[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. Alright, now water through the foundation. If you've got a crack, there's two schools of thought. One of them, you'll see people go around in the little mini excavator and they will dig up the entire perimeter of the foundation. And put on a new Bram membrane around the outside. Yes, that works.

[00:00:21] Eric Goranson: But if you've only got a couple spots that are leaking, there's a better solution that's, uh, less expensive and of course works a lot better. What you can do is that crack that's leaking. You go through. And, uh, you patch the crack like we talked about earlier with, uh, loosen it up and, and put in the cemental.

[00:00:39] Eric Goranson: And then what you do is you inject in this urethane sealant. And this stuff is like warm honey. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know you is around the house. Welcome to the Around The House Show. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through [00:01:00] information and education.

[00:01:01] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. On the radio show, on podcast, if you're catching this on the radio, make sure you catch all, what, 1500 plus episodes. We've only got about a thousand up over there on the, on the podcast player, but, uh, we have a huge catalog. If you're looking for something, you can dive into it on any podcast player.

[00:01:20] Eric Goranson: Apple only has about 300 that they will show, but if you go over to around the house online.com, you can get over into the master and there's about a thousand episodes over there for you to go back and take a listen to. I'm sure there's a. That you're missing out on? Well, today we're gonna talk about foundations.

[00:01:39] Eric Goranson: Concrete and block or even rock or brick thing that's holding your house up off the ground. And this is probably, and I think I can safely say one of the most expensive and scary things for a homeowner, even for some contractors that don't work with these things a lot. And, uh, there's a lot of myths.

[00:01:59] Eric Goranson: There's a lot [00:02:00] of fear. And it's something that I really wanted to dive into to kind of give you a comprehensive episode here of how to deal with it. So in this first segment, I wanted to talk about the causes of foundation damage. You know, what would cause that crack, what will cause that leak? Those kind of things.

[00:02:17] Eric Goranson: First off, One of the biggest causes of water in the basement or crawlspace is that gutter downspout that drops right next to the foundation. Yes, that should go. Uh, my rule is 10 feet away from the house. So if you have the gutters and the downspouts, if that's hitting the ground, you are causing damage to your foundation.

[00:02:36] Eric Goranson: That should go into a, uh, you know, into a pipe and go at least 10 feet. And of course, downhill away from the home. And that is gonna be one of the leading causes of, uh, foundation damage right there. And it can be really simple. Now, one thing that happened in the city of Portland here a number of years ago where I live here, and I don't live in the city, but I'm adjacent.

[00:02:56] Eric Goranson: And a lot of cities did this. So in the city of Portland, they designed the [00:03:00] sewer system in the storm drain system way back when to be the same. So in your twenties, thirties, forties, houses the water coming off the roof, went into the gutter, into the downspout and into the sewer system. And then when you have rain like we do in Portland, guess what?

[00:03:15] Eric Goranson: It goes into the sewer system and overloads it. So they went around and created a tax incentive and some rebates for people to disconnect those from the sewer. and they did. And to get that rebate, usually you had to pour concrete down into those tubes and, and disconnect 'em and, uh, everything was good.

[00:03:33] Eric Goranson: And you would get the little stamp and they would, you would have that rebate. The problem is, is the city never allowed or forced them to do something different that just dropped onto the ground. So there are thousands of homes. That have foundation damage directly from removing that from that system and dropping it right next door.

[00:03:52] Eric Goranson: And nobody knew any better. And I don't know, you know, we can debate if the city knew anything about it, but really it was just a really poor [00:04:00] idea. And now the homeowners, 40, 50, 60 years later, maybe 70 years later, guess what? They've got a. So there's the issue. Now, one of the things as well, standing water can cause a problem.

[00:04:12] Eric Goranson: If you're sitting there and you've got water that's pulled up against the foundation, that can be another problem, especially when you have freeze thaw cycles. So the concrete gets moist, water soaks in it is porous. It freezes, it blows out. It does it over and over again. What's another issue out there?

[00:04:31] Eric Goranson: Bad soil. If you have soft soil or clay soil, that can be a problem. Clay soil is an interesting. If your house is built on clay, think of an old dried kitchen sponge. So your house is sitting on that old dried kitchen sponge, and maybe in the summertime you don't get any rain at all and the house is sitting on that and it was built on that.

[00:04:52] Eric Goranson: Well, as soon as you add water to that sponge, what happens? It expands right. Clay does the same thing, and what can happen is that [00:05:00] expansion contraction as the soil is wet and dry, that can actually move that foundation enough to crack it. So that can be a cause of that. Now, what's the way to do that and make sure you keep that soil hydrated around the house all the time?

[00:05:12] Eric Goranson: Sometimes I've seen people prevent those cracks by just having a soaker hose. They hose around the exterior of the house. They keep it damp. The clay doesn't move because it's staying in the same hydration. So that's another one. Bad concrete. I tell you what, there was a generation that I've seen out there where we made great.

[00:05:32] Eric Goranson: And then there's ones where people took shortcuts. Maybe they put in too much unwashed, river rock or, or sand or gravel. I have seen it here where tr people tried to use beat sand and guess what? Too much salt in there. And then that stuff is falling apart. There are homes that I have gone into. And with a screwdriver, I have been able to dig very easily and quickly through the foundation to the outside of the home.

[00:05:56] Eric Goranson: I could sit there and chip away. It's that [00:06:00] soft. It's almost like it's just caked up tile powder and you can bust through it. That is another issue. Another one's lack of maintenance, just not taking care of things. You know, sometimes having a crack and that crack moves more and more and more. It makes a bigger hole, bigger hole, bigger hole.

[00:06:17] Eric Goranson: That's another one. So lack of maintenance is another reason this happens. And then here's another one that is really big that I want you to really think about outside forces. I have seen a lot of cracks in foundations from that big tree that's out the front, the side or the back. You know, you've got the roots that are expanding and they put a horizontal crack in the foundation.

[00:06:42] Eric Goranson: And once you do that, that of course, Is that structure is, is, uh, really messed up at that point because you know you've got something that is really, uh, gonna come apart on you if you're not careful. And so trees can be a massive problem with that. And that pressure will bow a foundation wall and then [00:07:00] it por at some point it breaks it.

[00:07:02] Eric Goranson: I've seen 'em where almost pushes in. So these are things that you gotta be careful with. So the next one I've seen, and this is a huge problem, um, excess load. Cars may be driving along the side of it, you know, where you've got a driveway and, um, uptight against the house. It wasn't designed for that. Uh, one of the biggest ones that I've seen, uh, people putting in the big water tanks to collect water from their gutter system, they wanna reuse water.

[00:07:30] Eric Goranson: So they put a 2000 gallon tank there and they've got, you know, thousands of pounds sitting there up against the foundation. I have seen foundation damage where they actually broke the concrete. From that load changing outside and it was pushing down, it started to break the wall in and uh, they had a problem all from trying to store water up against the house.

[00:07:50] Eric Goranson: So again, something to be very careful with. And the next one is seismic. I have seen seismic cracks. You get a big earthquake, you know, in California, all of us on the [00:08:00] West coast, anywhere else that you've got earthquakes, that can be another one. And so that's a real key right there to deal with, is to make sure that you've got that tied together.

[00:08:08] Eric Goranson: And you know, when it comes to foundations, That's where doing that seismic retrofit can be really a big deal. And that's where, you know, in homes prior to the 1970s, in many areas, California, Florida, some of these places are a little bit different. But generally homes built before the mid seventies only had maybe a couple framing nails into the concrete or a couple concrete nails holding it.

[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: They did not actually tie the house into the foundation. And that's one of the problems that I see out there. You'll see that house maybe in, in Kansas, where it was pushed out in the middle of the road from the tornado. That house wasn't tied down property to the foundation, and so the wind loads were high enough that it moved the house and moved it over there.

[00:08:47] Eric Goranson: So what you do is you tie the floor dro to the si. The sill to the concrete. And then any posts you tie to the floor, Joyce and down. So there's a, uh, a bunch of different brackets that have to go in to do [00:09:00] that seismic earthquake retrofit. So that's a key right there. Trying to make sure that you can get those all pulled together.

[00:09:05] Eric Goranson: That is gonna be one of those things that really helps you out in, uh, you know, anything from a wind load or, you know, like tornadoes, things like that to seismic. That's a really big deal. But you don't wanna just cheat and tie the, if you have only. The seal plate to the foundation, and you don't have brackets holding the rest of that system together.

[00:09:24] Eric Goranson: All that framing needs to be bracketed together. And tied down to the concrete and done correctly. So when a doubt have that engineer look at it. All right, we come back. We're gonna talk a little bit more about this in repairs, what you can do just as soon as around the house returns. Why

[00:09:46] Eric Goranson: should I be loud? Be so hot?[00:10:00]

[00:10:07] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Around the House. Show this where we help you get the most outta your home through information and education. Hey, have you caught around the House television yet? You can catch that anywhere out there. If you've got, uh, look for Fox 12 on an app. Uh, I'm on the Fox 12 plus station each Saturday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time for a one hour around the House Northwest.

[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: You can also go over to the Fox 12 YouTube page, or if you wanna be able to catch it, just go over to, uh, around the house online.com and we're gonna have all the recent episodes over there for you to take a look. Well, today we're talking about foundation issues and these are the repairs and damage. How do you navigate this as a homeowner?

[00:10:46] Eric Goranson: In this last segment, we started talking about, you know, how to deal with really just the causes. What are the causes of this, you know, and it could be bad engineering, it could be damage, it could be a lot of different things. Well, one of the things that I hear the most of with [00:11:00] homeowners, they go, oh my gosh, I have a bound bad foundation.

[00:11:03] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna have to lift the house. And unless you're trying to raise the house for flood or something like that, these days, it's really not necessary anymore. That jacking the house up. Is, is just something that's, that's not needed in almost every situation. And here's why. You know, um, when we talk about jacking that house up, unless you're trying to, it's, it's, you wanna raise it up to make it higher in the neighborhood or you want to add space, usually it's cheaper to dig down to get more head room downstairs than it is to jack it up.

[00:11:35] Eric Goranson: And one of the tricks that I do, and we'll talk a little bit about more about this, is if you've got a bad foundation, You can go in and do a new interior foundation. So what you do is you go around and put an interior foundation wall on the inside. Yeah, you're gonna lose about a foot of space in that basement all the way around it.

[00:11:54] Eric Goranson: But guess what? You don't have to jack the house up. It's something you can do while you live in it. , and that's [00:12:00] the the thing there. You don't have to move out, move your stuff out while they lift the house up and deal with the chimney or whatever else you have to mess with. That's the key right there. So lifting the house up, that's kind of just the old school way of doing it unless you're trying to lift it for, for flood reasons or things like that.

[00:12:16] Eric Goranson: And so what you do is you go in and do a new footing. And a new interior foundation wall and then support it up the rest of the way. And, uh, it's really simple to do and at that same time, it's not a bad way. You can actually go down and lower that floor down to get yourself an eight foot ceiling, if you will, and got a seven foot.

[00:12:33] Eric Goranson: So many times it's not that much more to do that that way. So something to think about. So here's the thing, if you've got cracks in your foundation, so many people will say the first thing you do is call a foundation repair company. And I'll be honest. If you wanna do that, knock yourself out. Is it the smartest thing to do?

[00:12:51] Eric Goranson: No. This is where you want to get a quote from a structural engineer and pay for them to come out and do a report. Yeah. You're gonna [00:13:00] spend hundreds of, do hundreds of dollars, or if it's big, it could be thousands of dollars, but you want them to come out, inspect that place, inspect that basement, and then write up a report that you're gonna pay for that's going to give you the engineered.

[00:13:17] Eric Goranson: Resolution to your problems. That way you know that you're getting the right repair. And this is one of the things that, I was working with a foundation company here years ago that I noticed. There are companies out there that work in the foundation repair business that are franchises, and there's nothing against franchises.

[00:13:36] Eric Goranson: The problem though, that you can run into is that these foundation repair companies only have one or two solutions out of maybe. And so what happens is, is they come in, they, they quote the closest thing, which could be not the right product. It could be way over what you need. And then you've got a problem that you're paying for something that you don't need, but that's all they have to offer.[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Eric Goranson: And then more importantly, what I don't like is when they come in and tell you that your house is gonna fall down and, uh, they're gonna give you 20% off if you sign up today. And they basically twist your arm into signing up and signing a contract, which to me is always a huge mistake. So get your, you know, get your expert over to do it, and then you can put out bids for the repair.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: That way you can have companies competing for what the structural engineer is doing and make sure you pay that structural engineer to oversee the work as well. That way they can come by, sign off on it, take a look at it, and you've got a repair that is done correctly and that that engineer has their stamp on it.

[00:14:41] Eric Goranson: They know what they're talking about. You've got that licensed structural engineer. Make sure you've got the right person. So here's the thing, you know, that's the first one. Use a structural engineer before getting quotes. That new internal foundation is something to take a look at if you have that crumbly wall or if you've got, [00:15:00] you know, one of those things.

[00:15:02] Eric Goranson: Now here's the thing, when you're talking about a horizontal crack, that is that flat crack that goes left to right and usually that accompanies a bow where the wall can be bowed out inches upon inches. Now, There is a, a product that you can use to repair that, that goes really far. And again, this is where the structural engineer needs to be familiar with the products.

[00:15:23] Eric Goranson: But you can come in there with strips of carbon fiber and there's, you know, rhino carbon fiber makes it Simpson Strong Time makes it, but you can do those strips of carbon fiber to tie those pieces back together. You're never gonna push that in. So it's flat. But that's where you can use those strips of carbon fiber to hold it together and keep it from moving anymore.

[00:15:44] Eric Goranson: And that is a engineered solution. So that carbon fiber is stronger than steel. And when you put the right. Carbon fiber in there with the right solution, that works out really well. So how does that look, if you've got that big horizontal crack, what would that [00:16:00] repair process be so you can fully understand it?

[00:16:03] Eric Goranson: Usually what happens is they'll tell you to go down there, get all the stuff outta the way, and then they're gonna go through and you're gonna, they're gonna go through and chip out that whole crack and get that all cleaned up and. Dialed in, so there's no loose material in there. And then what they'll do is typically then they'll wet that area where the crack is and they'll mix up a product like Cemental or one of those products, and then they'll make that and trel that in there and get that to fill that space.

[00:16:30] Eric Goranson: And so it spans across that that is a high performance. Um, you know, very high strength structural mortar that goes in there. Once that's in there, you're pretty good. Now you've got a wall that's gonna set up and be solid. Then what they're gonna do is they're going to either put on the carbon fiber strips, or if that's leaking, what they'll do is they'll drill some holes in that and inject in a urethane crack repair that we'll talk later about in the next segment.

[00:16:58] Eric Goranson: And then [00:17:00] once that fills up, they'll put the structural. Material across there, which is gonna be your carbon fiber. And then after that you can, uh, either skim code it or you can actually go across that and paint it, uh, with a, uh, you know, foundation paint. And it looks pretty good. Now, some of the other things that you can do here is steel.

[00:17:17] Eric Goranson: I have used steel beams where I've gone in. And, uh, they didn't wanna do the, that they wanted to put steel in. I've dug down and put, you know, steel into footings down below, tied it into the foundation up above, and use that to hold onto and hold that in. So that way it's tied into the foundation, it's tied into the, into the ground below, into, uh, big concrete footing.

[00:17:39] Eric Goranson: And I've used steel that way. There's also steel systems out there that you can use that of course have a really cool, um, They're a interior wall system that actually goes in and they actually go in there. And what happens with that interior wall system is they go in and build a structural steel wall on the inside of that foundation.

[00:17:58] Eric Goranson: And uh, you don't have to worry about [00:18:00] tying those two together, but that's gonna now hold up the house and push up against that wall to block it so it doesn't push in any farther. So that's another one way to, another way to go right there. And so there's lots of different ways to do this. The biggest mistake I see people doing too is I don't want them to come in and remove a whole concrete, you know, slab in there, cuz that slab in the foundation is really what's holding out those walls.

[00:18:24] Eric Goranson: So that needs to be pushing on there. We come back, I've got so much more to talk about with foundations just as soon as around the house returns.[00:19:00]

[00:19:04] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Round the House Show. Now we've been talking foundations today, and this next one I wanted to talk. Uh, you know, really water in the basement or crawlspace. And I tell you what, I have seen the horrors of all of this. I have gone into a client's house and went, what's that Googling noise?

[00:19:21] Eric Goranson: And I pull up a floor register vent and their standing water in the duck system where their fan was trying to push it through and the humidity was just horrible. That house needed a lot of work just to get rescued. And so these are things you gotta really worry about. Now. I had a crawlspace one time.

[00:19:36] Eric Goranson: This was insanity. Couple stories here. Somebody, uh, this, the homeowner was a truck driver, was out on the road a lot, and they had a galvanized drain system in this 1950s. Hum. What had happened was, is the drain leaving the washer? The washer and dryer system there in the laundry room. That drain coming from the washer [00:20:00] had rotted out and had been dropping that 50 gallons of water on their top load washing machine every time on the ground inside the crawlspace.

[00:20:09] Eric Goranson: Nobody caught it, and I mean, nobody caught it. So the problem that you have here now with that is that you've got all of this water running on there. It had undermined. Kitchen sink area. Cause the kitchen sink was sitting there and this went in and basically let loose under the kitchen sink where it connected in there.

[00:20:30] Eric Goranson: So this went obviously for years. It broke the foundation under the kitchen sink, the refrigerator. That part of the house had sunk so badly that the. Washing machine was keeping the wall, and it was literally the tension was holding the house up. When I got into the crawl space down there, I could see space where the refrigerator was keeping the place from crushing in.

[00:20:56] Eric Goranson: So it was the. You had to jack the house up to get the [00:21:00] refrigerator out to level it. That's how bound up it was between the cabinets and the, and the wall of the kitchen. So it was absolutely brutal. Well, I open up, it was a winter day, I opened up the crawlspace to go down and take a look and steam comes out and I'm like, oh, we have a problem.

[00:21:14] Eric Goranson: It was a sauna. That job there was gonna be 30, $40,000 to fix it because they needed to do a kit remodel in the middle of it. Cause they had to come in. You know, stop the water, get that cleaned up, get that jacked up and supported, then cut out the foundation, replace it. And um, it was, there was nothing really to put there to even do a new interior foundation.

[00:21:36] Eric Goranson: So it was something where they were gonna need to really tie in and, and do a full foundation repair. So that was just from a, uh, a drain line that got ignored. And so that was really rough. But, uh, in most cases when you've got water in the basement, it's a couple things, 60% of the time of my experience, That is coming from the gutters and downspouts outside or outside water management, that you've got something wrong out there.

[00:21:57] Eric Goranson: So that's the first thing. Now, if [00:22:00] you have groundwater that you see coming up, you know, let's, let's describe the inside of a basement. So you have the foundation wall that goes from the, you know, that's holding the dirt up in the outside, and then you have your concrete slab. If you have a water table issue where the water is high in that basement, now it's gonna leak between the wall and the floor.

[00:22:19] Eric Goranson: really, there's not much you can do on the outside to stop that. That is something that is below grade where that is using hydrostatic pressure. It's pushing up and it is finding the, the low point, and that's gonna always put in there, push water in there. The best solution that I've found with that. Is to actually put a French drain system around the inside of that foundation wall.

[00:22:40] Eric Goranson: Now, the thing that I worry about with that is there's a couple systems out there that are franchises that I'm not a fan of, and I think they work okay, but I think there's better systems. There's a gutter system where they go around the exterior and it lets water drain off the walls into this gutter.

[00:22:58] Eric Goranson: And it collects it and goes into a sump [00:23:00] pump. I'll be honest, I wanna stop the water from going in. And if you're a longtime listener of the show, you'll, you've heard this story before, so bear with me as I tell it real quick. But I had a house that had this gutter system installed and they called me out about three years later to come take a look at it.

[00:23:16] Eric Goranson: So I walk in this 1920s Huss. And the guy goes, I don't know what's going on. I keep getting dirt in there and it keeps burning up some pumps every couple years. And so I look at it, I get my, uh, little scope out. Water had been leaking so badly under the foundation that it had undermined the entire foundation around the house, so there was about a 12 inch void.

[00:23:36] Eric Goranson: Under the whole foundation and the surface tension between the foundation and the dirt on the side is what was holding the house up. So all the water had been pushing out through that crack and going into the gutter system. The gutter system was filling up a dirt. They were digging it out, cleaning it out, and then, uh, it was getting in the sum pump and that was burning up.

[00:23:56] Eric Goranson: So this guy had a big, big problem that, uh, [00:24:00] really. They needed to pump in some grout underneath that and then probably put a new interior foundation on it. But that gutter system had completely failed. And so that's where I have a problem. The right way to do it to me is to go around and you put a trench around the entire floor of the basement.

[00:24:16] Eric Goranson: So what you do is you go around and, you know, dig out about a nine inch, 12 inch trench and you're gonna have to cut the concrete around it, and you're gonna put a grid system of serrated. Plastic pipe down there. So it's that drain pipe that's got the holes in it. So what you're gonna do is, is dig that out.

[00:24:35] Eric Goranson: And then you're gonna put that in and have that all sloped back to that sum pump. So it's gonna grab all that below grade water, and then what you're gonna do is that sum pump's gonna pump out and then go out into a system that gets it at least 10, 20 feet away from the house so that water doesn't have a chance to go back down there.

[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: So you don't wanna have a circular pump there. So that's really what this is, is to, you want to dig that up and do it. That's kind of the foolproof way of doing it. You put it [00:25:00] down, you have gravel, there's a plastic tube with a sock over it so you don't get dirt into it. More gravel and then concrete back over the top.

[00:25:08] Eric Goranson: So many homes on the east coast, they take a shortcut, is they, uh, just leave the gravel. No, I wanna see the concrete back over the top of. That way. If I need to put floor drains in, I put floor drains in, but I don't wanna leave that open. I wanna seal that off right there. And if I have water coming to the foundation, that's another story.

[00:25:26] Eric Goranson: Now, water through the foundation, if you've got a crack, there's two schools of thought. One of them, you'll see people go around in the little mini excavator and they will dig up the entire perimeter of the foundation and put on a new bra membrane around the outside. Yes, that works. But if you've only got a couple spots that are leaking, there's a better solution that's, um, less expensive and of course works a lot better.

[00:25:49] Eric Goranson: What you can do is that crack that's leaking, you go through and, uh, you patch the crack like we talked about earlier with the, loosen it up and, and put in the cemental, and then what you [00:26:00] do is you inject in this urethane sealant and this stuff is like warm. , just imagine that. So you pump this in with like a grease gun or a compressor, and once this urethane hits moist dirt, it expands out like spray foam and it expands out and seals up all of those passages on the outside.

[00:26:22] Eric Goranson: And so that creates a waterproof barrier right there. Anytime that hits that. So when it hits that moist soil, boom, it's good. Now it seals it up and you've got a sealed up solution right there. And then of course you can watch any more leaks downstairs, but that's really the solution for that. The only time it works really good to do the dig out and the membrane is if you have a concrete block or a C M U block Foundation.

[00:26:46] Eric Goranson: Those things, if they're not filled, can be very troublesome because all those little openings inside those, those cells end up being something that, um, collects water. And so you can have a leak in one [00:27:00] corner of the. And the water is going from cell to cell to cell, and it's popping up 10, 20 feet away. So that's really when you need to go out and put in that outside membrane to do it.

[00:27:10] Eric Goranson: That's really the best way to do it because sometimes if you use the um, The urethane, you're gonna poke that, you're gonna fix that hole there, but it'll pop up 10 feet away and you're just chasing a hundred holes. And sometimes it's just easier to go ahead and go out there and and do that around the perimeter.

[00:27:25] Eric Goranson: But that's a drastic move. I mean, you gotta dig down, you've gotta do a lot of work. And that's one of those keys. Like anything though, you gotta be really careful. I have seen people go in and start doing this that didn't know what they're doing. I have seen Foundation walls collapse into. Basement when, uh, somebody came in and removed the slab and didn't pay attention to what they're doing.

[00:27:47] Eric Goranson: And when they removed that slab, what happened is, is they came in and they took that slab out. The problem was that that bottom slab is what keyed in the bottom. And where the cracks are pushed in the section that was broken and then you have a, a [00:28:00] collapse and you've gotta lot of dirt in the basement.

[00:28:01] Eric Goranson: That's never a thing you want to do. And so that's why many times the engineer, and that's why I go back to using the engineer, they'll tell you to do AB sections where you're gonna cut out a little bit of the slab. And then what you'll do is go over and do it again on the, on the B section. So you're putting in the, the new, so you're, you're only taking out about half of the slab at one time, and that'll keep from having a collapse in a basement with dirt like that.

[00:28:25] Eric Goranson: Alrighty, when we come back, I've got some more solutions for you inclu, including how to keep that air safe just as soon as around the house returns.

[00:28:52] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Round the House Show. This is where he helped you get the most outta your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. We've been talking about [00:29:00] foundations. What you can you do about your house if you've got issues or what are you doing to make sure you don't have issues?

[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: And we're talking about really, um, you know, how to fix it, how to repair it, how to, uh, what are the big causes of it. And uh, right now we're gonna dive into a little bit more about making sure that you've got that foundation in 110% so you don't have to worry about it. So one of the things about water in the basement as well is that you could have grading around the outside of your home that water is coming toward.

[00:29:30] Eric Goranson: and it's not pushing away from the house. So you really want to have that slope that slopes away about three feet away from your house. And that doesn't always work that way. Maybe you've got a, a house that's close or anything else like that. So you really have to control water of where it's going. And you usually have water coming from two spots.

[00:29:48] Eric Goranson: You gotta come in from the, the, the rain or it's coming up to the groundwater and many times it's that gutter system or just a tight space that's ruining that. So things to do. About [00:30:00] drainage is just to make sure it's sloped correctly and nothing is aimed back towards the house. Now I've seen people, uh, where they've got that tight house to the neighbors.

[00:30:09] Eric Goranson: I've seen people put waterproof membranes up there and collect that into a sump. I've seen 'em pump it outta that area. There's ways to do it. You just wanna make sure, and a lot of homes that I've had this debate too, when you're dealing with water, Make sure that when those gutters go into the downspouts and downspouts, you know, go onto the driveway or something like that.

[00:30:28] Eric Goranson: Still you want to cut that concrete, put in the the drain system there so you know where it's going and you can get it at least 10 feet away from the house. And those downspouts, make sure you're scoping those things every four or five years. I got a guy coming here in a couple hours to do mine cuz uh, my house has never been done that I know of.

[00:30:46] Eric Goranson: And we're gonna send some cameras down there for a, uh, coming up segment for around the house television. So you wanna make sure and catch that we're gonna see what, uh, my storm drains look like inside, because, uh, that way we can control the water better. So now one of the [00:31:00] problems with basements in even crawl spaces are humidity.

[00:31:04] Eric Goranson: Now one of the things, one of the grand debates of crawl spaces is do you put ventilation in. And ventilate it all and make sure you've got great vent and a good vapor barrier down there. That many times is a good situation depending on what you've got going on, and this is really on a house to house basis where you need to have a professional, take a look at it.

[00:31:25] Eric Goranson: There are ways, if you've got raid on and things like that, that you might want to ACAP encapsulate that. And make sure that it's totally sealed up. But remember, when you seal up a crawlspace, you've gotta condition that air and have a dehumidifier in there. So if somebody comes down and seals up that thing, totally.

[00:31:43] Eric Goranson: Well, what I mean by that is they put. Plastic that is glued and taped all the way up against the foundation. So there's no way, almost like that was a swimming pool liner down there and there's no way for water to get down there. You wanna make sure and have a dehumidifier down there and not like one of the little [00:32:00] portable ones.

[00:32:00] Eric Goranson: You want to get something from, you know, Santa Fe or bro, or. April Air or one of the main companies out there to do that. That way you've got something that is conditioning that air down there to make sure that you don't have to worry about that, because that is gonna be the key. If you just encapsulate it and walk away, you are gonna have a massive problem with mold down the road and you don't wanna do that.

[00:32:23] Eric Goranson: And, uh, here's another thing too. Make sure when you're dealing with foundations, you have that, uh, that radon test. Because a rayon test is really important to make sure that you've got it, and if you have seismic activity in your area, you want to get that rayon test done again, because when cracks and fissures move around, I have seen it where a house didn't have radon and then the, the ground moved a little bit and then it did.

[00:32:49] Eric Goranson: So it's rare, but it can happen. So you wanna make sure and do that. And, uh, rayon is something that, uh, long term can, uh, really be a source of cancer. And, uh, nobody [00:33:00] wants to die from that invisible air in your house. Uh, and that could be a big problem. So make sure that you're having that testing done, but really conditioning that space in your crawlspace or basement is good.

[00:33:11] Eric Goranson: And then making sure that things are off the wall down there. If you have. Books, boxes, things like that, up against that foundation wall that is not insulated or conditioned. Um, you're just asking to get mold growth down there and make sure that you're monitoring that humidity. You never really wanna see that humidity ever get above 60% down there.

[00:33:31] Eric Goranson: If it's above that, you are growing mold someplace. And then on top of that, make sure you get some mold testing done every few years. Test that air to make sure you don't have things going on. You can actually predict, um, a lot of air issues that way by doing it that way. So just something to think about.

[00:33:47] Eric Goranson: Testing that air, making sure you don't have a mold issue in the rest of the house and on that foundation. It's good, you know? Do the foundation coatings work out there to stop water from coming in. Not really. They make those waterproof foundation [00:34:00] coatings that you paint on the inside, they'll keep some moisture from coming in.

[00:34:03] Eric Goranson: Uh, but to be honest, that moisture is so much stronger than the bond of that paint to the concrete. So if you've got a lot of it, it might slow a little bit of it down, but it's gonna push right through. So you really need to make sure that you're building that situation down there. The best you can. And uh, there's a lot of different thoughts on how to do it.

[00:34:21] Eric Goranson: And depending on your climate, I'm not gonna give you the, the be all, end all here because somebody in California is gonna be doing it completely different than in Minnesota or vice versa. So those are things that you really need to be careful with. Now, if you're in California, I want to talk to you guys cuz it's mostly.

[00:34:40] Eric Goranson: You know, mostly in California it's slab on-grade situations. There are some crawl spaces, there are some basements, but it's really rare compared to a lot of other places right now, California, of course, with your water issues, you have gotten so much rain and you've gotten to the situation where you didn't really [00:35:00] have problems until now.

[00:35:01] Eric Goranson: But now that you're catching up on this rain, and it could be something that's happening over a number of years, you need to make sure you get it dialed in if you have water in that basement. You've got 48 hours to get it cleaned up before you grow mold. You wanna make sure and talk to your insurance company if you've got a flood in the basement from that.

[00:35:20] Eric Goranson: Now, here's a secret that I learned from a, if you're gonna file a claim in your insurance company from a flooded basement, first off, never use the word flood unless you're trying to claim flood insurance. You had a water leak, you had a gutter overflow. Do not use the word flood when making a report.

[00:35:42] Eric Goranson: Unless it was water that was outside that was so high, it entered your home. That would be a flood. You had a pipe break, you had a gutter system, direct water into your basement. Those are all things that are not floods, but could cause you [00:36:00] issues before you file that claim. And like anything, um, especially California guys, make sure that you check your, I.

[00:36:08] Eric Goranson: Before you file a claim. I was talking to somebody the other day and oh, it was a buddy of mine actually, and he had called and given his insurance company a heads up that he could have a claim. No, no, no, no. Don't give anybody a heads up. That can give you more of a problem down the road. They are not your best buddy, so you do not do that.

[00:36:31] Eric Goranson: Deal with the issue, report it. But he had a pipe break, which, um, was unknown in his, in his house. That was his, uh, His vacation home and, uh, little beach cottage and a pipe broke and the neighbor caught it water out there and they turned the water off. Never do that because now they're gonna give you issues.

[00:36:53] Eric Goranson: They could tell you that you didn't get into it fast enough that you caused the mold because you didn't drop everything and go there the next day. [00:37:00] Um, giving them a heads up is actually hurting. Hurting your case. So these are not your best friends, so be very careful there. If you have questions about foundation, stuff like that, hey, head over to around the house online.com and if you actually submit a video and you'll see it over there with KP t v Fox 12 around the house, you can submit a video question if you have one.

[00:37:21] Eric Goranson: If you send that in over there, I will actually answer it on the show and tell you the right answer, what to do with it. So if you've got a specific video, take a video of it, send it in. And I'll use it on, uh, uh, upcoming episode of the show if it's a good one, which means we can use it. Uh, it has to be fit for broadcast if you do that right there.

[00:37:38] Eric Goranson: And that's over at around the house online.com or kp tv.com/look for around the house show. We're just on the header there and you can submit a video through that Burst program and it works out really. Really well. All right. Coming up in our next segment, we are gonna have a great time here. Little tease ahead.

[00:37:56] Eric Goranson: We're gonna be talking with Jeff, Tracy, jt, the cowboy [00:38:00] cook. We're gonna be talking everything. Barbecue, beef, and I think he's even got a beef sale for us here. Where you can online direct from the cattle rancher and get beef and save some serious money over the grocery store. Anytime we can save money, guess what?

[00:38:15] Eric Goranson: That's gonna be a good deal. And I think that coat only runs for a couple months or a couple weeks into the month. It's not gonna be a huge sale that's going on forever. So if you're watching this, We're listening to this after a few weeks after the show is aired, that sale is probably over. But, um, that's a good way to save yourself some money and anything with your foundation.

[00:38:35] Eric Goranson: If I was gonna just give you two bits of advice out of all this, Juan, if you've got a cracker, a structural issue, consult that structural engineer. Let them go with that and get your cords based off of that. And two, control that water, control that humidity, and make sure that you've got the right amount of moisture in that space.

[00:38:53] Eric Goranson: That way you can control it. And, uh, if you don't wanna do this as a DIY project, I have repaired my own foundation. If you're [00:39:00] handy, you can do it. Just make sure that you're following the right advice. So no matter what, if you're gonna do it as a DIY project, have the structural engineer take a look at it and then followed their recommendations.

[00:39:10] Eric Goranson: All right everybody. Thanks for listening around the house. We'll see you next time.