Water Impacted 3 of the 4 Homes We Owned
Water impacted 3 of the 4 homes we owned. Learn from my experiences so that you can save time and money with your home.
Our first home was in Franklin, TN. Franklin is just south of Nashville. It is a great place. We lived there in the late 80s. We bought a brick rancher and an acre lot. Unlike the new homes our Realtor showed us, this home had apple trees. I am convinced now, we bought it for the apple trees. We stayed there a few years. We put the home on the market. We got it under contract. I remember the agent calling us and telling us we had a problem with the buyer’s loan. The lender paid FEMA for an updated flood map. Our property had moved into the flood plain because of new development in the area. The buyer’s lender was requiring flood insurance and the buyers were considering backing out. We purchased the property without flood insurance. We never had a problem with flooding. Only the corner of the property was included in the map. I considered donating the corner to the county and making it a public park. The buyers were able to get an elevation certificate from a surveyor and a release from their lender of the requirement.
The second home was at the foot of Signal Mountain, TN in Spring Lake. (Note to purchasers: always have a good water drainage guy look at your property if a water name is in the name of the neighborhood – like Glorious Geyser Estates, or Wild River Homes). This was not a bad problem, but we had wash draining down the yard from a neighboring property. The home builder installed a dirt berm in the upper corner of the yard.
The third home was on a mountain. Signal Mountain. We purchased another brick rancher over a full unfinished basement. No apple trees here. This house had a sloping yard. It also had broken concrete drain pipes on the high ground side of the lot we could not see. We had lived there a few months when I noticed a small trickle of water on the basement floor. As the rain kept coming, the water quickly became a small stream through the basement. It was then, I really started noticing the rust marks on the steel supports and heating system. I had simply overlooked them as age and not due to potential water in the basement. This fix required a back hoe, rock, water proofing, and upper and lower drains. You can definitely have water problems on a mountain. Especially one with little soil and lots of rock formations where water can run and damn up against a block wall. The sustained slow pressure of water will force its way into your home at the base above the footer.
Three times a charm, the 4th home is well graded and has a bed of gravel as well as a vapor barrier. There are drains on all corners taking the water 20-25 feet into the yard at lower points.
Water impacted 3 of the 4 homes we owned. Consult your agent for good guidance on how to mitigate potential water issues with your home.