Drainage is Beautiful!

Normally considered a banal topic at best, drainage has a functional elegance when done well. Our customer’s crawl space was flooding. Too little slope and poor waterproofing were both factors, but a chronic reliance on “New Mexico dry” was also at play. Water against the foundation rusts the rebar within, weakening the footing, and can lead to the subsidence of the whole structure! Read un-fun $$$ spending!

Normally considered a banal topic at best, drainage has a functional elegance when done well. Our customer’s crawl space was flooding. Too little slope and poor waterproofing were both factors, but a chronic reliance on “New Mexico dry” was also at play. Water against the foundation rusts the rebar within, weakening the footing, and can lead to the subsidence of the whole structure! Read un-fun $$$ spending!

The persistent mythical perception is that “water will soak in”, as the soil here is “dry”. This is simply not the case. Still we see this belief in action all the time. So to remedy the flooding; we did the hard work of removing the soil against the foundation, and placing a thick rubber membrane called “bituthene” against same. We removed all the rock and re-sloped the soil away from the building. And then... we placed a well sloping, (1/2 of fall per foot), V-channel all the way out to the street. Our soil has high clay and the water sheets off, or in this case sheets in, as the slope held the water in place, right on into the basement!

Pre Placement of Concrete

And there is another wonder in doing this drainage thing right; we can bring the water right to the base of the trees and plantings. The trees respire and retain their beauty with proper focused watering. This also consumes considerable water keeping it out of the road’s run off water system. We placed sloped sub surface pipes and French drains to contain and meter out the overflow.

In short we saved the foundation from a weakening impact. We cared for the trees. And we ensured that the building remain sound for years to come.

Secretly serving water to the trees!

Give us a call if we can help you, help your trees!