What To Do About Standing Water Under Your Crawl Space Home

It’s always wet under your home, like really wet, i.e. standing water wet. You know this can’t be good and you want to fix your soggy crawl space. You know that solving excess moisture issues and drainage problems is likely beneficial, but maybe you don’t understand why it’s so important. The other problem is, you don’t know how to get started.

What should you do to begin addressing your standing water woes and keep your crawl space or pier and beam foundation in good shape?

At Anchor Foundation Repair, we want what’s best for you and your home and that includes a stable foundation in optimal conditions. We’ve seen the long and midterm effects of excess water in a crawl space and you’re right, it’s not good. We can make recommendations to help get you and all that water moving in the right direction.

This article covers the common causes of standing water in a crawl space and why it’s important to get rid of excess moisture. We discuss steps to work through to keep the area under and around your home dry and who can help you get ‘er done.

Common Causes of Wet Crawl Spaces

Determining the source cause of the excess moisture issue under your home is the first step in beginning to address the problem. The general cause of all wet crawl spaces is related to either:

1. Rain and poor drainage, OR 
2. Plumbing issues.

Hopefully, you don’t have both of these problems going on, it’s typically one or the other. You’re going to take different actions depending on the big, overarching problem that’s creating this soggy situation. 

Correcting plumbing issues in a crawl space is far more straightforward than fixing drainage issues. Got a leak? Call a plumber. Boom, you’re done with that one. So knowing what is causing all the water to hang out under your home is the first step in knowing how to handle it from there.

Rain and Poor Drainage Issues

Drainage problems can be caused by poor soil grading and slope in your yard that directs water under your home instead of away. Lack of or inadequate guttering systems and missing or non-optimal downspout extensions can also cause poor drainage situations. Even improperly sloped sidewalks, patios, or driveways contribute to drainage issues around a home.

Plumbing Issues

With plumbing issues, you can have a drain line leak that allows water and *other materials* to empty under your home due to broken or degraded lines. Picking up on drain line leaks is not always immediately noticeable and can go on for long periods with homeowners unaware of the issue. 

A water leak in supply lines can cause a lot of wetness suddenly. You might notice this problem a little more quickly than drain line issues as it will result in higher water bills. Nevertheless, supply leaks still could go on for longer than you realize since water bills are frequently quite delayed from usage time. 

In any moisture-laden environment, mold and growth can start proliferating within a few weeks on crawl space surfaces. So even with supply line leaks, other damage can still happen faster than you think.

Why to Move Standing Water Out From Under Your Home

Most homeowners likely know that water under their home is *no bueno*. But you might not realize just how bad it can get if standing water sticks around unchecked, especially under a pier and beam or crawl space foundation home. 

Sure, a little water won’t hurt for a little while. If that *little while* turns into weeks, months, and years of excess moisture, then problems develop with compounding damage, costs, and even health risks the longer the water remains. You end up with:

• Wood rot, mold, and mildew growth,
• Smells and sewage,
• Termites,
• Flooring issues and floor system degradation,
• Risk of injury or illness,
• Lack of home and floor stability, and
• Eventual crawl space foundation problems.

All of these issues result in higher and higher costs with increased time in soggy conditions and the more mayhem the moisture will inflict. More time with way too much water = more damage = more money to spend fixing it all. 

It’s better to spend time, money, and effort sooner rather than later to remedy standing water problems. The longer you wait, the more that can go wrong.

What to Do to Keep Your Crawl Space Foundation Dry

Unless it’s a plumbing issue, correcting excess water under a home is not usually a quick fix. Be prepared to work through several steps to begin solving a standing water problem due to poor drainage. Water is unruly and difficult to control, so start with one solution and keep chipping away at the issue until your crawl space stays as dry as possible.

Here’s a list of things to check, improve, and optimize in general order (priorities could be different depending on your situation, this is just a logical list). If you can’t do anything in one department, move on to the next one. Steps to take to keep your crawl space foundation dry:

1. Add or improve gutters, including downspout extensions that carry water away,
2. Regrade the yard, add surface drainage and/or swales,
3. Raise flat concrete surfaces as needed to angle away from home,
4. Fill voids under the perimeter beam with mud pumping (if applicable),
5. Choose a crawl space water management system, and
6. Add a sump pump if all else fails to control the water under your home.

Let’s talk in more detail about each one of these and we’ll also direct you to appropriate contractors when possible.

1. Adding Gutters and Downspouts

If you don’t have gutters and you have a problem with water under your home, get gutters first and foremost. If you’ve already got gutters, make sure they are in good repair and not leaking, damaged, or filled with debris. If they are faulty, get them fixed. 

Gutters are good, but downspout extensions are better. Many guttering systems have downspouts that empty out right at the base of your home – not good for keeping your crawl space dry at all. 

Downspout extensions carry water farther away and 6 to 8 feet away from the foundation is the recommended *minimum*. The farther, the better. Buried downspout extensions can even take the water all the way to the curb!

Do everything you can with gutters and downspout extensions to move rainwater away so that it does not accumulate under your house. If you’re here in the Brazos Valley, check out these long-time local gutter contractors or call Anchor if you need help with downspout extensions.

2. Regrading the Yard, Adding Surface Drainage, and Swales

Sometimes it’s a matter of the yard sloping in the wrong direction i.e. towards your home. If the yard funnels all the water under your house sometimes regrading can direct the flow the other way. Soil regrading alone might not be enough depending on where the water likes to pool and gather.

Other means of surface drainage can be useful anywhere that water accumulation is high. We’ve got an article detailing various ground drainage options around your foundation that can apply to crawl space homes too. It’s too much to cram into this article.

3. Raising Flat Concrete Surfaces

Flat concrete sections act like a waterslide so you don’t want them pointing in the wrong direction. These surfaces should not be sloped toward your home and likely were not sloped toward your home when first installed. If there’s a sidewalk, driveway, or patio that has sunken and is now sloping towards your house instead of away from it, you can raise the surface back into the correct position. 

If one of these concrete flatwork surfaces is carrying water toward the house, it has likely settled or sunken. These concrete panels can be raised and restored to the proper slope away from the home.

Anchor does something called mud jacking to return otherwise good concrete to its original elevation and slope. For more information on the benefits and process of mud jacking, check out What Is Mud Jacking and How Is It Done?

4. Filling Voids Under the Perimeter Beam

With true pier and beam foundations, the solid perimeter beam around the house often develops voids underneath them that allow water to intrude into the crawl space. Filling those gaps can keep the water from flowing where you don’t want it to go.

Anchor does something called mud pumping that fills underground voids with a flowing slurry mixture made from water, topsoil, and Portland cement. The slurry dries into a hardened sandstone-like material that can block the water and fill the voids under the beam.

Here’s more info about mud pumping to fill voids under your home. Although the article talks more about slab foundations, the mud pumping principles still apply to this scenario.

5. Choosing a Crawl Space Water Management System

Depending on where you live, crawl space water management may come in different forms. It could be mostly about ventilation or more about dehumidifying. But often, it’s about finding anyone to even help you with these issues because there are not many contractors who deal with crawl space home issues like this in the first place.

Because of major flooring issues caused by our recent rainy summers, we have stepped up to fill this need for more extensive crawl space moisture management in our area. Packages range from simple to more complex and depend on whether you need more air, less humidity, or water collection and redirection.

Here’s an article about what Anchor Foundation Repair has to offer to keep your crawl space as dry as possible.

6. Installing a Sump Pump

Try all the other water management means first. If you simply can’t keep the water out by any of the other means listed above, the sump pump is your last resort. You might be tempted to skip to the sump pump directly because you think, “Why not start with the heaviest hitter?” 

A sump pump is the last option because the ideal thing is for the water to not get under your home in the first place, it’s just better to not let the water in if you can (see all the reasons we listed about why to get water out of your crawl space). 

But sometimes your home situation cannot reach this dry crawl space ideal, unfortunately.

A sump pump abandons the idea that you can keep the water away by redirection or barriers. At this point, you are essentially accepting the fact that you cannot stop the water from getting in and are going to deal with it after it gets under there.

The sump pump creates a way to gather the water up and send it away instead. A sump pump is a mechanical system that collects water into a centralized location (aka a sump) and then sends it out from under your home with an electric water pump. Hence, the *super creative* sump pump name.

Anchor includes the sump pump option as part of the crawl space water management offerings we talked about above. If you’re not in the Bryan, College Station, or Brazos Valley area, look for contractors with sump pump installation experience. 

Best Way to Move Towards a Drier Foundation

Now that you know all the steps you can take to work toward a drier crawl space, keep in mind that it’s often a multi-pronged approach. You might need to do a couple of things simultaneously and pause to see how they are working. Then, take another stab at it after evaluating the results.

At Anchor Foundation Repair, we care about getting your home in good shape and doing it the right way. We’ve been helping Brazos Valley homeowners make foundation decisions for 40+ years, sometimes we can help with your issues and sometimes we can’t, and are happy to point you in the right direction instead.

We can help with many of the steps we talked about above like mud jacking, mud pumping, crawl space water management, and replacing rotten wood damaged by moisture. We can’t help with gutters (we already gave you a link for that) and aren’t diving into the ground drainage game either. For regrading, surface drainage, swales and the like, your best bet is one of these local landscaping contractors.