Water in ,my crawlspace.

[musiclawyer]

I live in a house on a down slope, regular cement foundation, dirt crawlspace, not slab. On the down-slope side of the house, at one corner of the crawl space, a big muddy puddle of water tends to collect during heavy rains--about four inches high. Rest of the crawlspace is pretty dry. Four more inches and it would be hitting the top of foundation where cement meets wood. That's why I'm worried. I think it's just water meandering through the hillside rocks and coming up where nature wants it to. It seems like I should have someone put in a French drain at that spot and drill a small escape hole in the foundation. That way, water would just collect and flow out the hole. Not being a contractor or anything of the sort, does that sound like a reasonable solution?

[Droopy]

1. I don't know what a French drain is.

But it sounds like you need to do something. It would be a major bummer to have a flooded house. Where do you live at? I live in southwestern Ohio and we have had a lot of flooding here.

[Xithras]

2. Sounds like the perfect solution

My grandmothers house had a similar problem with water collecting in the crawlspace. We put a french drain system in for her with an outlet pipe draining the water downhill from her house. She hasn't had a problem since.

[musiclawyer]

3. I live in the Californioa Sierra Foothills

It's really waterlogged now. I think this weather has something to do with global warming. ........ So I take it that someone who knows what he's doing can drill a nice round, small hole in the foundation adn not compromise the foundation's integrity?

[Xithras]

4. Not global warming, heck this isn't even particularly bad for us

I take it you don't remember the 1997 or 1986 floods, both of which followed storms far worse than the ones that have been hitting us lately. This kind of sustain rainfall isn't common, but it does happen periodically and is perfectly normal for northern California. Before the days of the levees these kinds of storms would join the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers into one vast body of water and replenish the entire floodplain between them.

And yes, a hole can be drilled in your foundation to allow water to exit without undermining your foundations integrity, but you'll want to make sure that it is properly piped away from the house, DOWNHILL, so the hole doesn't become a way for water to get IN.

By the way, I used to own a beautiful piece of land up in Columbia myself, but sold it because I got tired of dealing with the methhead theives and the freeper neighbors. I'm thinking about giving it another go with some acres up by Coulterville, but I was just offered a piece of land near Murphys and was wondering what you thought of that area. I've been up 4 quite a few times over the years, but I'm not familiar enough with the area to know if it shares the same problems as Columbia.

[musiclawyer]

5. The foothills are gentrified now.

(And thanks for the advice by the way). A lot of the old time ranchers and local yahoos don't like it, but Murphys is very upscale now and super-overpriced. There's a new vinyard and wine-tasting room opening up every month it seems. It's now called the Carmel of the Mountains. I bought a house 9 years ago for 160K . Now it's worth 450K, easy. It's nuts. Columbia's not too far behind. There's a lot more progressive people up here in the mountains now--virually all Bay Area or coastal retirees who cashed out and drove up prices.

[Xithras]

6. Really? Wow!

I didn't know Murphys was so expensive. The properties current owner offered me the entire 3.5 acres for just over $200k, but I wasn't sure because I didn't know the area and because the property is entirely unimproved (it has road access, but no power or phone and there is no developed homesite). If the values are going up that much I should probably buy it for its investment value alone, even if I never want to move onto it myself!

For comparison, by the way, I sold my Columbia property in 1996...12 acres just up the road from Columbia College with a 1940's 900SF 2BR cabin, for $68,000 and it sat on the market for MONTHS. I'm shocked that foothill land prices have climbed that much!

Thanks!