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Foundation Repair & Maintenance
The goal of foundation
watering is to keep the water content of the soil under your
foundation as constant as possible. Since you can’t keep
out the rain, the thing to do is keep the soils reasonably
damp during dry periods. To be successful, a watering
program must keep the soil damp down to a depth of 4 or 5
feet. The more trees and large shrubs that you have, the
harder this is to do. Why, because big plants have big
thirsts.
The best way to water your
foundation is with a specially designed foundation watering
system. These systems are made of soaker hoses that are
buried in the ground around the perimeter of your
foundation. To provide even watering and to offset the
pressure drops that occur in soaker hoses, a separate water
line is run to each section of soaker hose. The soaker hoses
will extend no more than 20 feet away from the connections
to the water lines. A typical home will have a minimum of 4
zones, each with its own water line and control valve. For
an average home, it costs from $3,000 to $4,000 to install a
foundation watering system.
For a few dollars in hoses
and valves (and some hard work), homeowners can build their
own systems. The diagram at
the end of this section shows how to build a simple watering
system out of common parts from the hardware store.
When watering, remember that
too much water is as bad as too little water. If you do not
have timers on your hoses, make sure that you turn them off
when you are finished watering.
There is no simple way to
determine how much and how often to water. You must use your judgment. The hotter, drier, windier, and sunnier it is,
the more you need to water. The cooler, wetter, and cloudier
it is, the less you need to water. How wet the surface is,
is not a good measure of how your watering program is
working. It is possible for the surface to be soaked while
the ground a foot deep is relatively dry. One way to check
your soils, if you have clay soils, is to use a plumber’s
probe. A Plumber’s probe is a 4 or 5 foot long fiberglass
pole with a "T" handle on the end. If your soils are too
wet, then the pole can be pushed down into the soil with
little or no effort. When the soils are wet, but not too
wet, you should be able to push the probe 3 to 4 feet by
leaning heavily in the handle. If you can’t push the probe
into the ground without banging on it, the soils are
probably too dry. This test will not work well in sandy or
rocky soils. The sand or rock can keep a probe from slipping
into the ground even if the water content is high.
Do not use a metal pole to
probe the soils. If you hit a buried electrical line with a
metal pole, you could be electrocuted.
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