HELP NEEDED! wall leaking water during heavy rain! crack in foundation?

[rainbowmoon]

we have been having some HEAVY rains and the 2 front bedrooms in my house are LEAKING water at the bottom of the wall and flooding the rooms. (this happened once several years ago then again last year and we had to rip out all the carpet last year as it was totally ruined-I thought it was the windows and caulked them, apparently not so)

today I watched the water seep through the wall at the base of the wall!

is it a crack in the foundation? the roof leaking into the wall? (we had a new roof put on 7 years ago, so I don't think it's the roof either) the wall is only wet on the very bottom. it's not a plumbing problem as it's only happened when it rains heavily. the ground does not slope toward the house or anything like that. it is a brick foundation on the outside. there might be a small crack or two but nothing major as far as I can tell.

is it the small cracks or something bigger?

who does one call for this type of problem? home inspector? insurance co? I don't know who to call! my regular handyman guy is having surgery tomorrow. help!

[nonnymoose]

What kind of construction is your house - frame or masonry? Do you have a basement? Are there visible cracks in the foundation or interior walls? It's really difficult to tell what's going on without knowing more about the house.
If water's getting behind your gutters, it can make its way all the way down the studs to the base of the wall. If the ground around the house is saturated and your drainage is bad, then it can come in through the outside, even if you don't have a physical problem with the foundation.
Are your gutters and downspouts maintained? Have you done landscaping recently?

[rainbowmoon]

frame, no basement, no gutters. no recent landscaping. no cracks on the interior walls. the cracks in the bricks on the outside are small like 3" or less. I saw one visible one but didn't search too closely.yet.

do you think it's from not having gutters?

the house is 23 yo.

what a mess. and I am afraid to know what this is! (and how much it will cost!)

[rainbowmoon]

the kicker is we tore out carpet of both rooms. (no heavy rain since until this week) bought tile for both (cheap sticky tile) so I didn't make a claim as it was under $500. 6 months later my ins. sends a letter saying they no longer cover mold damage. (I wonder if there is any in there? it's likely as under the carpets got moldy! acck!) great! : I KNEW I should have made a claim last year. I wasn't sure if it was a window problem though as I suspected it was until today.

but then again, maybe getting gutters will solve the problem? it doesn't rain a whole lot here (desert) so it's never been a priority. though we should have had the seller do it when we purchased the house.oops!

[rainbowmoon]

ok, so chatting with someone on another board I think it's not having gutters! I hope getting them will solve the problem.

[snv1492]

Originally Posted by rainbowmoon

ok, so chatting with someone on another board I think it's not having gutters! I hope getting them will solve the problem.

You should definitely have gutters, but that is not your problem. Gutters or not, water is getting into the house somewhere and installing gutters won't patch the leak. While the gutters may divert enough water away from wherever the leak is, its not going to patch the actual hole, so if there is a heavy enough rain to overflow the gutters, you'll still have the same problem.

[kerc]

We had issues at our old house when we had A LOT of rain all at once. (meaning two inches or so in a day). The basement would leak slowly.

One thing you can do is make sure the soil in your yard grades out from the house. If you imagine you are a marble and you sit at the edge of the foundation, you should roll down hill away from the house.

That's a pretty non-invasive thing to fix if the ground has compacted somewhat --- just order some topsoil, get your wheelbarrel and haul it to the foundation. Plant a little grassseed or cover with mulch.