Home repair question

aloneintexas · #1 04/28/09, 10:56 AM

Hello,

I have a house leveling and rainwater runoff question, but I dont see a specific forum for this. Where would be the best place to post this question?

Tommy

watcher · #2 04/28/09, 11:26 AM

I don't know about the best place to post it but the shop talk forum would be a good place to start. If you don't get a good answer there you could post it in one of the others

**Cabin Fever** · #3 04/28/09, 11:28 AM

Posting it here is quite all right. So, what;s the problem?

aloneintexas · #4 05/04/09, 08:34 AM

Thanks,

My house in the country is on a slope. The front of the house is about 2 feet off of the ground and the back is about 3 feet off of the ground. There has been water running under the house every time there is a heavy rain for about 10 years. The property 100 yards in front of the house is downhill, therefore its like a gigantic roof running off water under the house. I was thinking about building a half circle trench around the house and making a walkway across it to the front door. I can also install guttering a direct it to this trench. The blocks the house is sitting on are sinking due to the water problem. This is causing a leveling nightmare.

Any suggestions?

Tommy

ronbre · #5 05/04/09, 09:56 AM

use a french drain..bury it in a trench around the house and then top fill with coarse gravel, the drain tube is like a big corrugated black plastic tube with a sock around the outside..to keep sedeiment from blocking it..bury it about 2' deep in a wide trench around the house..and then lay clean coarse gravel over the top to JUST ABOUT level with the soil..but leaving a depression enough to gather the water..take it around to the lowest part of the property and then put a Y on it and add another piece to carry the water away to a lower area..if you need a place for the water to go and there is none, you can create a pond or a rain garden..for rain gardens look under permaculture..there are plenty of examples..on thread on www.permies.com with pix in the title has a link to rain gardens on it..you can go there to find more information.

Yvonne's hubby · #6 05/04/09, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aloneintexas

Thanks,

My house in the country is on a slope. The front of the house is about 2 feet off of the ground and the back is about 3 feet off of the ground. There has been water running under the house every time there is a heavy rain for about 10 years. The property 100 yards in front of the house is downhill, therefore its like a gigantic roof running off water under the house. I was thinking about building a half circle trench around the house and making a walkway across it to the front door. I can also install guttering a direct it to this trench. The blocks the house is sitting on are sinking due to the water problem. This is causing a leveling nightmare.

Any suggestions?

Tommy

The french drain described above works well, so will the trench you mentioned. Either way you need to get the water to drain away from the house. Once you have accomplished that, and the ground is solid then you can rework the foundation in small sections at a time, once its level and solid, the house should be level.

KindredSpirit · #7 05/04/09, 11:04 PM

I was just researching french drains the other day. Here is a site with detailed description of how to do it and pics.

http://www.askthebuilder.com/B175_So..._Systems.shtml

aloneintexas · #8 05/05/09, 12:53 AM

A french drain does sound like a great idea. I saw something a few months back in a Lowes booklet that showed someone with just a shallow trench around thier house with a bridge and the bottom of the trench had vegetation cloth and gravel in it. The bottom of this trench was much lower that the surrounding ground. Have any of yall seen anything like this?

I was very decorative as well as functional. For the life of me I cant find that booklet.

Tommy

MN Gardener · #9 05/05/09, 01:21 PM

Gutters should help a lot. Many water problems can be solved by just putting gutter on a house.

RosewoodfarmVA · #10 05/05/09, 03:18 PM

You can dig your large ditch in front, about 1 ft deep by 3 ft wide, then fill with large gravel, 2" size, cover with a little smaller gravel until it's level. You then have a nice walkway in your yard, level so no mowing or landscaping problems, and the rain runoff will be intercepted by the ditch and travel through the big rock around the house. Of course using pipe (like a french drain) will allow the water to travel faster but unless you have a flood, gravel filled ditch will work as well.

fordy · #11 05/05/09, 09:04 PM

................A very simple way to divert the run off is too take a tractor with say a 6 foot box blade , and simply build a speed bump all the way around the house . You can push dirt up in a rough pile and use the frontend loader to pack and form a speed bump . As the water hits the berm it will be diverted , out , too each side of the house . It won't last forever , but it is relatively easy to do , and cheap , even if you have to rent a tractor to do the work .
................An even better idea would be to have 2 , 10 yard loads of #2 road base hauled in and spotted on each corner of the house , then use the frontend loader to haul the material to form up the berm . Road base can be shaped when wet , and it gets , Very hard when dry . , fordy

aloneintexas · #12 06/26/09, 09:53 PM

OK guys,

2 months later and I have a short video of my place. I am having to work on getting it ready to move in a little at a time. I am afraid a french drain would not work because the water is not collecting anywhere. The water is running in a stream downhill under and out the back of my house. I hope this video helps explain what I am talking about.

Tommy

Home repair question - Homesteading Questions

artificer · #13 06/27/09, 07:15 AM

People probably thought you had a HILL.

Your slope, from the video, looks very shallow. If so, then Fordy's berm idea to divert the water away from the upside of the house will work.

Is the slope as shallow as it looks in the video? (a rise of a foot or two in 20'-40'?)

If there is a depression that runs from the top of the slope down under the house, you have to fill it in. Instead of a ravine, you need a ridge. If you put a berm straight across the back yard, (perpendicular to the slope) and it has the dip, you will end up with a dam/pond. One solution is to make the berm angled. Chevron shaped with the point going up slope would be good. The goal is to divert the water, and not have any ponding.

The french drain just diverts the water, it doesn't really "drain." As long as it has the proper slope, it will keep the water from going under the house. If you have the dip/valley under the house, the drain needs to be chevron shaped like the berm above.

Think of it this way: if you put a pile of dirt in a U around the back of the house, how is the water going to cross it? (from one side, around the back, to the other side)

Michael

Yvonne's hubby · #14 06/27/09, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artificer

Think of it this way: if you put a pile of dirt in a U around the back of the house, how is the water going to cross it? (from one side, around the back, to the other side)

Michael

Its very likely that the water will simply soak through the soil, not enough slope there to divert it with a dike properly. I think his best bet was his first idea, simply run a ditch across the front of the house, and around one side to the back and away from the house. That gets rid of the water as it comes down the slope, no danger of it soaking in. Gutters are going to be a "must" too if he wants to end his water problem.