Sump Pump or French Drain

[Mrs Pantherfan]

I know this is a VERY exciting subject..but...

Long story short...

we have water under our house..obviously, it's especially bad after it rains..in turn..it's causing scary bugs to find their way into my living room..besides bugs there are a lot of reasons you don't want water under your house...SOOO..the question is..Sump or French Drain??

Is doing one yourself easier (and my "yourself" I mean MrPF and Friends)..is it better to just pay someone to do it..anyone know of a specific company what would be good and affordable...Anyone wanna come do this for me???

I really want this done relatively soon..before it gets hot and gross outside..that's when it gets bad

[mmmbeans]

be very careful with the mold... you really don't want black mold growing under your house.

[Johnny Rockets]

Sump Pump and French Drain sound like sex techniques. Kind of like Donkey Punch and Cleveland Steamer. Anyway.....water under the house huh?

[Scrumtrilescent]

I have a sump pump under my house but it was there when I bought it. Seems to work well. I don't have mutant insects invading.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

hmmm...interesting..mutant insects..is your house at the bottom of a hill?

[Darth Biscuit]

MPF I think it very much depends on the house, the grading of your yard/property, etc. There are pros that do drainage stuff, look them up in the phone book... that can get pretty serious with mold, rot, etc.

We have an issue in our back yard with ponding of water when it's rainy and/or we get a storm. We have about 2" of grade from the back to the front of our property so we get zero drainage and we actually drain in from our neighbors yards. I had a guy come look at it but it's not that big of a problem (it doesn't affect the house) it's just an annoyance so we didn't spend the money to fix it.

[Carolina Husker]

Both.

[g5jamz]

Is the water there after a heavy rain? Or seeping from a natural spring. Or leak.

[Jbro]

Sump pump all the way. I know nothing about this subject except that I hate the French.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

our front yard slopes down towards our house..we used to have these big huge overgrown holly bushes in the flower beds right in front of the crawl space..well...we cut those out and cut down a dead tree as well that used to soak up all that water when it would rain..now we have water under the house..

so basically..it's when it rains enough that the grass and little shrubs in front can't take anymore in. We only found this out when the exterminator dude crawled up under there last year

[Inimicus]

Dig a shallow hole in the ground beneath the house, say 10 inches.

After the next rain look and see if there is water in the hole. If there is and the surrounding surface is dry then go with the sump pump. If the ground under the house gets wet from the foundation and spreads inward then look at the french drains.

We had this in our new house and the water just came up from beneath the house. Installed a sump pump and problem has been solved.

[Johnny Rockets]

I remember seeing pics of MPF's backyard after a real bad rainstorm a couple years ago. You could've ridden a jetski back there and I am pretty sure I saw a gator or two.

And by pics of MPF's backyard I mean the backyard of her house ya pervs.

[g5jamz]

Run gutter drains into pipe and away from the house first. If you don't have gutters...then do as Inimicus suggested to see if it's coming from edges. Either get gutters or french drain to prevent it. If it's coming up from the ground/natural seepage or spring...then sump because there's nothing you can do to prevent it getting in that way. Pretty simple.

[Floppin]

You can get the sump pump but you still want a french drain. You need to get the water away from your house before it gets under it. Constant water against masonry will erode it into crumbly mush and cause all kinds of problems. I worked for my Dad's construction company for about 15 years and I've seen water do some nasty things to houses. This one woman had an entire spring field pop up underground from a fuged up culvert from a diverted creek. She basically had an underground creek running directly into her house. We had to dig away 20 feet in depth around the back of her house and reseal and waterproof her masonry and footers, install a drainage system, and back fill the entire thing with drainage grade gravel.