How to fix a wet basement ! 4K

all right guys we've got a pro a water problem obviously the house on one side is higher than the house next to it and these guys have to control the drainage and so sometimes the simplest solution can be the best solution and what we're going to be doing and it doesn't have to be an ugly solution either what we're going to be doing today is installing a Dry Creek bed what the surface looks like is not nearly as important as what it looks like below the surface so this grade that you see Zach working on this is the key to success in an application like this we've got to make sure that we get this surface contoured the right way so that it captures the water here Zach will you hold this the camera for me for a minute what we really want to do is we want to make sure that we get a good slope here's a couple of the critical things and the things to not do wrong okay one we want to make sure that we get a nice belly or a slope so that the water comes away goes down into the middle or the furthest point away from the house as possible without impeding or flooding the neighbors next door a couple of the things that guys go wrong on this is instead of subtracting soil they add soil now we have what's called a sill plate right here not sure we're gonna be able to see it but right about here should be a green treated plate and that should rest on top of a CMU or concrete masonry wall so on this house there should be an eight foot basement down below here excuse me then the sill plate then the siding starts if we raise the dirt up what's going to happen you can see it happening right now this dirt right here this is Splash dirt okay and this is the last thing we want to do is raise this grade and having even more dirt and water splashing on the house because what it does is it gets wet it gets dry it gets wet it gets dry and that can create a lot of issues with the wood the stick framing behind the siding this doesn't really protect that that well from that constant exposure to the elements such as wet dry wet dry dry Rock can occur you can have the the Timbers fail etc etc so right in here the ideal thing is to have the sub grade a minimum of eight inches below the sill plate so from this point down to where your dirt starts whenever possible it's not always going to be possible but whenever possible it's good to have eight inches of clearance and then we want to make sure that the subgrade angles away it tapers up and then we can put on top of that our Dry Creek bed or our decorative rocker what have you does not have to be ugly it can be good looking so that's the application that we're going to be doing but we have we could also install a French drain in a situation like this hi how are you I'm Stan by the way nice to meet you Lindsay I'll be home all day if you need anything okay you don't mind me recording what we're doing out here I think that's really cool awesome I'm just walking through some of the different options of what we can do I think we're doing a Dry Creek bed for you but we can also do a French drain system in an application like this yep or we could do full-fledged foundation waterproofing so I'm just kind of going through some of the different options but I think we're going through the least intrusive option possible for you okay yeah so whatever it takes to get the water out of our basement how bad is the water in your basement every time it rains the next step is to replace that window but it makes no sense to replace the window until the water's got somewhere to go right exactly so that's what we're going to be aiming to do right now well let me know if you guys need anything I'll be here okay thank you thank you all right so we're just going to show you the process of what we're doing in fact where you bringing this material uh just right behind the garage they weren't stacked their uh stockpiled back there and some of the extra dirt oh they're saving it yeah some of it okay I think so I don't know that's what Alex told me when whenever we're determining our course of action we've got to look at what are the grades what will they allow us to do a re-grading and how extensive do we have to go Lindsay's property here is the perfect scenario that if we wanted to take it to the next step and then install a surface drain tile yeah we could because we have a daylight situation right out the front yard but sometimes budget constraints come into place because then we're doing extra digging we're bringing in extra material it takes it takes a little longer every situation is completely different and unique and you just one of the things I want to caution you guys is for you guys to understand what your options are and the reason I say uh every situation is different and unique sometimes you if you're just grading sometimes you got a grade so far to capture the grades to get the water to Flow Away that that then becomes cost prohibitive over another option and so if you have a small area then the grading can be your least expensive option but if you have a super large area and you've got a grade out an entire backyard to capture it down or dig out dig through a hill or do something like that then it may not make sense so uh but Zach will just put this on time lapse he'll show you what we're doing and this Dry Creek bed should be able to handle all of the water issues for these guys and it's a simple solution and it does not a budget Buster so we're just gonna get this party rolling thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] so the customer wants to redo their outlet for their sub pump and wanted that redone so we got to fill in some dirt maybe there's a big hole right here cut the end of the pipe hey Alex went to go get the pipe if we thought it was one size and it was a different size so he's gonna go get the right proper plane and dig and fill all this in whatnot hit until he gets back [Music] all right so we're wrapping up this job now that was just flat along here sloped it you may not look it but it is like a good quarter bubble from this end all the way down to where the dirt is down here her slope in it all down that way pitched up from the house here down in the middle which is about right right about here is where the Swale is that and that's pitched from that side to here there and then put down plastic double layer comparison of water can get through oh into the foundation anymore then we put two inch river rock all the way down and so that way any water that hits this will go down to that plastic and run out but they were getting water in their basement they were tired of it and this is a solution to one of the many problems that you can face with drainage