Contractor Frustration

I needed to redo the drain tile on my house but don’t have the equipment to do it so I hired a local contractor. I also added a membrane to the outside walls at the same time. Well, the guy installed the membrane up to the footing but it does not wrap around it plus he put poly over the crushed rock. I haven’t finished backfilling yet so now what is happening is that the water soaks into the ground, sits on top of the plastic and slowly seeps into my basement.

I had him over yesterday to show him the problem and he blamed some condensation on one of my pipes and humidity in the basement. He is convinced that he did everything properly. Just to prove my point I dug a 5 foot deep hole next to my foundation and added water to it. My sump pit is still dry and the hole is still full of water. Most contractors around here suck! They print up a business card and call themselves professionals!! :twisted: :twisted:

But at least you have great goose hunting :slight_smile:

Shout out to the folks in Gypsumville, Manitoba

http://www.mindat.org/maps.php?id=146408

Ah yes, the hunting. We hunt anything around here with four legs or wings.

I had never heard of Gypsumville. I guess it is a real place. Do you have relatives up there?

So Curtis, did he explain why in the world he would put plastic over the crushed rock.:shock::shock:
The weeping tile is under the rock is it not?
This is how it should be done in my opinion.
Coat of damproofing, some sort of membrane or dimple sheet. The rock covers the sleeved weeping tile layed in beside the footing. The rock should be piled up so it is about 6-8 inches up the wall. Backfill.
It sounds like this guy doesn’t have a clue.

“Like” Family.

I used to hunt every year there for 10 to 12 years with my Father, Dog and a great group of guys.

I do not think I ever missed the Local Thanksgiving Dinner at the Church.
Mmmmm Mmmmm good. Perogies :slight_smile: I like them fried.

I have not been back in a few years due to lack of money and my Father passed away but we still have enough stuff up there to start a goose and duck hunting guide service.

I hope to take my Daughter there some day. Great folks up there.

I had many trips and agree they are good people .
I went up to a farmer and asked him If I could hunt on his land and he said son just like you Owned her .
Please if you do did a pit make sure you fill it in,
Just like you owned her have a great hunt .

At what point did you pay the contractor for this job?

That is how we got permission for most hunts. find them in the evenings and call the owner if we knew them. if. not we went there and asked. We got to know most of the town that way.

We knew older indain ladies that would pluck them fot us and when we shot more tan we needed there was always locals that were thrilled to have them. i think we have helped quite a few locals survive the winters a little more comfortabaly

Well, I paid the guy shortly after he was done because everything seemed fine at the time. A couple of days after that we had a couple big rain storms when I realized that my pit was still dry but my walls were wet. I then called him back and asked him what he had done. He then explained it to me. I’m still in the process of working it out. He came back again 2 nights ago and asked if I would humor him by allowing him to insulate my pipes. Whatever. I’m in the process of working something out with the AHJ to clean this up.

My first question would be… what material did you backfill the trench with? My guess is the same crap ‘soil’ that came out of it. If you have a five foot deep hole that doesn’t percolate, there’s your first mistake!

If you haven’t read at least of few pages of this long running thread prior to your project… well, you could have saved yourself some unnecessary grief… http://www.nachi.org/forum/f23/something-else-chew-5448/index49.html

Perhaps reading it now, and having your contractor read it, may save you many more months of headaches!

Jeffrey

Your link is 40+ pages of slang and cuss words. What are you wanting me to read? From what I gather, it says that the outside needs to be waterproofed instead of just the inside. The rest is just mumble jumble. I had hired this guy to do that. He just sucked at it.

Wow, really? That’s what you took away from that thread? No wonder you prefer to be dependant upon the Crown. Don’t need to think for yourself!

So, lets forget about my link for now…

Care to restart this thread and explain to us…* exactly why you needed to re-do the drain tile on your house? It would help us to understand the why of which something was done. *

Are you kidding? Insults aside, I think john bubber was drunk when he wrote that. I did get the odd phrase about sealing outside cracks, not backfillng with the original soil and installing membrane but it took 50 pages to get that out. I’ll go back to it when I have time and give it another go.

This is the deal. My house was built in the mid-60s. It is a cinder block home with some minor cracks in various locations. The original drain tile was actually clay pipes with a gap in between each section for drainage. They were no longer doing their job as I was getting some seepage at the bottom of the walls. No membrane was installed at the exterior. The basement is not finished out. My plan is to finish it this winter but I wanted to make sure I didn’t get mould growing down there because of the moisture coming in. So my intention was to have a membrane installed around the exterior basement walls and re-do the drain tile. I am aware of how this needs to be done but didn’t have the equipment or the time to dig the hole. So I hired a guy to finish the job for me. I didn’t have time to babysit him nor did I think it was necessary. Only later did I realize what he had actually done.

The point of the original post was to show the incompetence of contractors around here. We’ve had a lot of people move into the trades with no experience or knowledge because they see easy money in construction. It is really difficult to figure out who the good contractors are because half the town does construction. Even good references don’t mean anything because I live in a do-it-yourself town where nobody really knows how to do things properly anyway. I have so many bad stories it would take up numerous posts on this message board. The reason Realtors don’t like Home Inspectors here is because we point out all the shoddy workmanship and poor methods of construction. Many of the homes have some major defects. Even my home was built and owned by a contractor. But he built it out of spare parts. He was known to order extra materials at other jobs then build his own house with them. I had an entire section of my basement where the floor joists were too short by 2 1/2 feet! Welcome to Southern Manitoba.

I’ve been in contact with the contractor and he has been willing to rectify some of the mistakes made. At least he acknowledged the fact.

I also re-read through some of the link sent and can understand the need for pea-gravel. There are so many soil types around here from clay to a much more sandy soil. The clay is certainly worse for backfilling purposes.

Hello all. Curtis, plastic as in vapor barrier type material, on top of the gravel over the weeping pipe / tile is an improper use of materials although there is a reason for it being there. There should be a layer of fabric type material such as landscaping cloth or in the alternative a “sock” filter fabric over the pipe / weeping tile. It is there to prevent dirt washing through the gravel and into the tile. In the old days we used a layer of shingles. In recent years, ok 1990’s there are still recent to me, when I was building still besides the dimple material /wall coating on the wall I also backfilled to about one foot below grade with as slight slope away from the home. I then adhered a layer of 6mil poly to the wall and spread it horizontally out to the width of the poly sheet or as far as the grade would allow. Most times I got it out at least four feet. I then continued with the backfill. Doing this means any water must travel at least the width of the poly prior to getting further down in the soil and thus it helps keep surface water from getting near the foundation. 6mil is cheap and underground will still be there long after the home it is protecting. This of course does not address water in soils below grade but that is what the weeping tile is for. Best of luck with your builder.

One final update: (for whoever is interested) I contacted the AHJ yesterday and they want me to do the drain tile properly including pea gravel etc, etc. Guess who is getting the bill…