Residential Exterior Drainage Repair
Northwest Crawl Space Services specializes in residential exterior drainage repair and sump pump installation services.
Exterior drainage isn’t considered as a crawl space service, but it most definitely can impact your crawl space. Exterior drainage failure or deficiency can cause water seepage under or through the house’s foundation and can result in standing water in the crawl space or even a flood.
What are some reasons your home's exterior drainage may be having problems?
Topography: The topographic shape of a property affects the flow path of water in it. Slopes, elevations, hills and valleys will affect the water distribution and concentration around your house. For example a steep slope will reduce the amount of infiltration of water into the ground and lead to a flood in the lower part it channeled to. Unless the topography of a property naturally prevents floods and overly saturated soil, a drainage system as a French drain is very necessary.
Age of Your System: Almost all houses in the Pacific Northwest have exterior drainage systems. Drain pipes tend to get clogged during the years unless it got maintained properly and constantly. Also, growth of tree roots and other plants spreads with time and can grow thorough drain pipes and damage or get them out of their optimal route which will create a drainage failure.
Faulty Installation: Failure to install exterior drainage pipe correctly can lead to a major issue as a flooded crawl space. For example, locating drain pipe wrong and create negative elevation can create a back-flow of water into crawl space emergency/gravity drain and flood the crawl space. During the years of operation, our company had to deal with many crawl space emergency discharge drains that brought water into the crawl space instead of channel it out.
Lack of City Infrastructure: In certain living areas, proper storm drains were never installed in the streets by the city. Unless the topography of the land can allow free flowing drain, this situation can end up with no optimal option to drain rain water away and make people live with a constant bad drainage issues as floods and saturated ground.
Exterior Drainage Services We Provide
French Drain: French drains are essentially perforated and filtered buried pipes that use gravity to carry water in the soil away from the problem area. Starts at the problem area, routed downhill, and ends away into a safely drained area as the street, storm drain, catch basin or any slope that can channel the water into an area that can be used as an acceptable drain field.
Foundation Drain: Foundation drains are basically a network of French drains that installed under your foundation or basement floor to collect water and move it off-site to prevent your basement or crawl space from filling up with water. Over the years, this system tends to fail and get overwhelmed easily, what would result in a failure and water penetration to your crawl space or basement. Here at Northwest Crawl Space Services, we will replace your old foundation drainage system with a brand-new system for your house if required and will keep your basement/crawl space dry.
Gutter Downspout Drains: For every house with gutters and downspout system, it is required to have downspout drainage system to channel the water safely away. If you live in an older house that has never had proper downspout drain system installed, we are the ones to help you. Here at Northwest Crawl Space Services, we will provide you with a free quote to install a professional drain system with maintenance plan and 10 years warranty. If your house has a downspout drainage system but you suspect that it’s not functioning well, we can provide drain pipe inspection, repairs and preventive care.
Catch Basin and Sump Pumps: Some properties are in areas that the topography doesn’t allow free flow drains due to elevations and essentially being in lower point than surrounding. If you are facing the same issue at your house contact us here at Northwest Crawl Space Services. We can channel your drainage system into a catch basin that can collect water from French drains, foundation drains, downspout drains or even your driveway drain and by using a sump pump to channel the water against gravity to any acceptable drain point.