On this episode of Fabricating Firewood, justification for an Excavator a French Drain Story, Part 1

It's taken 17 years to get to this point. We have had standing water in our crawl space and a musty smell in our house as a result ever since we bought this property. The people that we bought it off of 100% knew there was an issue which is probably why they listed it in the dry month of August of 2007 to hide it among the other issues this property and house has. There was massive termite damage along the entire west wall of the house and the bathroom that was concealed by spray foam from the pea gravel all the way up to the subfloor in between the joists. There wasn't even a sump pump in the sump basin. After I installed one in about 2008, it would kick on about every 15 minutes from spring to winter but still wouldn't remove the standing water in the crawl. The bathroom had to be totally gutted down from the ceiling to the pea gravel as a result which took me the entire year of 2019 and $22k to demo everything including the joists, framing studs and subsequently having rebuild and remodel everything. I'm just now able to install a French Drain on my property to resolve the issue and protect the new construction and the rest of the foundation now that I have a tractor and backhoe attachment to do the heavy lifting. One issue though. The backhoe wasn't really suited for this so now I have a decision to make. TDC-12. 11JUN2024