Rant: That guy who said my foundation drain was overkill was wrong

So last spring I was digging footings for a small shed in my backyard here in Ohio. An old hand at the lumber yard told me just to skip the perimeter drain and gravel, said it'd be fine for a shed. I went against my gut and did it his way to save time. Fast forward to this month after all that rain we had, and I've got water pooling under the floor. Now I gotta tear up the gravel and do it right with proper drainage and PVC pipe. Anyone else had someone talk them out of doing something the right way?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaretc421d ago

lol the old hand knows everything until you're the one with water in your shed. I had a contractor buddy talk me out of putting a french drain around my patio a few years back, said it'd be "overkill for a slab". Now I've got this weird swamp smell coming up through the cracks every spring, plus the pavers are starting to heave. The thing nobody tells you is that water doesn't care about your timeline or your budget. It'll find the path of least resistance, and that path is usually right through your cheap shortcut. Like, I get wanting to save a few bucks and an afternoon of digging, but now you're looking at double the labor plus materials to fix it, plus whatever damage the moisture did to your floor joists. That's the real cost nobody talks about.

parker_webb1d agoTop Commenter

Read a piece in Fine Homebuilding a while back that said water problems are like termites, you don't realize the damage until it's too late. @margaretc42, you hit the nail on the head about that swamp smell, once moisture gets trapped under a slab it just sits there and works its way up. That's the kind of lesson you only learn once, unfortunately.

the_hayden1d ago

Read an article that said water always wins in the end...