I couldn't figure if this went in this area or Exterior, but this seems more appropriate.

We have a slab home (cir. 1961)like most you see in Florida. Most of the house is concrete block, and we have no problems with it. We have a back room that used to be an outdoor patio. It's a frame room, with some sort of rough feeling painted siding. It's about 3 inches lower than the rest of the house.

I started to go into the whole long story about the house, but I think it's better to just get to the point. Because of the back area sitting lower, if there are heavy rains, the back room will flood. It's basically coming in in just one far corner. My husband owns a gutter company, so we have gutters and drains and things moving the water away, but sometimes in Florida there's just too much rain in a short period of time. When we have a hurricane watch, we shovel dirt against the side of the house, and that keeps the water out. We can't leave it like that, though, because it can lead to termite problems.

We're planning on ripping off the siding and replacing it (the structure is sound) and then replacing the drywall inside (again. We've all ready done it once when we found out there was no insulation in the walls back there). It's been suggested to us by contractors before to use some type of plastic as a barrier, then use shell or stone around the house instead of dirt for drainage. It's also been recommended to put some dry wells in the backyard.

I was wondering of there's some type of thin board or panel we can put up first on the outside, then tar or other waterproofing material, then stick the plastic to that. Then we would install the siding over the top, maybe Hardiplank. It's such a small area where the water gets in, but we're not sure what to do.

I haven't found any examples I can look at on the 'net, most info seems to be for waterproofing up-North-type homes with basements and serious flooding issues. We were ging to knock the room down, raise the foundation to match the rest of the house, then rebuild, but at this point it's just too expensive (especially in this area). We're open to any ideas...

Some questions:
1. How close is the floor of the room to the outside grade?
2. Does the outside grade slope away from the house at least 3 inches in the first six feet?
3. Do the studs of the framed room rest on the slab?
4. What is the shape and slope of the roof of that room?
5 Which way does it slope, relative to the place where water comes in?

Present building codes prohibit untreated or non-decay-resistant wood within a certain distance of the finished grade. Ideally, because I suspect your floor is very close to grade, there would be a concrete or masonry curb at the edge of the floor slab, with the framing resting on top of it, and flashed properly. I think the code is...well, let me look...it's 8 inches from the ground to the wood framing, so the curb would be at least 8 inches high.

But, without more specific knowledge about your room, I can't comment any further.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Hetzel:

1. How close is the floor of the room to the outside grade?
Equal to, or possibly slightly below.

2. Does the outside grade slope away from the house at least 3 inches in the first six feet?
Nope. It actually sloped toward.

3. Do the studs of the framed room rest on the slab?
Yes.

4. What is the shape and slope of the roof of that room?
Gutter co. husband say it's basically a flat roof, but it has about a 1/12 slope. I don't know how to write that.

5 Which way does it slope, relative to the place where water comes in?
It slopes right toward that area.

When we were planning on rebuilding that room, we wanted either all block, or at least the bottom half block. There's definitely no curb there. When the house was inspected, they did say that the dirt couldn't be touching the bottom of the siding, and they just had us dig out an 8" deep trench around the room. It exposed the slab all around. They came back and said that was fine.

We've been talking about regrading for years, but the septic system is back there, and we weren't sure what to do about that. You can call ten different people, and they'll give you ten different conflicting solutions about what should be done...

Thank you for taking the time to help me out!

mj

Maybe you can build a yard drain about six feet away from that corner where the water comes in, and slope the ground away from the house without disturbing your septic system. Is your soil the typical Florida sandy type? If it is, you can pipe that water from the yard drain as far from the house as possible and have the pipe empty into a drywell.