Crawl Space Ninja Show
Welcome to "Healthy Home ABCs with Michael Church," where we dive into the essentials of improving indoor air quality. Learn practical tips for fixing your attic, basement, and crawl space to create a healthier home environment.
Crawl Space Ninja Show
Waterproofing Your Home: Why "It Never Happened Before" Isn't Good Enough
Water will eventually find its way into your home—it's not a question of if, but when. This fundamental truth challenges the common homeowner refrain: "I've lived here for 25 years and never had water before!" As our experts explain, just because you haven't experienced a major flood doesn't mean water hasn't been infiltrating your foundation for decades.
When homes are built, contractors disrupt virgin soil to create foundations, then backfill around them. This backfilled soil never fully compacts to its original density, creating what professionals call a "bowl effect"—a perfect pathway for water to travel toward your foundation. During normal rainfall, water may enter minimally without causing noticeable flooding, often trapped within block walls or appearing as white efflorescence deposits. But during extreme weather events like the recent Kentucky floods that dropped 14 inches of rain, that water has nowhere to go except into your home.
The discussion reveals why traditional waterproofing approaches often fail. Exterior waterproofing only protects from the downspout pipe up—not below the footer where water can still enter. Most exterior drainage systems installed decades ago use outdated materials like terracotta pipes that become clogged over time. Simply installing a sump pump without comprehensive drainage is compared to cooling a 1,500-square-foot home with a single window air conditioner—it can't possibly address the entire space.
Our experts detail how proper waterproofing addresses all water entry points: wall penetrations, cove joints where walls meet footers, and the hydrostatic pressure beneath concrete floors. The most effective systems include drainage pathways positioned beside (not atop) the footer, with channels connecting all problem areas to properly sized sump pumps with battery backups. This approach creates necessary pressure release points while controlling humidity levels to prevent mold growth, which requires only 24-48 hours of elevated moisture to establish.
Ready to protect your home from inevitable water intrusion? Contact our team for a comprehensive assessment before water damage compromises your foundation, indoor air quality, and structural integrity.
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But I do want to talk about the flooding that's happened in Kentucky. We do want to kind of talk about you know some things that will prevent it. You know outside, inside, that sort of stuff. So does that make sense? That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:Let's start with a good opener here that I've heard and I even joked with a customer the other day. I said if I had a dollar for every time I've heard that on these appointments I'd be running, I wouldn't have to do this anymore. Every time I've heard that on these appointments I'd be running, I wouldn't have to do this anymore. I've lived in my home for 25 years and I've never had water there before.
Speaker 3:Okay, he's saying. That is what a customer is saying. A customer says, yeah, he's hearing that you know. Well, obviously, the flood, this recent flood, is probably what a 40, 50-year flood, mm-hmm. You know, this recent flood was probably. We haven't had one like this in 40 or 50 years. Right, makes sense.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, and that brings up a good point. It's not a matter of if, but when, and that's what a lot of people don't understand. You know older homes like let's take a. If they've been living there 45 years, let's say it was built in the 60s or 70s, right, well, if it's a basement or a crawl space, they went in and they took an excavator and they dug a hole right and they disrupted or or messed up the virgin soil right. They took all the compacted soil out and then they decided to, you know, pour footers and build a block wall or whatever their foundation wall is, or poured concrete or whatever, and then they decided to pour the soil back in. Well, now that soil that they poured back in is loose fill. Now, over 40 years it has compacted, but it's never going to compact as it was originally. So that creates what's called what I call the bowl effect, where, if you get enough water in there, all right, it does have a chance to dissipate over the years. So so, yeah, maybe they get an inch or two and the wall can handle it.
Speaker 1:And you know, you got to keep in mind, just because you can't see the water coming in doesn't mean it is not coming in. It could be trapped in the cavity of the block. It could be, you know, just hanging out in the block and then coming in through the block, through humidity. I don't know if you've ever seen that before. You got what's called efflorescence, which is, you know, basically just the calcium, the white calcium, that's being pushed through the block. That's a sign of moisture, even though it's not flooding.
Speaker 1:You know, these are all signs and you know it's funny that the homeowners that have said that to me, like I've never had a flood before. You know, I go into the basement and they painted the wall with something. So there's been enough moisture that they decided to paint the wall, right. Well, now that paint is compromised because it's been, you know, 40 years since they painted it and paint doesn't resist mold. So now they got mold on the paint, right? But back to what I was saying is you get this bowl effect water goes in and as long as it's an inch or two or whatever, it dissipates. But whenever kentucky gets hit with how much water, how much water did y'all get?
Speaker 2:oh, I don't know, it was actually 14 inches. 14 inches, I don't know yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that water goes in that bowl and just sits there. But unfortunately, all of that original soil around it is also saturated, right. So the water has nowhere to go. But in it's easier for water to travel through a block wall, even through concrete, because it's not a solid poured concrete. They pour it in sections, so there's a joint. Anywhere there's a joint. You have joints at the footer, where the block sits. On the footer. You have joints between poured walls. All of these are weak spots, right, and I guarantee you the water was already coming in, you know, when you were getting an inch or two. It's just now. It's coming in so rapidly it has nowhere to go to. Now it's a problem, right, are you?
Speaker 1:recording this yeah this is all being recorded.
Speaker 3:This is a good first question, it really is, if you all want to rerun that back. You know you explain to me and say I'm getting hit with customers saying we've never had water in our. We've lived here 25 years and we've never had water in our crawl space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, this is, this has been recorded, so that way we can use it. But but basically it's the same with the crawl space, right, and I love? I love what HUD, the housing and urban development company, came out, or organization of the federal government came out with. This was several years ago. They and it just reaffirms what I've been preaching for a long time about crawl spaces is, again, it's not a matter of if, but when. So if the dirt outside the crawl space is, according to HUD, you can go to HUDgov and you can look this up. If the dirt outside the crawl space so let's say that I've got, you know, a block wall and I've got dirt three feet outside the crawl space higher than the crawl space floor itself Okay, well, hud says, if that happens, if the dirt outside the crawl space is higher than the dirt in the crawl space, you should. They list three things, but honestly, two of them, in my opinion, are not good, so I'm going to focus on the one that I think works. You should install an interior waterproofing system with a sump pump. Okay, because, all right back to the flood question. Okay, so if the water table outside, let's say, you're standing on that three-foot foot tall grass outside and you're mowing your grass. Well, if the water table is two feet below you, you've already got a foot of water in the crawl space, right, and you've got to have a place for that water to go. And if you don't, what's going to happen? Plastic's going to float. You now have a water bed inside your crawl space, right? So I love that scenario about HUD, but I'm going to take it a now. Have a waterbed inside your crawl space, right. So I love that scenario about HUD, but I'm going to take it a step further. I think basements should also be the same way.
Speaker 1:The exterior waterproofing of a basement or a crawl space only protects, basically, from the pipe up. Okay, it doesn't protect below the footer. Under the footer, none of that's protected. Ok, and let's let's say that they did a great job waterproofing the exterior. They did. Usually, they won't take waterproofing membranes over the footer. They stop it at the coke joint, which is where the footer meets the block wall. So the footer is raw concrete that will allow moisture to pass through it. The pipe is usually on top of the footer, right, so it's only a top-down solution. So if water is traveling at or below the footer, the water is going to go where it's going to go into the crawl space or into the basement, right? So you have to have that same protection on the inside where the footer is, and that's what we do. We, if you've got waterproofing on the outside, you've got a footer drain, which, by the way, if it was built 40 years ago, it's probably clogged by now because they don't use the same material that we use today.
Speaker 1:Right, my old house was built in 1968 that I used to have, and they used terracotta pipe. That was four, that was four feet long and and they basically just took it and it had like a male end and a female end and they basically just connected it and didn't seal it so matt. What happened? Dirt got in it. So this terracotta pipe was full of dirt, so it wasn't even perforated because it's terracotta. I mean, it's basically just a weak concrete pipe, you know, and I had to dig that thing out and I have pictures of it. If I can find it, I'll show it on this video.
Speaker 1:But so now, with with Hydrowave, for example, if you're able to put Hydrowave at the footer, that stuff moves water what? 20-something times faster than any other product on the planet. So you know. But they're not using it for footer drains. They're still using that old perforated, you know, corrugated, perforated, slitted pipe. It has a 6% opening. The water's got nowhere to go, you know. So, anyway, that's why you're seeing these. It's it's the failure of the outside water system, the lack of the interior water system and basically that system just gets too much water dumped on it, like you're having there in Kentucky, and that's why I haven't seen a flood in 40 years. Well, that's why this if this would have been done, if you had an interior system put in 40 years ago and it was maintained, the sump pumps were maintained, you probably would have had this problem because it would have captured that water and moved it outside of the house before it got got to be a problem.
Speaker 3:And here's something to dovetail into that is. A lot of times when I'm explaining, or we're explaining, to a customer about the benefits of an interior French drain, they'll say, well, why can't I just go on the outside and put in a French drain out there instead of doing all that inside? And it's probably going to be cheaper, right, you get hit with that comment a lot and it goes back to what you're talking about that water level. The water table is going to be below what they're installing, that outside exterior French drain at that's correct, that's correct.
Speaker 1:And back to your point. You know it's not going to be cheaper because let's use a basement, for example a 1970s house. The trees are mature, the bushes are mature, you know you got all this going around. So you're going to go in and let's say it's an eight foot tall basement and you got to dig six feet down. You know that's a lot of earth to move because you just can't go in there and dig. You know, six feet by a foot wide. You know OSHA requires that you step it down so that the dirt doesn't cave in on the ninja while they're down there installing the pipe, right. So you've got to not only dig six feet down but you may have to dig six feet out. What's in the way, your sidewalk's in the way, everything's in the way, right. So I think that exterior waterproofing is fantastic, but it's usually not economically viable because of all that has to be removed and redone.
Speaker 1:That 25 to 30-year-old oak tree that's sitting down in the front, the root system is in the soil. It's hard. You've got to dig around that. Well, brian, what's Mrsones going to say if you start cutting roots of that oak tree and you kill that oak tree? She's not going to be happy. She ain't gonna be happy at all, you know.
Speaker 1:That's why a lot of us waterproofers we gravitate to the inside. Now I'm not saying there shouldn't be certain things like downspout extensions and you know french drains. Those types of things should still be done on the outside, even if you have to cut concrete. You know French drains. Those types of things should still be done on the outside, even if you have to cut concrete, you know. And put something in front of the garage door. You know, especially if you're on a hill and the water's going into the garage, you can put some of those NDS channel drains in there, stuff like that. There's all things we can do on the outside, but it's very rare, to your point, phil, that an exterior only system will fix what's going on on the inside. I haven't seen it happen very often at Phil. I think the cost is going to be more expensive anyway, just based on what we talked about. But sorry, brian, go ahead. What were you saying?
Speaker 2:Well, you're good, and I explained that to my customers when I talked to them and I tackled those five jobs. It was all exterior and, like I said, only two of them were successful in that. And, uh, what would you say to, um, if I've had this water issue, I understand, I, I secede, I, I surrender. I did get water in my crawl space. Um, I want to install a sump pump under there. You guys do that, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're talking about sump pump only.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of guys and I tell people this unfortunately there's a lot of guys driving around with a pickup truck and they all can go to Lowe's and grab a sump pump in a five-gallon bucket Sure and put it under there, for, of course, way less than what I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've seen the HD bucket in many across space. I don't know why they always got to use an orange one. Why not get a bucket? You know, get a different colored bucket and then, they don't drill holes in it.
Speaker 3:They just stick the bucket down and they're sticking it. I'm like what is this? You know, yeah, it'll catch water that goes over the rim. What?
Speaker 1:is this you know, yeah, it'll catch water.
Speaker 3:That goes over the rim. Well, they think by having that sump pump that their crawl space is protected. You know, oh, I'm good, I've got a sump pump. But they don't understand the you know the dynamics of how that crawl space lays out. You know, and the sump pumps put over here, but in between here and this corner that let's get taken on a lot of water or whatever. You know it's an uphill grade or you know the water will never have a chance to get there unless you put, you know, hideaway pipe in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always love using analogies, right? You know, the thing that I always think of whenever somebody talks about something like that is the old window AC unit, right? So if you got you got a 1500 square foot home and you put a window ac unit in one of the rooms, how good is it, how good is that ac unit going to be at cooling 1500 square feet? Because it it can't reach it.
Speaker 2:I'm taking that one, mr turks, that is fantastic visual, yeah, which is why we have central heat and air.
Speaker 1:You've got a unit that is ducted to all parts of the house, right, and that's the way a waterproofing system is, you know. And one of the things that we have to be cautious of as professionals is it's not just about an exterior. You know, along the foundation wall system, you have to look at what's going on in the crawl space. So, for example, if you've got a low spot in the crawl space that's holding water, you've got to make sure that you hook a pipe up to that low spot to get to the sump pump, even though it's inside the crawl space, right. So you're a problem solver. You go in and you know, let's say that, especially around footers, man, you'll see these footers dug out and, of course, they never backfill them. They just leave these little trenches around these footers. Well, they have water in them, you know. So there's a couple things you can do. You can fill it up with gravel. Well, that's great, it raises the water, it raises the soil level, but it doesn't get rid of the water. The water is still there, okay. So what you have to do is you have to cut, uh, or or run a pipe from that cavity, that where the footer is to the exterior waterproofing system, which is then tied into the sump pump, right. So you got to make a channel for that water to go.
Speaker 1:And that's what I always think about whenever somebody says, oh, we'll just put a sump pump. Okay, I could put a sump pump by the door, which is the lowest part of the crawl space, but what are the odds of that? You know, 70 foot of water way over there making it to this sump pump. It's not going to do it and if it did, it would probably do it on the surface, which means it's going to float the plastic and void your warranty, because now you're going to have mud on the plastic. So you have to give the water a channel to go to. So hopefully that answers the question. The analogy of the of the window unit ac versus.
Speaker 2:you know it's fantastic, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a good question. It comes up a lot, so I appreciate you asking that.
Speaker 2:What are the damages of if we get this flood once every 20 years? What are some of the damages that you've seen over the years that can cause? If water floods and then goes away? What are the lasting effects?
Speaker 1:Well, it's unfortunate, but you know soil is going to expand, to contract probably within a week, you know and that expansion and contraction of soil with the movement of water in and out of it can affect a foundation, whether you have a waterproofing system or not, them or not. There's two things, I think, that really, and based on the research that I've seen, that really affect foundation movement, and that's too much water and too little water over a long period of time. For example, a drought is actually like a 10, I believe in Illinois places, st Louis, around that area, they were in a 25 year drought up until this past year and they they did more foundation repairs during that drought than they would probably during a flood. Ok, because as that soil backs away from the foundation, it takes it, it takes the security away from the wall Right, so now that wall is easier to bow or tip or whatever it's going to do. It takes the security away from the wall right, so now that wall is easier to bow or tip or whatever it's going to do. And also the soil is moved away from the footer, which means that footer could drop.
Speaker 1:So in an ideal situation you have an average amount of moisture in the soil, right, like humidity, for example. You can have too much humidity, which causes mold, but you can also have too little humidity, which causes, you know, bacteria, viruses, nosebleeds, all those kinds of things that come from having too dry of a house. So there's, there's always a happy medium. It's never, it's never one or the other, it's somewhere in between, right, one or the other, it's somewhere in between, right.
Speaker 1:So, that being said, I still think that water and from what I understand, water is the number one destructive force on any house. So for us, I would rather have too little water in my crawl space than too much water in my crawl space, because there's way more issues with having too much water than not enough water, right. So I would always err on the side of getting the water out of the crawl space of the basement and let Mother Nature do what Mother Nature is going to do. We can't control it, we can't stop it. It's going to have a rain, it's going to have a drought. Those things are just natural that happen, and we just do what we can to control humidity. Let's keep humidity levels between 45 and 55 percent and let's keep the plastic from floating, or let's keep the carpet from getting soggy in the basement. Those are kind of the things I always try to look at.
Speaker 3:Right, a thing that I would like for you to talk about a little bit in regards to a customer calling saying hey, I've got water in my basement. Okay, there's two possible scenarios of where that water is coming from either the walls or coming up through the floors. Can you talk a little bit about that and the issues that come with that and then how we go about solving those issues?
Speaker 1:Yeah, corey from Hydroway did a great job explaining this and if I can find that video, I'll put a link to it. But hydrostatic pressure sits inside the footer, so basically where the slab is. Okay. So that's a certain amount of pressure that is in there, and when you think of pressure, you got to think there has to be a release valve, okay? So if hydrostatic pressure gets to be too great, what happens to the concrete? It cracks, it'll even shift, it'll move or, like some really older homes, you might see a crack and you might see moisture around the crack, which means the pressure is is relieving up into the cross or up into the basement. Now, if you have a finished basement, you don't see that because you got wood flooring or some kind of tile or carpet on top of it, right? So again, this goes back to what I said before is you need to have some kind of pressure release valve, and for us that would be the interior waterproofing system inside the basement at a sump pump, because that's the pressure release valve. Okay, so that would be what I would recommend that every basement look at is that you've got to have that pressure release valve, okay?
Speaker 1:So whenever you have a situation where you have a basement, you actually have multiple sources of water intrusion. You got the foundation wall. You got where the foundation wall meets the footer, which is called the Cope joint in our industry. Right, the footer itself can give up water, because as the footer gets saturated, water can actually wick up into the wall, which adds moisture. And then you've got what I talked about, which is on the slab side, or this got what I talked about, which is on the slab side, or this side of the footer, which is at a hydrostatic pressure. So all of those places can be water intrusion points.
Speaker 1:Most of the time people only think of the foundation wall, that's. That's where they think of the most, but usually all right. So so here's. Here's the point. If it was the foundation wall, then why don't waterproofers install plastic up the walls? I would say 90% of waterproofers out there only install a just under the slab cove joint solution, because 90% of the time the water is coming in at that joint it's actually not coming in at the wall. It's just that the water has gotten so saturated it's climbing up the wall. Okay, so they're giving that wall release. So if they have the waterproofing system at the cove joint, then that water naturally will come down and enter the cove joint. Now that doesn't mean the water won't give up humidity inside the crawl space or inside the basement, which is why I always think you should do plastic all the way up the wall. At least I'm trying to tell the homeowner.
Speaker 2:It'd be like us.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine, Phil, if we did crawl space encapsulation and we didn't put plastic up the wall?
Speaker 2:We wouldn't do that.
Speaker 3:Right, right, they call it out here encapsulation just put four dehumidifiers in there, you'll be no pleasure yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, I I dare say that the basement guys that y'all are going up against are probably not putting dehus in basements, which, in my opinion, is a big mistake too. That should always be happening as well, because I don't care how. I remember this builder friend of mine.
Speaker 1:He would build brand new houses and he got a call and he's like hey, michael, I need you to come out, take a look at this house and and, uh, you know they're real unhappy. They got mold. Brand new house. They got mold growing on their pool table in the basement. I'm like, really okay.
Speaker 1:So I, I went out there and real, beautiful house, great couple. And you know the upstairs was, you know, fine. And as soon as I opened the basement door it was almost like I entered a jungle. You know I kid around. I was like, yeah, I heard like monkeys screaming. You know, I was like, you know, I opened it up and that humidity wall just like smacked me in the face, you know. And I start walking downstairs and I'm sweating before I even get to the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 1:Well, the homeowner, since that basement is cooler, guess what they didn't do? They didn't turn on the AC. Part of what the AC can do is help to lower humidity. But if that basement's cool because it's underground, then you're going to run the AC less down there in the summer. So they needed a dehu. So they never installed a dehu and I'm like, well, just put in a, you know a big dehumidifier down here and you'll be all set and get rid of the mold on the.
Speaker 1:You know that, you see, and you should be fine, and luckily it was called early enough to where there was just a little bit of surface mold. You know here and there, but that's what you got to do. If you're in, the upstairs was AC'd, so that's why you know it was above ground so the AC was running, but in the downstairs it wasn't, so in a crawl space it's the same thing. If you're going to be below grade or in a basement, you've got to have a dehumidifier down there whenever it's needed. Right now it may only come on three times a year, but the point is is is that mold only needs 24 to 48 hours to grow.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you're not controlling humidity every day of the week, 24 7, 365, you will give mold an opportunity to grow if you don't control that humidity. So I hope that you're brian, telling homeowners about the importance of dehumidifiers and basements, because it's a big deal and it's a way to separate yourself from what our competition is basically doing, which is just some cove joint. You know apparatus, because all they're looking at is standing water. We are an indoor air quality company. We're looking at every aspect of the basement, which includes humidity, dust, mites, mold, all of it right Set the scene for us on this last job.
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 2:Beautiful house, great part of Lexington, as soon as you pull up. Of course, I'm now converted over to the ninja side so I'm immediately scanning landscape, the way the ground level is falling here. So the way the house is built is on a hill with a walkout basement, so the whole half the house underneath is is all underneath ground. It's huge retaining wall up at the front yard holding dirt back from the backyard, so the backyard is lower than the front. You know sure, so go in. He calls because it flooded, got about two inches of water, not completely throughout, just a few problematic areas. So as soon as I go down, of course, the appointment was awesome. I got to yell at a customer, michael. I got to yell, scream at him at the top of my lungs because there were six dehumidifiers and huge fans. So I was like what?
Speaker 3:There's a water over here.
Speaker 2:I'm getting what you're doing. You're doing what Phil is about to do. What's wrong with that? Hold on now.
Speaker 1:Did you see Phil's look? He shot at you when you said that that was great.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, servpro had gotten out there to dry everything out, get the water out, cut the drywall up and all that good stuff. He'd heard good things about us, saw our billboards everywhere, didn't know anything about our technology or system he was just wanting to quote. So I immediately go through the areas of the problem areas. And I learned that wonderful Scrabble word going through training in St Louis hydrostatic pressure. He was a well-versed I think he's a surgeon, so he had looked at your videos he had watched and seen and he kind of diagnosed himself, so to speak. So I didn't have to do too much teaching, just explain. And we had wonderful pictures of some jobs that we have already done and installed. So he got to see firsthand how that looks and what we're going to do into his house.
Speaker 2:I'd say my biggest challenge on this one which I'll get with our lead ninja Shannon over there is it is a massive challenge basement with a lot of walls finished. So there's things that are I'm trying to identify and I told him to be flexible with the way that we're going to lay our piping and do that with the Hydroway on where and routes where it needs to go, cause he does want the sump pump in a closet utility closet. There's going to be two, so one in a utility closet and one in a room off to the back that is completely enclosed in block. So that was kind of interesting. So I'm pretty much a stump of it, but that was a water spot, right. He doesn't want to mess up his bar area, um, which wasn't a heavy water spot, but it was right next to an area that got some pretty good water in his office, so so it's not a traditional box at all.
Speaker 1:Well, and that brings up a good point, and I just want to reiterate this, part of why I started our YouTube channel in 2012 was to educate homeowners and people like well, you give away too much information.
Speaker 1:No, I give away information because I don't want the wool being pulled over their eyes, because if your competition goes in there and this gentleman, this doctor, had not done his research, then he's going to fall for whatever they say and a lot of it's going to be price driven, right? Ah, you don't need this because of this blah, blah, blah. But if they go in with their eyes wide open and they're prepared mentally and they've had a chance to research exactly what it is that they need to do, it makes your job a lot easier because you don't have to educate them as much. Now they can still go after the price. You know the cheap price job. That's their prerogative to do that.
Speaker 1:But if they care about their home and they and they want it done right what we call a worry free basement or a worry free crawl space a lot of times people will choose us because of how our solution is laid out right. We're using the best pipe, we're using the best sump pump, we're using the best of everything. So the other thing that you got to be careful with on a larger home I assume this is a fairly large home is they build homes today even though we don't have earthquakes in Kentucky and Tennessee. They build them earthquake proof is what I call them, and you've seen this in a.
Speaker 1:In a new home, 3000 square foot crawl space, there's like 150 pillars down there. You know it's like what is going on. You know it's the same thing in a basement they will pour multiple footers even on the interior of the of the of the slab, so you can't see that because it's covered in whatever. So you've got to prepare the homeowner like you did, and that way when they start jackhammering up that slab, they gotta be. Well, you can't have a sump pump on this section and and there'll be a slab separating this section from this section.
Speaker 1:Those two will not talk so you've got to put a waterproofing system with a, you know, interior french drain and sump pump over here too, and that's. I want a lot of homeowners to understand that the newer your home and the bigger your home, the more likely you are going to run into that problem. You know, I've even seen it in crawl spaces, bill, you've probably seen it where they'll just put a footer down the middle of a crawl space and we can't even get the Hydra way past it. So we've got to do an interior system over there, an interior system over here, and unfortunately that and the homeowner is less educated and they're like well, crawl space ninja wanted two sump pumps and this other guy only wanted one and he's cheaper. Let's go with this other guy.
Speaker 1:That's why we do what we do. You got to have one sump pump every 140 linear feet. You got to have a sump pump in every section that is, you know, separated by footers. And the reason why we fall under that 140 linear foot item is because Hydroway moves a lot of water fast. Okay. So the weak spot of the system is what? It's? The sump pump, okay. So if you're moving a lot of water that basin and you don't give that Hydroway, direct access into that basin, and you're doing like most of our competitor, where we're dumping the water around the basin and there's, you know, three holes drilled. Yeah, how slow is that water to go into that basin? It's going to be really slow. So, yeah, some pump can keep up whenever water's just dripping in, but whenever that hydroway is dumping direct in, you better have a half horsepower or above every 140 linear feet, because you're going to need it, right?
Speaker 2:So anybody sent us an actual video, when all that rain was coming down, of the water pumping into the basin. It was pretty incredible. I was like no way. I mean, it was like a water hose just pouring into that basin. So it was pretty cool to see. We did do. We ran into something a little bit about that this basement, we just did. We came over 12 inches Off the wall. Off the wall and it wasn't far enough To clear the footer. Had to be out 16 just to clear the footer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, earthquake proof Kentucky house. Again earthquake-proof Kentucky house. Yeah, I mean, you'd think as expensive as concrete is, they wouldn't pour you know 24-inch footers. But they tend to like those 24-inch footers which you know. I get it Architecturally. You know the engineer, all those people are involved in that. So maybe they need to. But you know the flip side of that is, you know those 60s houses where they didn't have enough. You know the the flip side of that is you know those 60s houses where they didn't have enough, you know. So I remember going into a house and they'd have two by what? Two by sixes or two by eights span for like 14 feet. You know, I'm like you know and then.
Speaker 1:And then mrs jones would put a piano in the middle of it and it's like no wonder the truss cracked.
Speaker 3:And they're turned this way.
Speaker 1:So, you know, maybe overkill is the new engineering way that they're building houses now, which I get it, but I'd rather have a more supported house than a less. But it's a challenge for us that we've got to try to fix that issue right. Absolutely Well, that's great. So what did that job? If you don't mind. What was the linear footage? How much pipe are you putting in? Did you do the full perimeter? What was it?
Speaker 2:I didn't do the full perimeter, I stuck with the customer on the areas where and I saw when Serpo's there still staining of where the water was. I think it came out to 116 linear feet total. He's getting, like I said, two sump pumps, two battery backups. Yeah, go along with that, and yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good point too, because, number one, I love surf pros and Balfours and those water damage restoration folks are great referral partners for us because a lot of times they don't do any of the waterproofing like we would do. So if there's anybody watching our industry or that's in those industries, we'd love to be a referral partner for you. But the other thing is the battery backup. I mean, again, there's two ways to make sure that that sub pump works when the power goes off, and that's either you have a whole home generator or you have a battery backup. Okay, and when are you going to take on water?
Speaker 1:Did you get a lot of rain during a thunderstorm? Absolutely, that's when you're going to get most of the rain. And when are you going to lose power during a thunderstorm? So if you were going to waterproof your basement and make sure it was protected all the time, I would certainly get a battery backup for that. So it's good that he recognized that and hopefully our videos helped him to understand that so that it made your job a little easier explaining it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it did it did it? Helps a lot with the information that's out there. The one house I just left, almost being a little late to this meeting. She couldn't be there, so I talked to her from the driveway. Of course her fiance was in the house waiting on me. I bet he was wondering what was going on. I talked to her for almost an hour but she said she had five different contractors out with all these crazy different ideas. There were pinholes in their basement walls. You need to do grading outside.
Speaker 2:She actually already had some sort of water management system installed before she bought the house, but can't find any record of it from previous owners and by my observation, knowing what I know now, they it must be on top of the footer because it's only a six inch. You know disturbance on the basement floor. But before I even went inside I said here's your, your problem, right here, honey. It's a great scrabble word hydrostatic pressure. And when I got there as evidence, cracks in the slabs, you know all of that he told me where the water was coming in at and right now he's going to save up and he said I don't care by far. He's like. I asked somebody to come here Tell me what the issue is, tell me what I'm going to need and how you're going to solve it and how much is it, and I'm going to come with you. And he said you out of five people were the only company that gave me exactly what I wanted. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well and that's another great scenario is just about everybody else is installing top of footer water systems that are barely below the concrete. Okay, and code requires a four inch pour back minimum in most municipalities. So if you're going to extract four inches of concrete and you're going to put some channel on top of the footer and then pour back a half inch to an inch of concrete, you're not going to be able to do anything on top of that. I mean, in a lot of them it'll even say it voids the warranty if you build anything on top of that. So you can't do an interior wall or anything like that on that With our system.
Speaker 1:Now there may be a small percentage of the time where we would do an on-the-footer system, but even then we're going full concrete pour back. But most of the time what we install is a beside the footer system. And the reason why we like that system is because not only is it going to address the water coming from that cove joint but it's going to address that hydrostatic pressure that's under the concrete, because that hydrostatic pressure can't get to that cove joint only install Okay, it's very difficult for it to do that. So that's why your system is going to be better, regardless of who installs it, because of where we put it, as much as the Hydraway moves the water really quickly. It also is placed in a different spot than 90% of the water proofers out there which put in you know, some kind of cove on top of the footer system. So hopefully they understood that as well.
Speaker 1:I will send them this link yeah, very good, very good, all right. Well, if you guys don't have any other questions for me, I don't know if you were able to stump me or not, but uh, if you did, I'll do some research and uh see if I can come up with an answer at the end of the video. But uh, appreciate you, brian and phil, uh joining me today.
Speaker 2:I think all the knowledge is in the beard man, that fantastic beard you got to patent that.
Speaker 1:You too, I'm I'm jealous. You know you got a thick beard. I can tell by looking at you. Mine grows in more like Joe dirt. You remember that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, joe deer tag.
Speaker 1:That's more like mine and you know I got these skunk stripes. It's more like mine and you know I got these skunk stripes. It's finally starting to join together, you know, but anyway, anyway, I was looking at some older videos. I'm like, you know I didn't have gray in my beard in some of those older videos. What happened? You know I got older yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so very good, 13 sub-franchises. Oh yeah, yeah, so very good, 13 sub franchises.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that might be it. So anyway, it was great talking to both of you and let me know. If you'll have any other questions and, you know, if you get a homeowner and maybe we could do a testimonial video with one of them, let me know. Maybe I could shoot up there and, like we'd have before, phil, you and I have done several videos together already. We could do a testimony.
Speaker 3:I'm sure we could do that with somebody I know we could do that. So, yeah, we'll, we'll talk about that, think about that and let you know, and then you know, based upon your schedule, come up here. Yeah, we can do that, that'd be good.
Speaker 2:Lots of happy people in Kentucky with this. That's probably the biggest benefit of all the technology and learning. It's actually truly changing and impacting lives in here and people are super grateful about it. I'm just happy to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, that's great. We're happy that you're a part of it too. Brian, glad you, glad you decided to join us, and I'm Michael.
Speaker 2:Churchill.
Speaker 1:Crawl Space.
Speaker 2:Ninja here with Phil and Brian, and we hope you all make it a happy and blessed day and we'll see you later.
Speaker 3:Fantastic you stay through, thank you.