John's Waterproofing Case Studies: Flooded crawlspace in Fairview Oregon

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 by Jessica Dingle

Challenge

Our home owners knew they had some water under their house when they called our office, but they had no idea the extent of their water issue. When our inspector Bob went through his inspection and showed them the photos they were shocked to see close to 4" of water hiding under the black visqueen. The thin black plastic had floated on top effectively hiding the severity of the problem.

Solution

Before our team could encapuslate the crawlspace we had to first remove the soggy insulation and wet visqueen. The access to this crawlspace is in a small closet adjoining the families kitchen and passing through the livingroom. In order to protect the home our crews rolled out plastic tarping along all of the floors and 10' high on the walls so as not to get anything in the home dirty as they removed the debris.Once the wettest materials were out of the crawlspace, we were able to place a dehumidifer in the space to begin pulling out the water. Once the standing water had been cleared out and the space had some time to dry our crew set to work.

Our crew dug a trench around the perimeter of the crawlspace (wedging in some very tight spaces). A drainage line and a sump pump were placed in the crawlspace to prevent future wtaer issues from wreaking havoc in the space. Once this was done our crew set to work placing the Clean Space under each post and fully encapsulating the space. Since this job will have spray foam insulation they left four inches of clean space hanging (as opposed to fastening to the sill plate as usual) so that the spray foam could not only be applied behind that hanging section but also on top of it to provide a double seal and added protection.

As an added touch our crews cleaned all of the pipes and duct work under the home to create a nice clean space for home owner. Once complete Ramon completed a walk through with our homeowner explaining the system and it's operation. She was impresssed not only in the finished product but that she was able to go into the crawlspace in her black shirt and not come out with any type of debris or dirt on her shirt or pants.

Project Summary

Inspector: Bob McDowell

Foreman: Ramon Morales

Installer: Juan Reyes

Installer: Omar Soto

Aside from some dirt the visqueen didn't look too awful, just a few puddles. Yet unless there is full coverage water vapor will still get through and soak the insulation. (Like this sagging insulation above).