So we had a drainage company come out to look at various areas of our property (just closed last month and moved in earlier this month). We have a wet wall condition on the inside and right now it looks like this was caused by a bunch of dirt and mulch covering the weep screed. The weep screed was completely buried - I dug some portions of it back to uncover it and it's all rusted out along the bottom. You can stick your fingers up into the gap and nearly half your hand if you wanted to.

The drainage company is recommending excavating past the footings and applying polymer waterproofing membrane and also installing a french drain and gravel across the top. We would have to clear all the foliage (rose bushes) and also have the existing irrigation (sprinkler heads) capped off. There are existing drains but he said they would heavily advise against reusing those because they are likely compromised - he was suggesting laying new line which involves a core cut (through the outside fence/wall) and curb cut (for a new hole to exit the curb) as well:

The left side above is one problem area the drainage company was calling out and where the french drain would be laid.


This is the front of the area before it wraps around to the side. This area below the window on the inside is where there's a wet wall condition - we had mold testing done to confirm that there are high levels of it inside the wall currently. Before we remediate that we need to take care of the outside wall and landscaping causing the condition.

A stucco repair guy and one of the landscapers was suggesting just putting mud and or bonding agent along the bottom where the existing weep screed has rusted and broken out. The main concern here was preventing pests/rodents from getting in. I thought the purpose of the weep screed is to allow moisture/water to drain out though? So wouldn't sealing up the bottom be a bad idea versus removing the old rusted weep screed, replacing with a new one, and patching the stucco back up?

The drainage company said they could install a new weep screed and patch the stucco but this would be done after the initial remediation work.

We have concrete on the other side of the home and the drainage guy told us the concrete is starting to pull away from the side of the home and was warning about future damage to the foundation etc. He was suggesting demoing the entire alley way (including having to temporarily move [or just remove/replace] the AC condenser unit) before demoing.




He was also recommending hydrojetting and doing a camera inspection of the drainage holes in the back yard area where a couple drains are clogged up - one has a rootball completely blocking it.

At this point I'm just trying to figure out how much, if any of this, is an upsell...
The entire quote was like $16-17k. And nearly $8k for the most 'pressing' issue of waterproofing the foundation and doing the french drain assuming we need to do the core and curb cuts.

In contrast, I spoke with a couple landscapers who would charge around $1000 to grade/slope these areas to use the existing drainage (maybe lay or re-lay some portions of new drainage) in addition to removing a bunch of plants & smaller trees and trimming back the larger ones.

I'm curious how big of a deal or critical the waterproofing of the foundation/footing is in a case like this. The inner wall still registers moisture in the front - the side walls don't have this issue. So I'm not sure if it's the residual moisture that just hasn't dried and if it hasn't dried up I'm a bit concerned as to why...

Just came across this video btw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBluQPDzZg

I'm guessing what they're doing is very similar to what the drainage company would be doing. Not sure if "polymer waterproofing membrane" is the same liquid paint-on stuff they used in the video or if it's an actually sheet of something but that was on the quote.

Also, how do you deal with the area between the chimney and walkway? It seems like the foundation french drain concept requires you to lay the pipe next to the foundation - if this were the case for our place, you'd need 4x 90degree elbows to accomplish this...

 

You have got a lot of options being thrown at you for a single issue, the problem that I get out of this is which one(s) is going to be the solution.

The two items that stood out to me, you have an area that you state is not graded right and you have sprinklers pumping additional water into the same area.

Any time people inquire about a wet basement the first two questions asked, are gutters and grading correct to get water away from the foundation.

If it were me, I would start at the beginning, correct the obvious, and see what the results are then move on to the more complex/costly steps.

 

Yea, I think what we'll probably do is just pay a landscaper to remove the foliage (rose bushes mostly) on the side of the home and then cap off the sprinkler system. We have already turned the water off though so my other concern is that the sprinkler system is leaking water potentially. Although, up until several days ago the weep screed was completely covered with dirt. I think I will have to probably remove more dirt than that though for there to be any more of a notable change.

 

Like any engineering solution, there needs to be a systematic decision tree that captures the incremental steps taken and their results.

Throwing a lot of money, and fixes, at the same time might resolve the problem but then you don't know what the true root cause was.

Start cheap and easy, the problem didn't happen over night and the solution may take some time!

 

Yea, one step at a time. I think in addition to having the plants removed and the sprinklers capped or removed, we might want to dig the trench to the foundation/footer as well. The landscapers can probably do all of that for not too much more. At that point I can decide if I want to paint on the polymer waterproofing and then proceed with doing a French drain system myself lol. The bigger issue will be deciding whether to tie into the existing system or having to lay a new drain system out.

 

So we have a wet wall condition in the front part of our home. We thought we knew what the cause was but now it has turned out to be a bigger issue than we thought.



Basically, the previous homeowners had the weep screed covered with 2-3" of dirt and did zero maintenance/upkeep on the area. This is a stucco exterior wall btw and the condition has probably been going on for YEARS. So the interior wall has perpetually been holding moisture for who knows how long Drainage in this area is horrible and there's also less exposure to the sun on this side of the home, so naturally, things will stay wetter here when saturated.





Anyway, I got a few quotes for stucco/weep screed repairs and the first two guys quoted me $1860 and $1880 to rip off the old weep screed, replace it + wire + paper, patch everything back up, and then paint. The third guy who came out today told me the problem is more involved and that he recommends fixing up the footers in addition replacing the weep screed. He said it's pretty bad and you don't want to mickey mouse this kind of a thing. Anyway, he would charge $3890 for this. His plan of action seemed a lot more thorough. He pointed out that there was prior repair work done and probably band-aid fixes not addressing issues with drainage and other damage/problems. He was saying we need to remove another 2-4" of dirt in the area around the wall that he's working on as well



I also had a drainage company come out before all this as well and they were recommending excavating down past the footers, adding polymer membrane waterproofing, installing a french drain and running a new line out to the curb. This would be a $7-8k job...







There's an existing drain in place and we had a landscaper come out to clear the area of plants and excavate a little - he didn't dig-up and regrade one section of the drain pipe so when water flows down it, it just pools up in one section of the drain for a while. Eventually it drains but very slowly.

I picked up a couple of those drain king bladders and cleared out different sections of the drains but there's a rootball in another section. This is why the drainage company was suggesting running a new line out. Another landscaping company I had look at our yard was suggesting similar in terms of laying new line. I was thinking maybe we can just snake the rootball out and then another thing we'll need to strongly consider doing is removing a big ficus tree in the front, a large palm that has grown incredibly large in the backyard and two more large ficus trees in the backyard. All the landscapers were saying the ficus and palm roots are really bad for drainage and I'm assuming the same for foundation.


Thoughts on what to prioritize and a plan of action as far as what to address first?

I'm leaning towards going with the more expensive but thorough guy for the weep screed. I'm a bit apprehensive about the whole french drain thing and may just have someone snake out the rootball (or rent a snake/auger to DIY) in the section(s) of drain that are messed up and keep the original drain but make sure everything in the yard is graded correctly so water actually drains into the drains and not towards the house. The foundation waterproofing/french drain idea sounds great but man that's expensive! We still have the interior drywall/mold to deal with remediating as well

 

First for a continuous string of questions it's best to keep them on a single post, too much prior history on this project,

Hoping one of the moderators puts this with your original post, then we can look at the quewstion.

https://www.doityourself.com/forum/r...n-footing.html

 

Definitely...... like threads combined for better continuity.

 

Sorry for the multiple posts and thanks for combining them into a thread to more easily track things!

 

I had a good contractor who was a lot more reasonably priced (and I think more knowledgable) do the work for the weep screed repair:






They did a pretty thorough job applying a coat of membrane and adhesive paper to waterproof everything then installed the metal flashing over it for additional protection. The weep screed they installed I believe is vinyl and they raised in some places due to the level of the dirt and also walkway - the guy doing the work was saying it would be a good idea to raise the weep screed where possible since the old one was level with the walkway and didn't allow for grading. down to the walkway.

We also cleared out more plants on the other side and I dug up the area where the drain snake and sewer jetter were blocked. Turned out it was a hack-job drainage solution where they exited the drains over an old grate and buried all of it...ugh:



First thing I need to do here is remove those bricks, which are set in via cement or mortar, and try to get that grate off so I can pull all the roots out that have accumulated inside the box. I'm pretty sure there's a partial rootball in the drain that runs from this box out to the curb. The grate seems to be cemented/mortared into place. From there, I'm not quite sure what to do other than to perhaps just replace the drain grate or tie in more PVC couplers and/or a Y to direct the flow closer to the exit drain.

I also dug up the long section of PVC that is running against the side of the house and that I paid a landscaper to extend and supposedly fix. I think I'll probably be able to fix it myself at this point but I'll probably have to buy new drains, couplers and tees to make sure it's done right. I have an electronic level so I can ensure the slope. If I really want to go all out, I could also get crushed rock or gravel to prevent future erosion. I'm wondering if it would make sense, after grading/sloping the area so that water drains properly away from the house and into the drains, to install 4mm tarp and landscaping cloth then pour gravel/rocks over the entire area. This way any runoff won't saturate the soil under the gravel and will drain into the drains