4 years ago I bought a house in a town on the Canadian border of MN.
What I didn't realized was…the property is sloping and my neighbor filled his property up so it's half a foot higher than mine.
Combined with the slope…I have quite a bit of water running diagonal towards the house and then it seems to collect on the opposite corner of the house because that is the wettest area in the crawlspace and the room above barely warms up during the winter.
I had issues with outside doors not closing and cracks in the sheet rock.
So to make it short …I need a drainage system, but I get confused about the different systems.
Is a French drain around the house and at the property lines to my neighbors the right approach?
Do I put the pipe just above the T shape footing or do I go lower since it is so cold up here?
As I understand, a floating footing is only 14-16" deep.
I noticed that they left the footing forms in the ground…They should have came off, right?
I plan on digging myself and would like to take this opportunity to insulate the footing and wooden crawlspace from the outside.
So do I put concrete paint on or not?
Then insulation sheets and then membrane …or is that overdoing it?
Do I start at the highest end of the house/property and work my way down with the slope of 6" per 10'?
I can run the drain to a storm water ditch, I already asked.
I know these are a lot of questions and I hope someone can answer them because I only want to do this once and hopefully have all my issues resolved.
Water – what is the right drainage system around a floating crawlspace foundation
crawlspacedrainagewater
Related Solutions
Have you tried contacting NDS directly and asking for their advice/recommendation? Contact NDS
I'm suggesting the above as it is my understanding that their product is only for "external" property use ie On the outside of your crawlspace/foundation wall.
Below added after reading @Kenneth (feedback) comment:
I understand from NDS EZ brochures they state their drainage system is a gravel free solution, but I highly recommend back filling the trench in your particular situation with pea-gravel.
You can then breakout the foundation blocks locally (for a nice clean job I would use a core cutter, the foundation blocks will then naturally arch the opening you've made) to connect the new drainage system into an appropriate existing drainage system.
As others have suggested, a good excavator or even a landscape contractor might be able to find relatively simple ways to alter the landscape of your yard so that water will naturally flow away from the home.
Civil engineer would be your best bet but they are also expensive enough that I see them as the last ditch effort if other measures have been failing. Typically experienced landscape contractors or excavators can figure out where the water is flowing during a rainstorm and divert it away from the house with a bit of digging.
French Drains
While water may not be seeping into your foundation right now, having all of that water pool next to the house is inviting problems. Reagrdless of landscaping, it is a good idea to install french drains around the perimeter of your house if you know that rain water is inevitably flowing towards your home.
The following image is a typical installation. The drain itself is typically a trench running a couple of feet typically from the house and going down below the frost line. You want the drain pipe to be deep enough that it will be below the frost line so that water flowing inside the pipe will not freeze and crack it. The frost line differs by region, obviously colder climates have a deeper frost line.
The holes allow water to flow down or up into the pipe, while the pipe running at a slight downward slope will take the water and flow it away from the house in another direction. It typically sits on a thin bed of gravel and the trench is filled with gravel rather than soil as water will more easily flow down through to the drain pipe if the trench is filled with gravel rather than soil. Soil will also potentially clog the drain making it ineffective. For aesthetic reasons, sod can be placed over top or you can do something clever like make a rock garden.
If you are a masochist and thoroughly enjoy pain, then you can grab a shovel and dig the trench, but for those of us who are lazy and like excuses to play with complicated equipment, you can rent a backhoe for a day and turn a week long digging job into a 2 hour weekend job. When digging however, be extremely careful about the location of underground utilities:
Water lines
Gas lines
Sewer lines
Electrical conduit
Cable and telephone lines.
Make sure to identify where these come into the house and approximate their location and depth in relation to where you intend to dig your trench. If any of them are close then it is probably best to call a professional just to be safe.
Gutters and Downspouts
Another possiblity could simply be that your gutter downspouts are draining too close to the house, or are draining into storm drains that have become clogged.
The following is an example of a downspout draining too close to the foundation.
Many times this can be fixed rather easily, by extending the downspout horizontally away from the house, or channelling it far enough away that it has somewhere to flow other than down your foundation walls. Check out your local hardware store because there is a number of ways to effectively and cheaply handle this.
Also it is a good idea to check your gutters regularly for clogs. A clog can prevent water from flowing from your gutters to your downspouts, causing it to pour over the edge or sometimes down the side of the house. This is also something to check for.
Downspouts can also sometimes flow into an underground drain, which can sometimes be the source of the problem. This drain typically will be a storm drain that flows away from the house or to a public storm drain. These can sometimes become clogged causing water to not flow properly away from the house. Most landscape contractors can easily help unclog such drains if you suspect that this might be the case.
This should give you some ideas of things to look into or try before contacting a civil engineer, as the fix might be more manageable and less complicated than you think. And as far as a sinkhole swallowing your house, I have only ever heard of that happening because of a house sitting on top of a collapsed coal mine. If you live in a heavily mined area then your municipality probably has maps that will show whether your house sits overtop of an old mine. I wouldn't personally worry about this. The cracks in your foundation might be from the ground settling or moving slightly from excessive soil saturation.
Related Topic
- Should I be concerned about foundation seepage and what to do about it
- Water – Damp Crawl Space
- Back Yard Hill Drainage Issues
- Water pressure from slope causing crack and lean in foundation. Is a French drain the answer
- Water – Is a too-shallow foundation allowing excessive water into the dirt crawl space
- Water – Consequences of gutter water collecting in corrugated drain pipe
Best Answer
There are too many questions in this to do a good job of answering so I will tackle the most important one.
I would build a French drain from above the house along the property line: build it as high up the property as you can afford to go and at least 3' deep. The depth will help capture both surface and subsurface water movement. If you also have water coming down the slope to the top of the property, a drain 20-30' in front of the house that is higher on one side sloping down to where it can tie into the property line drain would be the best starting point to try and reduce the water issues.
If there is still standing water in the lowest corner, you may have to dig a trench under the footer and install another drain there, though not as deep as the main one along the property line going straight downhill until it is at the surface and gravity will keep the crawl space dry.
When I put drains in I use the perforated pipe that comes in a sock. It prevents the small gravel from getting in the holes and filling the pipe. pipe in sock it cost more but really helps over the years.