Water Under the House: Sump Pumps and Crawlspace Drainage in Georgia

Georgia clay does not drain. That single fact explains most of what goes wrong under houses in Coweta and Fayette County — water arrives faster than the soil can absorb it, finds the lowest point, and that low point is frequently your crawlspace.

A wet crawlspace is not a cosmetic problem. It is the source of musty smells upstairs, rotting floor joists, buckling hardwood, insulation that falls down, and pest and mold problems that get blamed on everything except the actual cause.

First: is it groundwater or a leak?

These need completely different fixes, so establish which you have before anyone quotes you a drainage system.

• Groundwater appears after rain, worsens during wet seasons, is usually at the perimeter or the low corner, and dries out during dry spells.
• A plumbing leak is present regardless of weather, localized under a fixture or a pipe run, and often accompanied by a water bill that has crept up.
• A condensation problem shows as damp everywhere and beads on ductwork and cold pipes, worst in humid summer months, with no obvious point source.
• A drainage failure — a downspout discharging at the foundation, a clogged gutter, or grade sloping toward the house — is the cheapest of all to fix and worth ruling out first.

Fix the easy things first

Before anybody excavates:

1. 1Clean the gutters. Overflowing gutters dump concentrated water right at the foundation.
2. 2Extend the downspouts four to six feet away from the house. This alone resolves a real share of wet-crawlspace complaints and costs almost nothing.
3. 3Check the grade. The ground should fall away from the foundation — roughly six inches over the first ten feet. Older Newnan homes lose this to settling and years of mulch buildup.
4. 4Look for a low spot beside the house that collects and holds water after every storm.

Vapor barriers

Even a crawlspace with no standing water evaporates a remarkable amount of moisture out of bare soil, and that moisture goes up into the house.

A proper vapor barrier is heavy polyethylene laid across the entire crawlspace floor, seams overlapped and sealed, run up the foundation walls and secured. Not a few loose sheets thrown down, which is what most houses have.

This is one of the highest-value improvements available under a Georgia house, and it usually costs less than people expect.

Drainage systems

Where water is actively entering, a barrier alone will not solve it. A drainage system gives the water a route out.

• Interior perimeter drain. A trench around the inside perimeter of the crawlspace with perforated pipe in gravel, sloped to a collection point. Intercepts water as it enters.
• Exterior footing drain. Excavated outside the foundation. More effective and much more expensive and disruptive.
• French drains in the yard to intercept surface and subsurface water before it ever reaches the house.
• Regrading where the ground slopes the wrong way.

Sump pumps

A sump pump is what moves collected water away when gravity cannot. The drainage system delivers water to a pit; the pump lifts it and discharges it away from the house.

What matters in an installation:

• Pit size and placement. At the lowest point, sized so the pump is not cycling constantly.
• Correct pump capacity for the volume you actually get, not a guess.
• A check valve on the discharge so water does not run back into the pit and re-trigger the pump.
• Discharge well away from the foundation. Discharging at the wall means pumping the same water in a circle forever — a genuinely common installation mistake.
• A battery backup. Storms cause both the water and the power outage. A sump pump without backup fails at exactly the moment you need it.
• An alarm so you know when it fails rather than finding out by smell.

Maintaining a sump pump

1. 1Pour a bucket of water into the pit a couple of times a year and confirm the pump starts, discharges, and shuts off.
2. 2Clear debris from the pit and the intake screen.
3. 3Check that the discharge line is not blocked or crushed.
4. 4Test the battery backup annually.
5. 5Replace the pump proactively at the end of its service life rather than after a flood.

What wet crawlspaces cost you if ignored

• Rot in floor joists, sills and subfloor — structural repair, not a cleaning job
• Mold and the air-quality problems that follow it into the living space
• Insulation that absorbs moisture, falls down and stops working
• Buckling and cupping hardwood floors above
• Termites and other pests, which are drawn to moisture
• Higher cooling costs, because humid air is expensive to condition

Get it looked at

Wright Way Services works under houses across Newnan, Sharpsburg, Senoia, Peachtree City and the surrounding area — diagnosis first, then the fix that matches the actual cause. Call (770) 301-4638.