Sat 12 Jul 2008
Raining Inside
Today we had a strong storm, and the water came flowing in our new house hole. I scrambled up to the attic looking for a potential roof leak but found nothing but heat (!) and dry insulation. But back down on the ground the water kept coming in, so after the rain let up a bit I got the garden hose out and sprayed until I had repeated the leak. Sure enough, the hole is in a rusted-out seam of our stucco near the foundation, just above the grade. The seam rusted out because the bottom of it goes below the grade and sits in water every time it rains. Normally stucco is not installed below the grade of the yard, so this should never have happened. I think some caulk should plug the hole until I can fix the source of the problem.
After stucco repair, gutters and a drain field should probably eliminate the excess water in the area of the leak. This whole problem seems to be caused by poor construction, so it’s a bit frustrating.
3 Responses to “ Big Leak ”
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Pingback from Hertzler Moat » Hertzler’s Outpost
July 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am[...] looks like the solution to this problem will be gutters, stucco repair, getting the house painted, and a lot of digging. We need to replace [...]
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Pingback from The hole in my stucco was SO big…. » Hertzler’s Outpost
July 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pm[...] stucco repair guy came (ya, I thought it was odd he wanted to work on a Sunday, too), and we found the hole in the stucco that was letting in all the water. At first it didn’t appear to be anything more than a screw hole, but ants kept going in and [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Jerry,
If the stucco goes below the dirt line, you will want to break it off so that it stops above the dirt line, otherwise it forms a great hidden tunnel for termites to come up in your house and potentially to your wood in your roof. Just have a termite sales guy come and give you an estimate for a treatment and he will tell you that it is a problem. Or find another knowledgable source to ask about it. It may be building code to make sure that it doesn’t extend below the soil line in Orange County.