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Foundation Drainage
Seattle If you suspect a drainage problem around your home then you probably have one. If there is "ponding" of water in your yard or near your home's foundation after a rain storm then you definitely have a foundation drainage problem. During a quiet moment, have you ever heard your home "crack?" (Warning signs of Foundation Problems) If so, then it is moving due to soil movement. There are a number of problems associated with poor drainage around a home's foundation. A list of these problems appears below.
Poor Foundation Drainage and Resulting Problems
Foundation Damage - Excess water will saturate the clay soils around and under the perimeter of the home's foundation. This will cause extreme expansion of these soils because clay soils expand in volume when wet. The extreme expansion in soil volume around and under the foundation's perimeter can cause Upheaval, which is a process where part of the foundation is lifted ABOVE its original elevation.
Interior and Exterior Wall Damage - Upheaval frequently creates cracks on interior and exterior walls. They are very obvious and often occur near door frames and windows.
Door and Window Problems - Upheaval also results in windows and doors that do not open and close properly.
Landscaping Damage - Poor drainage can result in damage to landscaping.
Flooding through Weep Holes - Excess water can pool near the home's foundation and enter the home through the exterior weep holes. Weep holes are intentionally built into the exterior walls of the home to allow for proper ventilation but when water enters these weep holes in volume the result can be thousands of dollars in damage.
Mold and Insect Infestation - Excess water that occasionally enters the exterior weep holes in smaller amounts can result in serious problems with mold. In addition, the moist environment is attractive to insects and small mice.
Ideally, the home builder that built your home took all the necessary steps to prevent a drainage problem with your home. Hopefully, your home was built on the "high point" and your yards are sloping away from your home. However, the reality is that many times home builders spend too little effort and/or money on addressing drainage issues such as slope or grade contour. Your home's lot may be too close to flat for water to easily flow away from the home. When this is the case, the problem is magnified when large volumes of water flow off the roof and drain next to the home. Unfortunately in these cases, the drainage issues are present from the first day the home was completed and now the homeowner has to fix it.
Landscapers can also be coconspirators with a foundation drainage problem. All too often the landscapers are not trained and they will add soil and plants that actually create water pooling near the foundation and easy water entry into weep holes! Look at your landscaping with a keen eye. Does it slope toward the base of your home? What is the distance between the bottom of the weep holes and the ground? When water does enter the weep holes, landscapers are often the guilty party along with a heavy rain storm.
The goal with proper drainage is to carry water away from the home and the home foundation. The home should have been built with at least a 5 percent slope away from the base of the foundation. This equates to about a 6 inch drop in elevation for every 10 feet of distance from the base of the foundation. The rainwater should flow down the slope into the street and storm sewers. Other tools can and should be used to help direct the water from the heaviest of rain storms. Roof gutters are key to helping divert large volumes of water from the base of the foundation. The gutters should have downspouts and any necessary extensions to divert the rainwater into the street and storm sewer. Diversion channels or landscaping channels can also be part of the landscaping to help divert water away from the home.
Tree Roots And Root Barricades
Tree roots can cause foundation problems. There are many causes for concrete slab foundation problems including outside drainage problems, moisture fluctuations in the underlying clay soils, soil conditions and plumbing and sewer line leaks. However, in our experience, one of the biggest single causes is differential settlement due to large trees. Large trees like Oaks, have extensive tap root systems that extract large amounts of water from the soil, which can cause major damage and require home foundation repair.
These large trees remove disproportionate amounts of moisture from soils under and adjacent to foundations. That is, a large tree on one side of your house will cause your home foundation to settle faster in the area the tree is located. That side will tend to settle due to moisture loss while the other sides of the house do not. The result is that the soil in this area will shrink (due to moisture loss) and separate from the bottom of the foundation. This area of shrinkage creates a void and when the area of the void becomes too large the concrete foundation will collapse to find its support, causing one or more cracks in the home foundation.
If a tree is very close to your home then the solution is to remove the tree to avoid a home foundation repair job. If the tree is further away from the home foundation (20 to 30 feet), we can install a root barricade three to five feet from the exterior walls of your home. The root barricade will prevent tree roots from removing moisture from the soil that is in the immediate vicinity of the home's foundation.
Installation of root barricades requires overlapping sheets of non-biodegradable 1/4" thick Plexiglas to a depth of approximately 30" inches. This will prevent tree roots from growing past the root barricade.
In our opinion, root barricades can be helpful in preventing interior settlement problems, but will be limited in preventing exterior settlement. That is, they can help prevent the need for interior piers but not exterior piers if the tree is close to the house. So if you want the trees than drainage is more important to you than someone who has no trees as far as your house is concerned.