Hydrostatic Pressure

Rainwater seeps into the soil and builds up pressure against your foundation walls. This "hydrostatic pressure" can exert tons of force causing your basement to leak and crack.

Cracked and Buckled Walls

Hydrostatic pressure can press against your wet basement walls causing cracks or even buckling of the walls. Heavy wet clay soil continually presses against your foundation walls. Saturated soil around your home in winter months can dramatically accelerate frost damage to your foundation.

Poor Grading

Another condition that can sometimes appear is high ground water. Water that can leak in may simply be surface water entering over or through the foundation, over and through window openings, seams between the floor or walls, and possibly flaws in the foundation.

Poor surface grading can direct water towards basement windows where it can spill over.  By not paying attention during heavy rains, a homeowner can sometimes end up blaming the wrong culprit. The soil around the foundation should slope away from the house at least 1 inch per foot for 6 feet or more. If you have planting beds along the foundation, make sure the grading of the bed, its edging, or the edge of the lawn isn't keeping water from draining away from the house.

Landscape Bed Grading

 Did you ever notice that black line painted on the outside of your foundation wall? The painted line is a grading mark to show where the grade (topsoil) is to be. This keeps the water away from your house foundation. Over the years the ground sinks from new landscaping, the weight from decorative stone, wet snow, drought damage, poorly installed plants, or gutters  leaking over from the roof, or a host of other reasons not seen.        

      Upon our inspection we will be able to determine what’s going on and find a suitable repair.

Rebuilding Landscape Beds

Once we find your problem, rebuilding your landscape beds can be as simple as removing some plants, tilling in compost and topsoil, properly pitching the grade, re-installing the existing plants, or adding new plants.

Some of the water issues we have witnessed over the years have been:

• Corrugated pipe improperly installed

• Corrugated pipe that is crushed, cut in half, buried to deep or to shallow

• Some pipes were too small and improperly pitched

•  Improperly pitched drainage pipe can drain back to your home or even to your neighbor’s property or home.

• Cracks at upper corners of windows and doors (uneven foundation settling)

• Mushrooms or fungus growing out of siding (moisture in the walls)

• Soft boards or loose rails on outdoor decks (decaying deck structure)

• Soggy ground and lush vegetation around septic tank   (overfilled or failing septic tank)

• Scratches or algae on siding (overgrown trees or plants)

 Gutter Down Spouts

Storm water drainage from roofs is a topic sometimes ignored by builders and homeowners alike. I can’t tell you how many houses I see where the downspouts empty onto a ‘splash block’ at the base of the foundation. Most of the time these ‘splash blocks’ are not pitched away from the house!  They are leaning towards the foundation or left level. Often homeowners are plagued with water seepage into basements or crawlspaces and it’s no wonder. A heavy rainfall on an average sized roof can produce hundreds and thousands of gallons of water that spew from the different downspouts located around the house.

We consistently install 4” PVC underground pipe lines that meet with your downspouts to evenly spread the rain water from your roof.  By installing these pipe lines, we are preventing water from accumulating around foundation walls and basements.  The pipe line evenly distributes rain water 6 to100 feet from home's foundation preventing damaging washouts or gullies on the lawn.

Sump Pump Discharges

If you are living in a new home, you already know that the sump pump goes off many times during a 24 hour day, even when it’s not raining. This is normal for your new home for the first two years. In some older homes the sump pump works as hard as in some newer homes.  Installation of underground 4” PVC pipe will re-direct your buried sump pump line from flowing back to your house foundation. In some cases, installing underground PVC pipe will dry out lawn areas, and discharge water where it won’t interfere with your outside actives.

 Other options for water drainage are:

• French Drains

• Dry Creek Beds and or natural drains

• Swales

• Flagstone Creek Beds

• Stone Creek Beds

• Outside Sump Pumps

• Removing debris from garage apron/street drains and outside door drains

• Re-grading front and back lawns

• Installing drains in concrete/brick/asphalt driveway aprons

Please call our office for further information and appointments.

Ken Feller

Feller Landscape Group

630-372-7250