We're renovating our kitchen in 1 month. Flooring material has been by far the hardest decision I've tried to make. Would greatly appreciate some expert opinions on our situation.

Present kitchen flooring is uneven at best -- presently it's carpet, with layer of vinyl tiles, with sheet vinyl under that. Seems there are more layers of flooring in one area of kitchen than another, so contractor plans to gut to subfloor & nail down new flooring.

We could possibly do a moisture test on subfloor in 1 place now, but it's unlikely we could get access to subfloor to do multiple test sites in time to order our flooring material.

There is hardwood throughout rest of house (but covered with carpet), so I don't know what their condition is. I know my boyfriend replaced carpet in 3 rooms on ground floor when he moved in 3 years ago and he "remembers no problems with the wood" for whatever that's worth.

I'd love to get wood, either solid or engineered, but we do get some water in our vented crawl space when it excessively rains and this has me very worried. It appears to be ground water just coming from the floor, no signs of it pouring in from one area, etc.

Am I nuts to consider wood? Unfortunately, our small budget won't allow for drainage or grading changes. Should we take the advice given in another thread and do this ASAP (sooner the better if renovation starts in 1 month?)

"8 mil BLACK polyethylene is all that is needed. Overlap the seams by 12" Do a neat and tidy job. Lap up the foundation walls by 6" or so. Cover ALL the earth. Weight the film down with bricks, rocks, gravel, sand but NO wood products"

If this sounds like a safe idea to the experts, would you also suggest engineered as some say it handles moisture a bit better, and also should we also consider a moisture barrier underlayment of some sort?

Should I forget wood and instead go for something like sheet vinyl?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all of this.

You need to have the landscape graded so all rain flows away from the crawl space.

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to do anything with the yard, as much as we'd like to, it's just not going to happen at this time. We're young and a bit over our heads already with the kitchen remodel.

If the general consensus is wood doesn't make sense, we can give up and live with vinyl. After reading some posts on this forum, I was just hoping maybe the 8 mil poly would be an answer to our problem, but maybe that only applies to "wet" crawl spaces.. and not crawl spaces that can get up to 1" of water in heavy rains?

Can you afford a shovel and a garden rake? All it takes is making sure Mother Earth falls away from your foundation instead of down into it. A lap around your home with a 2 foot level will tell you why water is entering your crawlspace. It ain't rocket science.

Iffin I were you, I would want to prevent the formation of a stagnant pool of runoff under my home before I contemplated any other improvements.

Chuck,

I appreciate your reply. I will certainly take your advice and go outside with a level asap, either today or tomorrow after work. A little bit more than 1/4 of the house is surrounded by driveway, which we wouldn't be able to build up / slope right away, but I will check the level there as well.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to be lazy or am unwilling to do work or even spend some money. Owning a house is very new to me, and I don't really know what is best, or even what is normal (to be honest I didn't know it wasn't normal to have this kind of water in a crawl space until reading here last night). I realize I'm young and naive, but I am reading up to try to become more informed. I wish I had found this forum a month or so ago.

I am not against doing a little work, but I had assumed when "graded" was mentioned it meant not only building up land near the house, but also installing an expensive drain of some sort... which I don't think we'd be able to do at this time. I posted about my situation because because I had read an earlier thread which I thought might apply to us as well where Gary said

"Typically in a home with a crawl space, the ground around the house is higher than the earth under the house. Water will seek the lowest point, which is most likely under your house. I agree with Kevin that the proper corse of action is to improve the exteroir drainage with drain pipe and proper grading. However, that's usually an expensive fix. Since you are not going to eliminate the source of moisture, all that can be done is to RETARD it (slow it down). This is what the 8 mil poly under the house will do. It will slow the transmission of moisture to vapor. The small amount that gets past the plastic can be carried off by the foundation vents. Therefore, DO NOT cover your foundation vents. That would cause a build up of moisture. After installing the plastic, a moisture meter is needed to monitor the drying of the wood. In can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. On average, under normal, dry conditions, about one week. But this isn't about how long as it is how much. That is why a moisture meter is needed. Without it, there is no way to tell IF the conditions are acceptable."

Thank you again for all of the replies.

If water is going from your driveway to the side of your house, that is where the water is coming from. You can check that with a garden hose.

I can offer some suggestions, but it would be better to know your situation first. I am thinking the driveway deal is a likely culprit. If it was poured improperly, it can act like a funnel.

Chuck, thanks again for replying.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend works late, and I couldn't find a level. I may need to go buy one tomorrow.

I took a walk around the outside of our property and it seems to be obviously sloping away from the house. Even the driveway appears to me to be sloped away from our house, and there's an obvious down slope towards the street.

The back side of our property seemed the most level of all sides of the house, I thought for sure this area might benefit from the grading you had all suggested, and I felt we could do a better job with our gutter drainage here to ensure it flowed out further away from the house.

Then I went downstairs to the crawl space, for my first look in person. I live in Philly area, it's rained the last 3 days so I wanted to take advantage of that.

There are large puddles (the whole thing isn't covered but at least 50% is in ~1000 sq foot house). The AC duct under the AC unit seems to be dripping condensation to make matters worse, but it's obvious that isn't the only problem. To my surprise, the floor near the wall in the back of the house, that seemed the most "level" and in need of grading the most was the dryest. The area on the driveway side of the house also was dry.

It seems almost as though the water follows the main water line through the middle of the house. I'm not saying that is where the water is coming from, I don't think there's a leak of anykind, but instead maybe this is the lowest point in the crawl space so it's where the water seeps up ?

Only thing I didn't check was to make sure our so called vents were open. I didn't know what I was looking for and frankly couldn't find them, but boyfriend said he could point them out to me tomorrow

Please let me know if there's any more info I could provide. I have a digital camera and can take pictures of outside/inside. My boyfriend and I would love to put some work into this if it's something we could do to help the problem. We can spend some money, as well, but not thousands.

I am willing to call someone in for an opinion, but I have to tell you, after dealing with many contractors working on planning our kitchen, I know how hard it can be to get someone to show up and also get reliable information. Usually it helps if I get as much info on my own as possible first so I can ask knowledgable questions.

Thanks for all of your time.
Amanda

Somehow water is making it into your crawl space and it sounds like there are only a few options
a) When it rains it is coming in thru foundation vents or some kind of penetration in the concrete stem walls. Foundation vents are easy to spot;they are low to the ground and may just be a simple screen that allows air to move from under your house to the exterior environment. Or maybe you have cracks in your stem walls (concrete walls that surround your crawl space) that is allowing water in...sounds like you have a fairly large crawl space.
b) you have a leaking pipe under the house; check your water supply line and that suspicious sounding AC unit!

regardless how the water is coming in, I would make that your NUMBER ONE PRIORITY at this point in your project. EVERYTHING ELSE is on the backburner until you resolve this issue!!! A constant on again off again supply of water into a building is a perfect recipe for mold, and that is somewhere you don't want to go if you can help it. That will make your kitchen remodel seem like childs play......a bad mold problem is tens of thousands and will really shackle you for resale due to legal disclosures etc. Once a problem like this is in the books you are straddled. You just bought the house? Was it inspected?

thanks sounder for taking the time to reply.

I will check out the vents tomorrow. I can tell you all the walls in our crawl space appeared dry to me today all around, so I don't know if that eliminates the vents or stem walls as the culprit, but if I'm reading what you wrote right maybe it does? I do understand if the vents are blocked it could slow down the release of the moisture back to the outside, though.

The space is pretty large (everything is relative, right, our house is rather tiny) but it goes under the rancher house, except a built on porch and laundry area.

Also, the leaking pipe... we only have noticed water in the space when it rains. It would be interesting to how dry it is down there during a dry spell with the AC pumping, but unfortunately I won't be able to see that for awhile.

Well when you get "Large puddles" under your car, you know you have an issue, somewhere. Same with a house. Any contractor you call is basically put in the position of a detective; he's gotta go searching for the problem. hell maybe you just have a low water table there. Regardless, as hard as it is to get one to find the issue (not much money in it .......) they will be lining up to take your insurance companies mold remediation check.

I am gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that your condensation line is draining into the crawlspace. It never should be done that way, but it has happened before. If I am right, that is enough to cause your prob.

was it Einstein that said the simplest answers are generally closest to the truth?

It is commonly referred to as Occam's Razor. Way before Einstein.

You guys sure have a way of making people feel dumb here...

Anyway, would I still see water in the basement in winter time if it was the condensation line?

Amandaw:

We have some unique personalties here, so don't feel like you're the only one. Not all of us are mechanically inclined or versed. I often find myself checking the dictionary when Chuck writes something.