In 1960, the builder poured a 6 foot foundation to build my parents' home. He then decided to lengthen the home by adding a 4 foot foundation to extend the living room and kitchen area (now under a 4 foot sand crawl space). He left an opening the size of a window between the cellar foundation and the added 4 foot foundation. One can use a step ladder and step on the platform and look at the sand and mud where this added foundation lies.
Then the builder attached a garage to that extension which sits on a slab. Now we are getting water seeping into the bottom of the 4 foot foundation at the back of the house situated next to the garage. The area (crawl space) has mud puddles when it rains and some of this water flows down onto the cellar floor. The gutter in the back has long extensions to draw off the water; the gutters seem to not leak; a new cement walkway replaced a cement cracked walkway in this area of the back of the house. I also noticed a stream of water traveling down the perimeter of the cement walkway on the side of the garage which is the side of the house.
Best Answer
Water infiltration can com from surface water or sub-surface water.
Surface water is easier to detect and fix. If you have added onto the length of the house, perhaps the surface water cannot run around the end anymore. That water could puddle and seep into the ground and then eventually seep into the crawl space.
Subsurface water is harder to locate and eliminate. If the ground is so saturated that it can’t flow away from the house, it will flow in the direction of least resistance, which could be into the crawl space...especially if the ground has been disturbed for the new addition. (Water will flow through the disturbed soil before it will flow through the older original excavation.)
The only way to fix subsurface water problems is to install a perforated drainline in drainrock down below your crawl space and extend the drainline to a location where it can discharge or where you can collect it and then pump it out.