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I'm hoping I can be fortunate enough to get responses from an experienced contractor or other home/building professional regarding this.
I am wondering if it's necessarry for my grandmother to protect water from seeping underneath the foundation of her house (or if that can even happen in this case).
Some info about her home:
* built in 1969
* no basement
* all other areas of the house are cemented in
* no visisble gaps in foundation at ground-level (below the ground, we have no idea)
She lives in San diego, CA (clairemont area, on a large hill over a canyon) and a few miles from the bay, so we're fairly high above sea level. But the thing that concerns me is heavy rains over one part of the house.
As you can see in the pics below, there is one side of the house which is not cemented. This used to be a home-made drainage channel, but since has broken up, and the rain drains into the ground dirt right underneath.
So my question is, do we need to re-cement this or is it even an issue to begin with? If we do need to do something about it, any REAALLY cost-efficient ideas (even if it takes a bit of extra work on my part)?? We've got to try and stay below $100 if possible for this repair.
Thanks so much for your time and help!
Last edited by citybum; 04-01-2010 at 06:37 PM..
Reason: pics wont post
I don't really see any issue.
There are gutters on the house- so the majority of runoff is controlled. I would be concerned about there being slashblocks(?) at a minimum. Or better yet have the downspouts piped at least 6' away from the house.
The main concern would be having proper slope away from the house. There should be a minimum of 6-in-10 (6" of fall for 10' of run). And there should be at least 6" of exposed foundation. If you don't have these minimum requirements- pull out the shovels. All that can be accomplished for less than a C-note.
It doesn't look quite like slab on grade, so the worst issues would be limited to wicking and maybe a little undermining. Unlike KB, I don't trust gutters. I've seen too many times when the combination of debris and a heavy storm made them worthless- especially with the small almost decorative aluminum downspouts.
It looks like there are three courses of patio blocks. Any possibility of moving the outer course to right up tight against the house, with the block sloping outward a little? That would force major runoff away from the foundation.
OK, an expert has answered now, so I'll throw my un-expert 2 cents in
We don't get days and days of wet weather in SoCal, these past few months was an anomaly. Plus you don't have hard clay in San Diego, so the soil has good drainage. And plenty of sunshine to dry the puddles.
During the rains this year, I put cookie pans under my downspouts -- whoosh, the water shot away from the house
It's pretty informative about the kinds of problems you are having.
I don't recall anything about a problem(?)
OP has concern about current condition- it's hardly a "foundation problem" (the site wasn't "informative at all- just a typical commerce business site. That my nice way of saying "scare tactics").
Wow, thank you all for the quick and informative replies! There's something I meant to mention before but didn't: as you can see (hopefully) in the pic (link below), we have a drainage ditch nearby and was wondering if it's better for me to just re-do this ditch along the foundation by adding in a metal lining or something to drain water into that one?
Let's see if I can get this pic thing to work this time:
I also forgot to mention that none of the brick tiles are laid in cement...it's all just laid on top of a dirt+sand mixture (per grandpappy's original recipe, lol).
Sorry. Tryin to think of everything here. I'm clueless when it comes to these things. I actually had to lookup the terminology some of you were using to understand what you were saying! lol. yes, THAT clueless.
(btw I will have no internet access for this weekend unfortunately, so I will reply further to individual responses after that. THANKS AGAIN!)
CB
Last edited by citybum; 04-02-2010 at 05:30 PM..
Reason: stuff
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