Why Is There Standing Water Under My House?

Standing water in a crawl space comes from one of four places. Humidity condensing, bulk groundwater pushing in through the foundation, water coming straight in through low vents, or a broken or leaking pipe. Humidity is the most common and the easiest to solve. Bulk groundwater is the most common thing people mistake for a humidity problem.

Either way it needs dealing with, because water sitting under your house will push relative humidity above sixty percent, and that is the point where mold has everything it needs.

Cause one: humidity

Sometimes there is no leak at all. Warm moist air gets into a crawl space, hits a cooler surface, and condenses. Do that for long enough in a North Carolina summer and you get real water on the ground.

This is the one an encapsulation actually solves, because encapsulating isolates that environment from the rest of the world and then a properly sized dehumidifier controls it.

Cause two: bulk groundwater

This is water from outside pushing its way in, and it comes in two ways.

It can come in underneath your footer, or straight through the foundation walls, through something called hydrostatic pressure. That is a fancy way of saying water takes the path of least resistance. If there is pressure behind it and your foundation is the easiest way through, that is where it goes.

An encapsulation will not stop this, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling you the wrong job.

Cause three: your vents

If your crawl space vents sit low enough to the ground, water can come directly in through them during heavy rain. Simple, common, and easy to miss if nobody has been under there recently.

Cause four: a broken or leaking pipe

Less common than the others, but it happens. Worth ruling out, because it is the one that gets worse quietly and costs the most if it sits.

Why the water itself is not the only problem

Standing water raises the relative humidity in your crawl space, potentially above sixty percent. At that level the environment is conducive for mold to grow.

The water is also typically stagnant, and stagnant water produces odors. Because of the stack effect, air from your crawl space gets pulled up into your living area all day long, and it brings those odors and anything else it is carrying with it.

So a wet crawl space is rarely just a wet crawl space. Left alone it becomes a humidity problem, then a mold problem, then a smell you notice in your hallway.

What actually fixes it

It depends on which of the four you have, which is the whole reason somebody needs to look before quoting.

If it is humidity, an encapsulation solves it, because you are isolating the environment and then controlling it.

If it is bulk groundwater, you need waterproofing. That means an internal French drain that redirects the water out of the crawl space or to a sump pump where it can be pumped out. The product we install moves seventy percent more water eighty percent faster than traditional corrugated pipe, and it carries a lifetime guarantee that it will not deteriorate or get clogged with roots and dirt. Once it is in, it is there for the remainder of our time on this planet.

Plenty of houses have both problems. In that case the water comes first and the encapsulation comes after, because there is no sense controlling an environment that is still filling up.

If you have water under your house, call me at 910 580 1836. I will get under there, find where it is coming from, and show you the photos.