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    foreverromantic's Avatar
    foreverromantic Posts: 177, Reputation: 1
    Junior Member
     
    #1

    Sep 10, 2018, 02:22 PM
    Soil or sand for foundation
    Could someone please help with this? My living room foundation at the tiled baseboard in the corner have water coming in during hurricanes or heavy rains that last continuously like last year's Erma for THREE FULL DAYS OF RAIN.
    The Building gave me permission to look for someone to do it.
    I had someone look at it who used to be a contractor . He is a salesman for my IMPACT WINDOWS which will be installed in 15 weeks.
    He told me to put three or four inches of DIRT THERE to raise that section by 3 or 4 inches. Currently I have marble chips in that location, but those will be removed for this project and put back later. (because I like the marble chips there).
    Someone has suggested sand as opposed to dirt.
    Do you think DIRT is BETTER THAN SAND ?
    Another person said dig a trench and pour concrete into it. This type of work our handyman would not be able to do. HE COULD DO THE DIRT, BUT NOT CONCRETE.
    Under the marble chips is a plastic that runs all along under the chips.
    Any info or help on this is appreciated. Thanks
    ma0641's Avatar
    ma0641 Posts: 15,675, Reputation: 1012
    Uber Member
     
    #2

    Sep 11, 2018, 12:57 PM
    Sand is way to porous. The last time I had to control water I used a heavy hand tamper to pack down the dirt as much as I could. Then I laid a layer of compacted dirt about 4" high that tapered to grade about 6' from the house. On top of that I laid a sheet of 6mil poly and covered that with another 2" of dirt. Sounds like you have dirt too far up your wall and water is leaching under the sill plate.
    Fr_Chuck's Avatar
    Fr_Chuck Posts: 81,301, Reputation: 7692
    Expert
     
    #3

    Sep 12, 2018, 04:20 AM
    I would agree, if it is coming in above the foundation, at your wall level (into the house) it sounds like the house level is too near the ground.

    If it is just coming in the foundation, it goes under the house (or into basement) and is not touching the floors.

    Is there a window near or above this area? Water can enter higher, travel down and appear at the floor level also

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