Crawl Space with Standing Water

[John Lindemann]

Hey Guys,

This is my first "HELP!" post...glad to have a great place to ask for help!

I own a SFH in Broken Arrow, OK and when I purchased it the inspector noted some standing water under the house but no damage had been caused by it so it seemed not to be a longstanding issue. The previous owner had recently replaced the roof and had the gutters removed at that time. I discussed with the inspector and he felt sure that gutters would remedy the problem.

So, I put gutters on and the problem is still there.  There are no leaking pipes.  The water is all ground water.  Drainage around the house is decent, basically flat.  The standing water is only in places where the ground has sunken some and puddles have formed.

I had a crawlspace repair company come out today and they quoted me $1,800 to put in a sump pump.  Alternatively he suggested adding dirt to level out the space and then installing vapor barrier for $800.

Anybody had experience with this before?  Aside from the $1k difference, I like the "passive" solution of dirt and vapor barrier but I want to make sure it will work.

If I'm really lucky, maybe somebody in the Tulsa area could suggest a contractor to do this for me?  Based on my inspectors notes I was thinking the sump would be closer to $1,200 and the dirt/vapor barrier closer to $600.

[Nate Garrett]

@John Lindemann

I agree. When it comes to drainage, passive solutions should be preferred to mechanical ones.

A sump pump will eventually fail and during a thunderstorm when you need it the most, the power goes out!

As for a recommendation, we have used both Edens and Metro structural in Tulsa and they do a good job. They specialize in foundation issues and I'm sure could take care of what you need.

I will also PM you the name and number of a dirt work guy that we have used.