Water Issues and Drainage

...and Im back! Been busy with work, being sick and taking a quick vacay to Mexico. Well, Im back to write more and bore you with more house stuff. This one will be full of pictures, possibly boring, but can be interesting if you care to read on. 

Like many of the other things we knew we were getting into when we bought this place, we knew one of the major things that needed to be addressed was water issues in the soil - in the depths of the abyss...well, not really...but surface and below soil water. Yes, this place had many issues with water (i.e. the stairs leaking, sewer replacement, etc)...but this was a bit more of a REAL need that never was addressed and should have been. Had this been done sooner, foundation and other settling issues might not have occurred with the property. Among the more damaging items, the need for a new foundation will be needed in the future...which we did know ahead of time, but by addressing the problems that led to it, we will be able to hopefully extend the existing foundation from further deterioration and issues caused. 

Some things to address that I will go over:

- Sloping property

- Downspouts - proper way!

- Water Diversion

- Foundation

First of all the simple stuff - Downspouts. These are those things that no one really pays attention to, but is a HUGE thing when it comes to water and your foundation. These or those little gutter things that you see on the side of a house that brings water from the roof down to the ground level - supposed to be away from the house into a drainage of some sort or at least to divert water away from your home. Well...this house had them and all the spouts pointed down and straight to the floor which was exactly where the foundation is - a no no. Imagine heavy rain year after year, day after day of water collecting from your roof draining straight to the soil of where your house is planted. NOT GOOD over time and yes - it does affect your foundation and the soils stability. It essentially keeps that area saturated and can lead to your house sinking of moving very slightly - but enough to create cracks in your walls. Even a 1/2 in drop in your property an cause those hairline cracks in your interior/exterior walls - think of it, the house is basically shifting. This needed to be addressed quickly.

In addition to those little buggers, the house is on a sloped property. All the water from the houses above our grade basically drops down to our level and sits at the lowest point. If the water cant move anywhere, it will collect and sit in the soil and is usually where the foundation is - and guess what, we sit in one of those areas. Grrrrrrr. After doing research on stuff like this and getting opinions from experts, it was determined that we would eventually need a new foundation and would need some sort of water diversion under ground to move water away from our foundation. This is where the French Drains come in to play. 

There are many ways to do a French Drain and many wrongs ways to do it. For our purposes, since we are not doing a new foundation just yet, we went for the simple, yet effective route. The key for doing it the way we did it is ensuring the trench was deep enough to catch all the water below the surface before it hits our homes foundation. Here is an illustration of what it looks like and its purpose:

Basically we want to catch all the water coming down from the hill above us and have the water go into this drain before it hits our foundation and pools the soil until it makes it mud. During heavy rain, the water would never dry out and thats a bad sign for foundation and an invitation to small critters called Termites. They love damp grounds. By having this, when the water below the surface is flowing and or saturating, it collects into the pipe and then gets diverted towards the front of the house into an exit point of some sort. Since we have to build drainage across the entire length of our backyard and down the side, this was a perfect opportunity to tap in the downspouts mentioned from above so water had a place to dump into.

First step was to trench the back of the house - due to sewer lines and other blocks preventing us from getting too close to our foundation, we had to space it out about 24-36 inches away from our foundation - which is fine. The trench needed to be at least 24" deep in the shallowest part and down to up to 48"+ at the lowest part. The key to doing this properly was to ensure a proper slope so the water had somewhere to flow down. You can just put a pipe on level ground and expect the water to move down hill...but because our property is naturally sloping, this made that work much easier. 

We needed pipes - lots of it. Not regular pipes, but some that had holes to absorb water. These are specifically made for french drains. They have cheapy flexible pipes that do this, but we opted for the rigid 4" piping to ensure proper flow and maximum water pickup. Along with pipe was some rinsed rocks. The rocks would take the place of some soil and allow the water to passthrough, also acting as a filter for the pipe to ensure no debris clogs the pipes and to ensure water was getting through to the pipe. This is whats on the left - tons of rocks - about the size of a quarter.

Below are the begining phases of the trenching. You can see it is the entire length of the rear foundation. This ended up being 24" at the shallowest point and down to 48" on the deepest point. 

Below the pipe has been laid down. The process is as such - dig the trench, slop it properly, add gardening cloth (as a filter to keep soil out of the pipe, line it with some rocks, place the pipe over the rocks, add more rocks on top of the pipe, then close the fabric liner (like it was a burrito or something), then burry the remainder with more rocks and soil. You will notice some pipes sticking up - I added those as part of my design as surface drains. These will be drains that will sit on the ground level and will be cut to a desired length once we figure our what the actual ground level will be. They will alos serve as a cleanout area in case the drain gets clogged - I would be able to access the pipe from any of those areas sticking up where it is "T'd" off.

This pipe takes a bend at the side of the house downwards towards the street where the water will eventually exit. Imagine gallons and gallons of water when it rains getting absorbed through this pipe and making its way down to the street rather than pooling up in the yard and saturating our soil and foundation. Relief! 

And the thing about the downspouts - well now I have those addressed by them tapping into this same pipe that leads to the street. No more water from the roof going to the soil, now it will exit to the street. Eliminates the saturated soils in various areas of the house now too - another huge relief. 

           
These two downspouts below used to dump water straight down to the soil and to the foundation. No longer an issues. The white piping is what we added - which is tapped in under ground to a pipe that leads to the street ensuring no water is sitting during rainy days and collecting at the side of the house.



One other area that I needed to address was by the front of the house. After the first rainfall when getting this done, I was able to observe any other water issues we had and one in particular got me thinking of a way to divert water. I decided to draw it up one day and asked RonDZ to help me out in getting it done and that we did within a few hours.

Unlike the backyard, we had a barrier in that concrete was an issue and we werent just able to dig in the ground and add pipe. This was a little creative and not optimal, but to me it was genius. LOL.

So water was pooling up on the corner area of our house - where our entrance was. I do have a door to my basement where it was significant, however it was more for my personal wants to get this done - wasnt really needed, but was definitely cool to make it work the way I thought it would. Heres what I drew and we quickly went to work.

Above: Water would gather here on heavy rain. The area where the rocks and bricks are is where the water would now drain to and exit through a pipe we dug into the soil. I added an elbow on the downspout to help move the water from the roof in the right direction.
Right: This is the exit point in the front of the house (yes, not legal), but it works and is hidden enough to not question. There you will find a nice cover under the rocks that allows the water to just release into the sidewalk. Its completed work is RonDZ's work - much better than my original one I did...very clean I must say.

 Left: We found this bug when digging in the soil. Not one we've ever seen before, but wanted to snap a photo. Any ideas on what it is???

In the end, what we did ended up working for the front corner...however it will only serve a real purpose in HEAVY downpour. For light rain, the water does not pool enough and the flow of the water does not reach our rock garden catch all area...but when its raining hard enough, it does. Oh well, it was nice trying - and it works, just not 100% of the time. 

As far as the french drains, I check it every single rainfall and it is definitely working 100% for the back of the house. Money well spent and was needed.





Foundation - to touch on Foundation. We have Crawl Space rather than Slab Foundation. Basically, when I mention foundation, for our home...the only true foundation is on the perimeter of the house. Many newer homes are built on slab foundations. For us, its a must to address foundation issues because 1 - we dont have a ton of it and 2 - its VERY OLD. When we had our foundation assessed, standards on how foundations would be built today are VERY different from how ours was built. Addressing these water issues were key for us to "extend" the life of our foundation. The reason I say "extend" is because no one can really put a date on how much longer it could last. Its more of a best guess and will need to be replaced for sure. Signs of deteriorating foundation are clearly found in our foundation because of the items we addressed that the previous owners did not. Had they done that years ago, maybe this would not be an issues. Since we do have crawl space, part of addressing the water issues from above is to prevent the soil under our house from getting damp. This leads to mildew, mold, and other weird things. Luckily, even without us doing what we did, none of that existed - so it was just extra precaution.

 It is what it is...in the end, water is very damaging to your homes foundation.