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About four years ago my neighbor hired a crew from a licensed waterproofing company to waterproof his crawl space. I was able to hire the same crew to do the same for my crawl space at a discounted price, but over 2 weekends, “off the company books”. A few weeks ago I noticed moisture on the garage floor, and I thought it had come from the crawl space. I called the waterproofing crew’s leader but he never responded to me. I joined the web site Angie’s List for a recommended contractor to seek out another opinion. I called Atlantic Coast Waterproofing. Gary Lustig came to my house for a no-cost diagnosis of the problem. When he saw the moist garage floor and also examined the adjacent walls and ceiling he said he thought the problem was not a leaky crawl space but rather a leaky chimney. He then examined the outside of my home and went down into the very shallow crawl space. When he finally came up he explained what he had found and showed me a few pictures he had snapped with his cell phone. I appreciated this because I cannot go under my home into the crawl space. The pictures showed the prior waterproofer had dug a 4 inch deep trench in the crawl space around the outer walls, placed (very little) gravel and pipe in the trench and connected the pipe to two sump pumps, which were linked to the sewer line. Gary explained that the prior waterproofer had cut every corner he could. For the system to be effective the trenches around the crawl space walls needed to go down to the base of the footing, which, in the case of my house, was over a foot and a half deep. The pipe in the trench was not closed off with end caps. Bleeder holes were not drilled in the hollow blocks around the crawl space to release the water that was accumulating. The sump pump crocks were not installed properly and were standing 6 inches above the crawl space dirt floor. The sump pumps should not have been connected to the sewer line. The pipes used to connect the sump pumps to the sewer were not properly secured, and were angled in the wrong direction, making for a lot of extra work for the pumps. The system as installed did not protect the foundation walls or the house from ground water and excess moisture. The ground level area of the crawl space was not wet because the 4-inch deep pipes and the sump pumps kept it that way. Gary explained that the 14 or more inches between the base of the footing and the near-surface pipes was wet, with water accumulating in the hollow blocks above the footing. I hired Atlantic Coast Waterproofing to do the job correctly. While Gary estimated that the job would take 4 days, it took 5 days. As I noted above, the crawl space is VERY tight. The clearance from floor to ceiling is approximately 28 inches. I cannot imagine digging into the ground under such constrained conditions. Also, three days into the job we had over 3 inches of rain fall overnight. We have never had this much rain in such a short period of time. The newly dug crawl space trenches were flooded and had to be evacuated. 6A gravel and 4 inch perforated A.D.S. pipe with filter fabric were installed with proper gravity flow of water to two new sump pump systems. The sewer line connections were closed, and the sump pump pipes were run out the side of the house. Bleeder holes were drilled into every cavity of every block at the base of the block wall to release stagnant water that was accumulating. A new vapor barrier was placed over the entire crawl space floor. Gary took pictures as the job progressed and showed them to me. He sent me a disk with the entire collection when the job was done. The completed Atlantic Coast Waterproofing system lowered the ground water level under my home by more than 14 inches compared to the previous system I had installed. The work is backed with an unconditional lifetime guarantee, which is transferable to new home owners. I will recommend Atlantic Coast Waterproofing to anyone I encounter who has crawl space/basement water problems. From day one Gary Lustig explained things clearly and kept me informed all along the way. The crew (including Gary) worked hard doing a job which nobody I know is willing or able to do. Thank you Gary and crew!!!
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