In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 274 of 1154
Quote:Yeah, I think vapor barriers can be a double-edged sword when you put them onto or into structures.
]Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I've been reading up on vapor barriers for about 3 hours now and I know less than I did before I started.
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Did some reading myself, and this makes sense to me
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-a-vapor-barrier-845075
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
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error msg caused me to post twice
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Quote:Have you considered putting tar on the accessible inside of the foundation? Not digging down to below grade - just tarring the available surface. That leaves any moisture in the blocks picked up from the soil with 2 ways to go: where it contacts the sill plate - which it's going to do anyway, and out through the exterior surfaces. It should reduce evaporation from the foundation blocks to the inside space under the porch at least for some time.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Well.. I didn't waterproof the foundation... I'm sure of that. ... That part is really solid now and has tar over it, but it's probably only about 15% of the entire foundation that is actually water tight now.
Many articles mention grading, getting gutters and directing the outlets away from and downstream of the foundation, as well as French drains.
The article Signy linked suggest putting plastic down on the dirt, as do other articles I found (and not necessarily sealing it, as it will overall reduce the amount of moisture getting into the air even if some areas leak a bit).
One topic of active debate is foundation vents. I think it all depends on your weather as to whether or not they'll work for you or against you. You can determine that over time by going to weatherunderground.com to get your current dew point, and putting a thermometer in your crawl space to get its current temperature. If more generally over the seasons your crawlspace temp is below the dew point, then outside air moisture coming in through the vents will condense on the crawlspace surfaces and make your problem worse. But if more generally your crawlspace temp is above the dew point, then outside air will evaporate the humidity in the crawlspace (which I'm assuming is somewhere near 100% RH).
https://www.dummies.com/home-garden/home-improvement/basement/preventi
ng-moisture-from-building-up-under-your-home/
https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/4-ways-moisture-enters-vented-craw
l-space
https://todayshomeowner.com/how-to-stop-condensation-in-the-crawl-spac
e-under-your-home/
https://extension.umn.edu/moisture-and-mold-indoors/moisture-basements
-causes-and-solutions
https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/house/about-the-house/moisture-problems/
https://www.tchd.org/DocumentCenter/View/263/Homeowners-Guide-to-Moist
ure-Management
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Well one problem, for the crawlspace inside the home at least, is that I don't have A/C now. For 8 years I haven't. Any decisions on whether the vapor barrier already installed down there is doing good or harm is almost moot when A/C does get installed since it changes the game entirely.
Several years back I left the windows open all summer. I realized this was a mistake because not only were the temperatures in the high 90's inside the house, but the grout joints in the ceramic tile on the floor of the living area of the basement as well as the surface of the plastic were wet. In the crawl on the plastic, it would actually pool up quite a bit in the low spots. Years ago I took the time to bleach that visqueen and had it bright and shiny, it really looks like hell again now, even though I haven't had a flood down there after the fact.
Interestingly, even though I was letting the nighttime humidity in this year by opening the windows and using the blower, I didn't get that water buildup down there as I had in past years. I must have been moving enough air and getting enough of the heat out so it wasn't an issue.
The A/C thing won't be an issue for the porch enclosure since it would never benefit from it.
As for putting tar on the inside, I could do that, but that's really no different than attaching visqueen to the walls in effect and it's part of the concern I have here. Except for the area that I had trenched out and sealed with tar and above it, the only areas outside that will have tar are the exposed bricks above grade, but we are talking about sealing both sides of the wall. I'm not sure how much evaporation will occur to the outside through the earth, particularly when it's nearly 100% saturated as has happened with these rain storms.
I can't imagine it's good to have the water building up anywhere inside, but since it seems inevitable because the ground will always get wet, it's probably better that it's dispersed everywhere down there than focused right underneath the sill and joists ends resting on it, which was the most damaged part of the structure by far. (I can't attribute that to vapor, or at least JUST to vapor though, because I know that there was a lot of leaking liquid water damage that was to blame for that).
From what I read, vents probably aren't good around me since there will be no A/C or dehumidifier down there. This summer we were frequently around 80 to 95% humidity around here. The vents would just let that all in.
At this point, I'm realizing what a mistake I made not to put up gutters earlier, and it's tops on my priority list after getting the floor down. Then I can properly grade dirt away from the foundation once I don't have hard lines in the ground where the rainwater fell off the roof directly onto the ground for the last 8 to 10 years because of no gutters.
I think I really can only roll the dice here. Gutters, grading and a visqueen barrier on the dirt in the porch crawl. Nothing more, nothing less.
I might also consider removing the visqueen from the walls in the house crawl at some point too now that I know a bit more about all of this. Sometime this winter I'll have to clean the plastic in the crawl to make it sparkly white again and then monitor the moisture come spring/summer time next year.
Any thoughts on that plan of attack?
Thanks for looking into it. Seems you two found what I was finding on the topic. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:As the millenials say down here: I feel 'ya on that!
Originally posted by 1KIKI:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Only time I've given someone an injection was my mom and that was a blood thinner. Not sure who it hurt more, me or her.
Yeah, I did not want to be put in charge of that but the nurses that came in to check on her insisted.
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Hey Jack
It sounds like you've reduced your under-porch considerations to plastic on the dirt under the porch, no sealing, stapling, attaching to anything, or covering anything else with anything else. Or vents or anything. PHEW! I think it simplifies it down to useful and diy-friendly. Reading through all your posts though - do you have water problems! If it's not coming up from below, it's falling down from above, splashing sideways, or humidifying in with the outside heavy air. Originally I'm from the NE, and I thought WE had water issues with a flooded yard and basement. But your place beats anything I'm familiar with.
Out of curiosity - do you all have storm sewers in your area?
As for your house crawlspace ... I dunno ... do you have proof of a problem? Weeping areas, mold or mildew or mushrooms growing behind the visqueen, efflorescence on the cinder blocks, stained(water-exposed) wood, or so on? If things seem OK then maybe you can let them be ...
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Yeah, you have surface water, possibly groundwter problems and a potential condensation problem as well. And that doesn't include snow potentially piling up against your (above grade) vents.
The article that I linked made it clear that you have to consider where the most moisture is coming from (from the inside like a bathroom, from the outside like rain/snow, or from the ground?) and also that you should nevereverever vapor-barrier both the inside and outside of a structure, because while you want to keep water from getting in, you also need to provide a way for it to get out.
Just as an aside ... curiously, it's important for outdoor paint to be able to repel liquid water and still pass water vapor. (There are ASTM tests for that!) Having read up on the topic, now I know why.
You say the most damage was the sill plate and presumably the ends of the joists resting on the sill. Since the sill is resting on the foundation, is seems as if the problem is water wicking up from the ground thru the concrete to the wood. If the problem was overall humidity, I would imagine that you would see mold across most of the lenght of each joist.
So the issue is to keep the concrete as dry as possible, not necessarily be concerned with reducing humidity in the crawlspace. What you would need to do that depends on your situation.
IF your soil is more-or-less permanently saturated with water below the surface because there's an underground stream running under your house, that would take drastic and difficult remediation: digging up the entire foundation, installing a French drain AND a sump pump, and tarring the entire outside of the foundation. Even then, you probably wouldn't be entirely successful because the sump pump would be constantly working to pump out the space that was being constantly refilled by the underground stream. Fortunately, while very high water tables do sometimes happen, it's rare. Unless you live near a swamp, or there are seeps and springs nearby indicating water burbling up from the ground, that's unlikely to be your situation. Since your sump pump seems to come on only during rainstorms or snowmelts, what you probably have is a surface water problem.
Another fix would be to block water in the concrete from wicking up into the wood ... put a waterproof barrier between the concrete and the sill and joists. Difficult, since those are already in place.
So assuming that your problem is surface water, the best fix is to lead water as far away as possible from your foundation, and downhill, before it soaks into the ground.
Your first order of business, I think, it to fix the sump pump outflow (if it hasn't already been fixed) because it's dumping water right back to the foundation and on the uphill side, if I understand you right.
Your next order of business is to grade your yard so that water flows away from the house before it can soak in (much), and your third order of business is to install gutters, downspouts and splashboxes (or whatever theyre called there) which are long enough to .. once again... lead water away from the house.
IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY DECIDED TO DO.
*****
The reason why I bring up stories from my hometown ... the flooded cellars, the collapsing cellar war ... is to illustrate that even in situation where there is every reason to suspect a high water table (western NY is flat marshy land, underlain with layers of clay which retain water right under the surface, and always at risk of flooding) all of the problems I've even seen or experienced were NEVER with a high water table. So I hope this give you some info on how to judge your situation. Hope this helps.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
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Well the city finally took down the four yuge dead liquidambar trees next to the restaurant parking lot where I sometimes go for coffee. They were pretty trees and provided really nice shade for the parked cars in summer. But as eastern water-thirsty natives that grow near streams and marshes, they were a poor choice for SoCal.
Still they hung in there through years and years of extreme drought and high temps. But for some reason 2 of the four finally totally succumbed after a winter of good rain, and the other 2 were mostly gone.
There's nothing left but dirt mixed with wood chips, not even left-over holes, so I think they used stump grinders to get rid of the very last of them and filled-in with the mix of ground-out stump and dirt.
I was sorry to see them die so slowly over all that time. I kept hoping that we'd get some good rain to rescue them.
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Back from work and boy am I glad.
My boss' husband didn't think that I was supposed to be there today. He didn't want to let me into the house. They don't actually talk to each other.
Wasn't surprised that they didn't realize that Sunday was my birthday. They've promised me supper out next Thursday, so we shall see.
I don't know what to make of those two sometimes. Actually most of the time.
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