When Google thinks it knows what your site is about they start sending visitors to your site who are looking for information about that topic. So for anyone wanting to know how our leak repair story ended, here is a description of our final solution for the wall leak we discovered a few months ago: GUTTERS.

Gutters solved 90% of the problem. They look nice, they were easy to install (i.e. it was easy to find a good installer), and they eliminated the cause of the problem by removing the water from the narrow section between our houses.

Getting our stucco repaired was another part of the solution. It was necessary because we had a hole in the side of our house, but I am not convinced that over the years that even repaired, well sealed, and painted stucco can withstand the water pressure that regularly exists on the side of our house if we didn’t have gutters.

Paint was another part of the solution. I dug the dirt away from the foundation all the way around the house and painted all the stucco I could reach as far down as I could reach. Several contractors suggested doing this as a way of keeping water from seeping through the stucco.

A French drain was NOT part of the solution. I considered the cost and effort of installing a below-ground drain, and it seemed like I’d be at the $500 mark quickly. After installation there would still be two significant problems left to solve: aesthetics and maintenance. The aesthetics of a line of gravel running down my side yard didn’t appeal to me, and I couldn’t think of a way to hide it with landscaping that wouldn’t also ruin the French drain. And maintenance on such a drain is necessary to keep it working. And the drain would only help if it could run out to the street or the pond in our backyard – all at the right slope. For our relatively flat Florida lot, this just didn’t seem like a good solution.

Tropical Storm Fay brought a week of heavy rain to Central Florida. On the Sunday after the rain stopped an informal raised-hand survey of people at our church indicated that about 30% of everyone had some sort of leak in their house during that storm. Our house didn’t get a drop inside, so I think it passed the test. I think this problem is solved.

Now I just have to get Andrew to fill in that ditch.

Preparing The Way Stucco Repair

‘Preparing The Way’ is the name of Jarrod Brown’s stucco repair company, but I prefer to think of the job he did as ‘Stopping Up The Way’ for the ants and the water. The stucco is fixed, and I am surprised at how much of a relief it is to have it that way. Knowing we’d have a gallon of water sloshing around our house during the next hard rain storm made it difficult for me to relax. Call me a nut.

This is Jarrod at work. He did a great job and was pleasant to have around while he worked. He also does a bunch of other stuff, so give him a call if you live in Orlando.

Me Sitting Outside My Stucco Hole

Today the stucco repair guy came (ya, I was surprised 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 out of it so we dug a little deeper. Then a chunk of the wall came loose, and we were suddenly looking into a cavern in the wall, pictured at right. It was so big I could see daylight from the inside of the house.

It’s patched up now, and it didn’t leak during the storm that followed so I guess we’re good to go.

(That really is a close-up picture of the hole.)

Our New Moat

Part of our leak fixing project has been digging the sod away from the house and changing the slope of the grass so water flows away from the foundation. Andrew dug out one side of the house and is waiting for the stucco repair guy to come before finishing. This has left us with a new moat that has remained full for the last few days.

It 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 the carpet in our house, so it’s important we get this solved before that happens!

Our Overflowing A/C Unit

My caulk plug on the outside wall washed away, so I’ve spent the last two afternoons soaking up water as it gushed in during our afternoon downpours. Last night I plugged the hole with roofing tar and placed a piece of plastic to shield it from any more rain, so I’m hoping that holds until we can get the stucco repaired.

So today when I saw yet more water where it shouldn’t be I just laughed.

Fortunately, this problem was easy to fix. Our inside A/C unit’s drain pipe had clogged and began spilling out onto the unit’s platform in the garage. This is not the first time this has happened, so I remembered the solution; vacuum out the drain pipe. Fortunately my neighbor’s wet/dry vac was handy, and I had the problem fixed in less than a half hour.

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.

Rising Waters In Our House

Returning to real life in Orlando after two weeks of vacation in Illinois and Wisconsin has been an uncomfortable jolt, but it’s nice to be with our friends here in Orlando again. Including our week in St. Louis, we were gone three weeks.

Our vacant house seemed available while we were gone, though, and several things took up residence while we were away. Ants, an armadillo, and more rising water.

We can deal with the ants. The armadillo who dug a burrow under our palm trees in the backyard will probably be more of a challenge than the ants. But the rising water has us completely perplexed.

This is leak #3, and we still haven’t finished leak projects #1, and #2.

The water is visible at the floor level, but we’re not sure if it’s coming in through the window or through some gap in the wall system. Unlike the other houses in our area which are built with concrete blocks, our house has pre-fabricated, steel reinforced concrete wall sections. Between the wall section and the foundation is a seal of black stuff, and I’m wondering if that seal has not sprung a leak. I think I’ll have to tear into the drywall to find out.

Front Door Drip Guard Installed

The duct tape holding the weather strip up under the front door finally gave out – for the fifth time – so I decided to get the job done already. It took me most of the day, but I figured out a way to make it work. Ironically, I don’t think my solution will have a weather strip under the door, but it should be OK because there is no room between the threshold and the bottom of the drip guard anyway.

Total savings on this project: ~$850.
Total cost of the project: 5 Saturdays + materials ($65)

UPDATE (2 June) – Tonight we had some severe thunderstorms with about twenty minutes of driving, heavy rain against the front door. A little stream of water ran through the gap between the bottom corner of the door and the door jamb. D’oh. I may just ignore the problem for now, as most everything at that location is made of vinyl and shouldn’t be damaged by water. But most likely I will resort to cutting off 0.5″ of the bottom of the door so I can fit the proper weather stripping under it. That’s another day-long project. Maybe I’ll wait until next winter when it’s cool again.

Front Door Progress

I see it’s been a while since I wrote anything. That means there has been a lot of things on my mind and no time to process them here.

The front door is getting processed, though, one Saturday at a time. Yesterday I finished all the outside paint, but it took all day. The only reason I had to paint again was because I messed up earlier. I thought all caulk was paintable, but I learned in a most difficult way that the silicone caulk I used isn’t. So I spent two hours removing what was otherwise a beautiful caulk job. I hate caulking, and I normally do a really bad job of it. So it’s only fitting that my best caulk job ever was just a mistake. Anyway, I got the door frame painted finally.

The bottom of the door is still missing a section of wood, and I don’t know how I’ll keep future rain from drawing up under the door again. I bought an aluminum drip guard, but it won’t fit under the door with my new threshold. One more puzzle to solve.

I leave next Saturday for a “ministry partner development” trip, so it will be a few more weeks before I can finish this project.

Front Door Repair

Today I spent all day fixing the door, but I finished before the rain started. My plan worked, but I did one step in the wrong order and had to improvise a work around. I installed the door jamb replacement piece before installing the threshold, and the door jamb blocked the threshold from sliding into place.

I still have about a day of work on this, mostly painting and fixing the trim pieces. My friend, Dave, not only helped me by scraping old caulk and running to the store for more parts, but he saved me several hours by noticing that my cut piece of wood was enough for both replacement pieces. I had planned to sculpt another piece, something that would have cost two hours and may not have even worked at that. Thanks, Dave.