Waterproofing Questions

RickW

Ok so I am a landscape contractor and I want to do some waterproofing around my home. I have done several french drains, but never around a house. I am planning on doing a french drain w/ drain tile around the house and running all my gutters away from the house. I have water in my crawl space when it rains and it is damp when it is not raining. I have attached some paint sketches of the layout.

Do I need to backfill with gravel all the way down to the footer? Do I need to have the drain tile at the bottom of the footer? Do I need to have the french drain run in front of the garage slab and porch slab? What type of coating would you put on the foundation?

I think I am going to use some type of pvc for the drain tile, I really don't have much respect for the corrugated pipe any more... at least in the 4" size. Any help would be appreciated.

samccard

I would call someone who deals with this type of problem.

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gorenx

Depends upon where you live. Check your local codes. The reason for gravel around the foundation is to prevent frost heave. Is your foundation insulated? If so, what type of insulation is it and is it just vertical or do you have both vertical and horizontal insulation? The key thing is keeping water AWAY from the foundation. God forbid it should wash out the soil under your foundation



Swimming pool contractors use something called Deck-O-Drain. You might be able to use that along the garage and patio/porches. For more info just google deck-o-drain. I tried to post the link to their website but I have not made 15 posts yet

Kekeever

Not knowing your exact situation topography etc... Here's a little info that may help. The first thing to do is make sure the grade around your house is sloping away from your foundation. Most water issues like yours are caused by surface water being directed towards the house due to bad site prep. The next thing would be to tight line your downspouts to a drywell or city runoff system if available. Here in Seattle many homes have downspouts tied into the sewer system. This is not a good system environmentally as heavy rains over run our sewage treatment and send sewage into the Puget Sound. That's another topic. Anyway you can also catch the surface water and move it by digging a 16" wide sloping trench (your french drain) install filter fabric (not the cheap stuff at box stores but geo tech fabric used in road construction or similar). The filter fabric should be cut long enough to fully wrap the backfilled trench. Fill the trench with 4" or so of pee gravel. Install 4" PVC perforated pipe with the holes facing down and backfill with pee gravel and cover the pipe. Enclose the trench with the fabric and then re cover with your soil.

I created a basement out of a very wet crawlspace for a client. The house was on a steep hill and a stream was adjacent to the property. Part of the stream had diverted into the crawl making it a marsh. We put a network of the system described above to direct the water in the crawl back to the stream it came from. It worked very well. We went on to build out the basement which included hardwood floors and we never had a problem.

Hope this is helpful

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RickW

Thanks for the responses.

Rockmonster

The coating on your foundation can be many different things, depending on what you want to spend....vulcanized sprayed on, very costly, bulletproof. You can also spray that asphaltic, heated. Very good, not too expensive. Thoroseal, brush on. Do it yourself, not too expensive. Parge with many different products, some absolutely bulletproof as well. Do a little research, there are a lot of choices....gl