Did you know that, according to The Balance, the cost of repairing clean water damage can be as much as $3.75 per square foot? If it’s caused by gray water, this cost is around $4.50 a square foot while it’s around $7 a square foot for black water damage.
If you have standing water under your house, you could end up with damage that’s costly to clean up. It could also have significant negative effects on your home’s foundation, furniture, walls, and more.
Fortunately, by knowing what the causes for standing water under your house are, its effects, and our solutions, you can solve this problem.
In this article, we’ll review everything you need to know about standing water in your home.
Finally, you can get the repairs you need, keeping your home secure and your family safe. Read on to learn more.
Potential Reasons Why You Have Standing Water Under Your House
The reasons you might have standing water under your home include a clogged low-point drain, leaking pipes, cracks in the foundation of your home, issues with foundation vents, and moisture from the ground. Let’s review these in detail now.
Clogged Low-Point Drain
If you’ve noticed standing water in the crawl space under your house, this might be because you have a low-point drain in your crawl space that’s become clogged. When working properly, water in these drains goes through the pipe and is emptied onto the street.
However, if it hasn’t been installed with a filter, this drain can become clogged easily. As a result, it starts to leak into your crawl space.
If you’ve check out your low-point drain and found that it’s submerged underwater, chances are it being clogged is the reason why you have standing water.
Leaking Pipes
If you’ve noticed standing water under the house smell, there might be leaking pipes in your crawl space. To check to see if this is the issue, turn on your water and take a look at the pipes. If you notice a leak, it’s time to call in a professional to replace or repair the pipe.
Cracks in Your Foundation
Another possible cause of standing water is cracks in your foundation. When it becomes cracked, it’s easy for water to seep in from outside your home. Take a look at your foundation, searching for any cracks. If you see water going through them, this is the cause.
Foundation Vents
Sometimes, water can get in through your home’s foundation vents. If you’ve noticed that your home slopes toward the vent, it’s likely this could be the cause. Look at the vent screen. If it’s wet, water might be coming into your home through the vent.
Moisture From the Ground
If you notice exposed dirt in your crawlspace, this is a red flag. When you have dirt in that area, moisture can rise through it and come into your home. This is often the case if drainage or landscaping around your home hasn’t been done correctly.
Specifically, if your vapor barrier hasn’t been installed correctly or has become damaged, this often allows moisture from the ground to come into your home.
The Effects of Standing Water Under Your House
The reason it’s so important to repair standing water under your house is that it can have negative effects. These include health issues you and your family could experience, expensive damage to your home, and attracting unwanted pests.
Potential Health Issues
When you have moisture in your home, this can cause mold and mildew to spread. If you’re sensitive to mold, you could end up experiencing symptoms such as red or itchy skin or eyes, wheezing, or a stuffy nose.
If anyone in your family has asthma, this could cause severe reactions. These include shortness of breath and fever, as well as coughs and respiratory tract infections.
Expensive Damage to Your Home
If the standing water takes over your home, especially the crawlspace, this could cause decay and rot, weakening structural areas of your home and putting you in a position where you have to make expensive, extensive repairs to your home.
By taking the steps needed when it comes to how to remove standing water from under your house, you’ll save money in the long run.
Unwanted Pests
Finally, standing water under your home can draw insects such as carpenter ants and termites into your home. They could damage your home even more than it’s already been damaged by the water, which would drive the costs of repairs up even higher.
Other animals that might be attracted to the water in your home include raccoons and rats. These pests are difficult to get rid of and could make living in your home unpleasant.
Our Solutions for Standing Water Under Your House
Fortunately, we provide solutions for standing water under your home, so that drying out under your house is easy. These solutions include French drains, sump pumps, dehumidifiers, vapor barriers, and encapsulation. We’ll review them now.
French Drains
A French drain is a solution we install outside of your home. We create a ditch in the area around your home into which we place a perforated pipe. Then, we cover it up with gravel. This redirects water, during a rainstorm for example, away from your home.
Instead of going into your crawlspace or flooding your foundation, the water goes into this drain, after which it’s deposited far away from your home.
If the cause of your flooding is heavy rainfall or your basement being far too close to where water tends to collect, the French drain can be a solution that protects your home from flooding in the future.
Sump Pumps
To remove the standing water from your home, you need a device that will soak up the water and put it elsewhere. This is what a sump pump does. There are two types: pedestal sump pumps and submersible sump pumps.
In addition to removing the standing water you have under your home now, sump pumps are designed to stay where they are so that they’re activated anytime the water level is too high in the area.
They work by either using a float activator arm or a pressure sensor. Anytime the high water level sets one of these off, the pump will start pumping, removing the extra water.
Because it can be used no matter what the cause of the flooding is, a sump pump can be useful whether you have a pipe issue, heavy rainwater, or any other cause creating standing water in your home.
However, if it is a leaking pipe or a clog causing the flooding, remember to get that fixed, too. Otherwise, you’ll be remedying the problem only halfway.
Dehumidifiers
An important way to keep at bay the moisture in the area where the water has flooded is by installing a dehumidifier. This way, even if a small amount of water seeps in, you won’t have more unnoticeable yet dangerous problems such as mold growth.
By installing a dehumidifier, you can keep yourself and your family safe from mold growth.
It will also make it easier to breathe in your crawlspace or basement and protect your furniture, walls, and carpets from mold or mildew growth.
Vapor Barriers
A vapor barrier is another solution that will keep water from seeping into your home from the outside. This is also called “waterproofing” in the industry. Make sure that you install these barriers both inside and outside your home to keep water from flooding your home.
This is a preventative measure that can be used to prevent flooding in the future.
Encapsulation
By installing an encapsulation system in your home, your crawl space will have barriers between it and the earth and ground around it. Even if there’s heavy rainfall, you won’t have to worry about standing water taking over your home again.
Like the vapor barrier, this is a preventative measure. If you’re currently experiencing a large level of water, you should also have professionals clean the area before you install an encapsulation system.
Need More Information?
Now that you’ve learned about the causes, effects, and solutions regarding standing water under your house, you might need more information. Maybe you want someone to come in and tell you what damage has already occurred so far.
Or maybe you need expert advice on which solution is best for you.
Whatever information you need, we can help. At Crawl Space Medic, we’re experts when it comes to removing standing water from under your home. We also offer the services covered in this article.
To learn more about how we can help, schedule an inspection now.
