.  Being made mostly of wood, our homes are vulnerable to water in ways we’d really rather not think about. One of the biggest threats is from organisms that thrive on food and water, like we do. We can’t eat the wood in our house, but mold can, and does.  We’ve all seen it in our homes and it frequently scares us. But, it need not.  The most constructive response to mold in our homes is this question:  “How can I remove either the food or water this mold needs to live?”  sometimes the answer is simple.  If you have cardboard boxes directly on your basement floor there is a good chance you’ve created the perfect food and water scenario for mold.  Simply elevating the boxes off the floor so the moisture that comes in through your floor can disperse is a very effective solution. 

I faced a somewhat tougher situation in the house I bought 15 years ago.  Every time there was the slightest rain I would get little streams of water running across the basement floor. In exploring the possible solutions to this annoying problem I learned the difference between ground water and surface water.  Ground water is what we hope to find when we dig or drill a well.  When we build a house we hope not to hit ground water when digging the basement.  If we do, we’ll have a hard time keeping our future basement dry.  Surface water is caused by rain.  We see it running down our streets in a heavy rain, and dripping off our roofs.  This is the water that can find its way into our basements and crawlspaces. 

Correct management of surface water can go a long way toward keeping our homes free of unwanted moisture and water.  Our overall goal is to see that the soil that is touching  the foundation of our house is not saturated with water. Water in saturated soil is water that is looking for a place to go, to a drier space, like our homes. If we can keep the soil around our homes below the saturation point, we’ll keep them dry. 

The first place to go when seeking this solution is outside. Then look up.  What is the condition of the gutters on our house? Are they working correctly? Can they channel water, or are they clogged with plant debris? If they are relatively clean, then we check the downspout and any extensions.  The water our gutters collect should be directed AT LEAST 6 feet away from the foundation of our house.  Further is even better.  I took an extreme solution for my new house.  I dug all around my house down to the base of the foundation walls, to the footing, and examined the old clay drain tiles that had been put in place 50 years ago when this foundation was built. My house is a collection of at least 3 and possibly 4 Camp Ellis cabins. I found broken tiles and tiles clogged with clay.  I found no provision for where these tiles, if they could carry water, would carry water to. Houses built on level ground will direct the water to a sump pump. Homes built on a hillside or slope are sometimes lucky enough to be able to direct the water to daylight, some distance away from the house.  This is the best of all possible solutions, and the one I was able to do with my house.  I laid new drain tile, trenched to daylight and ran the gutter downspouts to the same drainage system.  After putting new tar and plastic on my foundation walls, I backfilled the trench I had dug around my house with river rock. Now, all the gutter water is discharged far, far away from my house. Any rain water or water from my outside faucets that falls near my house falls through the rock down to the new drain tile, which cheerfully carries this water far away from my house, and discharges it on a little hillside. No more saturated earth against my house!

There is a very happy ending to this story:  DRY BASEMENT! 

You can probably solve your damp basement or crawlspace problem without such a drastic solution.  Look at your downspounts. Do they have extensions?  If not, get some.

Spring is here.  Let’s make it a dry one for our homes!

Submitted by:  Ron Green, Licensed Home Inspector, Bless This House Inspection Services, LLC

www.blessthishouse.biz   email: rongreen@macomb.com