Anonymous
11/11/2022 16:41
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Anonymous wrote:Geotech engineer. I would never purchase any property where
Any part of the yard slopes towards the home (no matter how many swales, water management systems, etc in place. Nature has a strange way of flooding your home (hydrostatic pressure). I see this every day. There are plenty of homes not graded in this manner.
You recommend only living on the top of a hill? Wow, a bit limiting.
Anonymous
11/11/2022 08:51
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Our house is at the bottom of a hill and the yard was sloped toward it slightly. The flooding was so bad that it caused structural damage to the foundation. If we ever move, I always say I want a house at the very top of a high hill.
Anonymous
11/10/2022 22:07
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Our last home had a huge hill in back, had no issues. But had no basement either.
ZachF
11/10/2022 21:48
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
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ZachF
11/10/2022 21:41
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
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Anonymous
11/08/2022 17:17
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I work for a company that does the most amount of basement waterproofing in this area. I've inspected over 3,000 homes and designed/engineered solutions to mitigate and manage water intrusion into the house. In many cases, I already know what the homeowner is going to tell me as I'm walking up to their home just from looking at the slope of the land.
Controlling surface water, French drains, proper swales, and buried downspouts that carry water well away from the home are all great things and also very rare from what I've seen. Many homeowners have already undertaken all those projects before calling us because water is still coming in.
That said, I would NEVER buy any house that had any slope going towards any part of the home. Never. Eventually, this will be an issue and not just with water down at the base of the foundation, but foundation settlement issues, block walls cracked and bowing in, etc. If you see a house with a slope facing the house, run away.
This is the vast majority of houses, I don’t really get how you could avoid it except in a flat area. Otherwise you get one house on the top of the hill but all the other houses are on a slope.
I also feel like it would be easy to build a house on a little hill in a flood plain and it would still flood?
Anonymous
11/08/2022 17:06
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
I live in a really hilly area and many of the homes are older (1920s) with garages built into the basement. So the homes are built on hills, and then many have a downward sloping driveway to a basement-level garage. I cannot tell you the number of flood remediation trucks I see every single time we get a hard rain. One house has a permanent castle of sand bags at the top of their driveway. Not the way I’d choose to live.
Anonymous
11/08/2022 17:00
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Anonymous wrote:I work for a company that does the most amount of basement waterproofing in this area. I've inspected over 3,000 homes and designed/engineered solutions to mitigate and manage water intrusion into the house. In many cases, I already know what the homeowner is going to tell me as I'm walking up to their home just from looking at the slope of the land.
Controlling surface water, French drains, proper swales, and buried downspouts that carry water well away from the home are all great things and also very rare from what I've seen. Many homeowners have already undertaken all those projects before calling us because water is still coming in.
That said, I would NEVER buy any house that had any slope going towards any part of the home. Never. Eventually, this will be an issue and not just with water down at the base of the foundation, but foundation settlement issues, block walls cracked and bowing in, etc. If you see a house with a slope facing the house, run away.
This is the vast majority of houses, I don’t really get how you could avoid it except in a flat area. Otherwise you get one house on the top of the hill but all the other houses are on a slope.
Anonymous
11/08/2022 16:58
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Anonymous wrote:Geotech engineer. I would never purchase any property where
Any part of the yard slopes towards the home (no matter how many swales, water management systems, etc in place. Nature has a strange way of flooding your home (hydrostatic pressure). I see this every day. There are plenty of homes not graded in this manner.
Isn’t hydrostatic pressure why I have foundation drains? They seem to work well.
Anonymous
11/08/2022 15:10
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
I work for a company that does the most amount of basement waterproofing in this area. I've inspected over 3,000 homes and designed/engineered solutions to mitigate and manage water intrusion into the house. In many cases, I already know what the homeowner is going to tell me as I'm walking up to their home just from looking at the slope of the land.
Controlling surface water, French drains, proper swales, and buried downspouts that carry water well away from the home are all great things and also very rare from what I've seen. Many homeowners have already undertaken all those projects before calling us because water is still coming in.
That said, I would NEVER buy any house that had any slope going towards any part of the home. Never. Eventually, this will be an issue and not just with water down at the base of the foundation, but foundation settlement issues, block walls cracked and bowing in, etc. If you see a house with a slope facing the house, run away.
Controlling surface water, French drains, proper swales, and buried downspouts that carry water well away from the home are all great things and also very rare from what I've seen. Many homeowners have already undertaken all those projects before calling us because water is still coming in.
That said, I would NEVER buy any house that had any slope going towards any part of the home. Never. Eventually, this will be an issue and not just with water down at the base of the foundation, but foundation settlement issues, block walls cracked and bowing in, etc. If you see a house with a slope facing the house, run away.
Anonymous
11/07/2022 14:41
Subject: Re:Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
A dehumidifier controls the humidity level (and is pretty much a requirement in any basement in this area). No musty smell. As long as you are not at the low point in your area or on top of an underground stream, you can control water issues in a basement pretty well with exterior grading and/or french drains/sump pumps.
Anonymous
11/06/2022 20:35
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Anonymous wrote:Our house is on a hill. The backyard is a significant slope down to the back of the house, and then a siginificant slope down from the front of the house to the street. The backyard is graded so that a lot of the water flows around the sides of the house. We also have an internal french drain along the back wall of the basement. No water issues in the basement.
Not yet…but I bet you your basement walls are saturated and that moisture then dries on both sides, with water vapor being
diffused to the inside. Concrete and block are essentially sponges. You may not yet have visible water in the basement now, but I bet you have high humidity and a musty smell.
Look behind your basement walls during the winter walls and you will see dampness.
Anonymous
11/06/2022 20:31
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Geotech engineer. I would never purchase any property where
Any part of the yard slopes towards the home (no matter how many swales, water management systems, etc in place. Nature has a strange way of flooding your home (hydrostatic pressure). I see this every day. There are plenty of homes not graded in this manner.
Any part of the yard slopes towards the home (no matter how many swales, water management systems, etc in place. Nature has a strange way of flooding your home (hydrostatic pressure). I see this every day. There are plenty of homes not graded in this manner.
Anonymous
11/06/2022 11:19
Subject: Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
Our house is on a hill. The backyard is a significant slope down to the back of the house, and then a siginificant slope down from the front of the house to the street. The backyard is graded so that a lot of the water flows around the sides of the house. We also have an internal french drain along the back wall of the basement. No water issues in the basement.
Anonymous
11/05/2022 14:35
Subject: Re:Yard sloping toward house - how much does it actually matter?
You don't want the lowest point against your foundation. A slope towards it but with a swale redirecting the water around the side is fine. Ideally, you'd want 10' or so shallow slope away from your foundation into that swale.
We have that situation. We've been here 23 years and never had basement flooding. The water basically drains toward the side yard (even though we have a slope towards the house) and we are also not at the low point in the neighborhood. Not a problem at all.