Water issue in basement on house under contract

[Michael Mcguniess]

I am looking at a property that has a water issue in the basement. Looking at it, I believe it is due to the fact that the land is graded downhill, towards the home.

I am buying this home as is and want to make sure that I know exactly where the water is coming from and how to solve the problem. While I feel fairly confident that is due to the grading around the home, I would like to have someone more qualified than myself to take a look at it.

Who would be the best person to contact for an issue such as this? I feel that if I call a basement waterproofing company, they are going to try to sell me a product that I may not need. I also question a general inspector’s ability to determine this.

Thanks in advance.

[Aaron McGinnis]

I worked in drainage for awhile, so forgive me if I'm a bit pedantic about french drains!

A correct french drain is at least 18" deep (Depth depends on how much water you're dealing with), with a bed of sand at the bottom. Then gravel surrounding a perforated pipe of adequate dimensions (size depends on how much water you're dealing with) covered with a filter-fabric sock. The gravel ideally should go all the way to the top-soil, but if necessary for aesthetics you can put a few inches of top-soil.

The drain needs to either empty downhill (Obviously) or drain into some kind of underground detention system... or a correctly-installed dry-well system (Most dry-wells are not correctly installed). If in a crawl space, the drain needs to empty into an adequately-sized and correctly-installed drywell equipped with an adequately-sized sump pump that empties outside the house.
(Or the drain needs to run out of the crawl space entirely, but sometimes this isn't desirable for aesthetic or architectural reasons)