What's up with this house??? Need opinions

[GeorgeG.]

The wife and I are looking at putting on offer on this house in Little Elm but there's a couple of things that are making me worry.

On both sides, between the houses, it's muddy. there's even water pooling at the lowest point of the grades. The previous owner put blocks around the bottom of the fence to keep their little dog from digging so it looks like that is adding to the water retention but I just don't know.



They got a lot of rain Thursday but this was on Saturday. The house on the left has a deck right up against their fence so that's not helping either.

Here's the opposite side of the house.



Then there's this. This is the middle of the driveway. Excuse my makeshift depth guage


I'm not sure what's going on here. We noticed the house next door was doing the same thing but the next two houses were not. The houses 2-3 down were also far more dry than this one we're looking at. We're checking to see what and if the builder's warranty consists of. I'm not so worried about add/removing dirt to correct the drainage but the driveway has us a little concerned. Any thoughts about this?

[03mustangdude]

Looks like house was built on a incline just like mine since . I get flooded on the right and flood my neighbor on the left it goes like that for a few houses.

[blandnuts]

The house I just purchased has the driveway problem you have. It's about an inch or so higher than the interlude to the garage floor. I had an issue once when we had really bad ran/wind with water getting in the garage. I plan to grind it down level so no water can puddle. I'll add drainage where you have your fingers if it needs it. In my neighbor hood there's a few houses with the same issue.

The first picture looks like you'll be digging and doing a bubbler or something a long those lines to get the water away so it can properly drain/runoff. This clay here is no joke, you'd get a puddle in Florida for a few minutes and then it would drain away. Does it have gutters around the whole perimeter?

[mstng86]

How much of the roof has runoff on that side of the house? If there is a ton of rain runoff into that side then it will take a lot longer to dry up.

[8mpg]

we did just have a lot of rain...and the gutter downspout drains to that area of the fence. I wouldnt be too concerned of the drainage. The upheval of the driveway is another story. Swelling clay would bring up that driveway. I would worry that excess rain may try and flood your garage.

[Blackpony]

Looks like typical drainage issues. My property is setup the same way and my back yard is sloped really steep. I ended up adding french drains to the gutters to direct the water to the back of my back yard. Has helped tremendiously with washout.

[black2002ls]

Looks like typical drainage issues. My property is setup the same way and my back yard is sloped really steep. I ended up adding french drains to the gutters to direct the water to the back of my back yard. Has helped tremendiously with washout.

Tie the drains into a french drain type system and run them out to the street, or the back of the yard if it drains well. Look for high/low spots in the swales as well. That can keep water from running off.

As for the driveway, it is most likely caused by the drainage issues and it has the potential to force water into the garage during heavy rains. I would look into having the top of the driveway repoured.

Are there any signs of excess movement with the house? Brick or sheetrock cracks? Doors "ghosting" or hard to open/close.

[GeorgeG.]

I'll check the doors next time we're out there...assuming they accept our offer. The house behind this one also sits up higher so the back yard has about a 1-2 foot retaining wall with drains so I know this add to the amount of water passing through.

If it dries out and the grading is corrected, do you think the driveway will lower back down? It does have gutters all around. I'll have to see how much of the roof runoff flows to that side.

[talisman]

The soil in DFW sucks. Just about any older home is going to have some issues. I don't think any of that is overly concerning, although the driveway would annoy the hell out of me until I got it fixed, which would be a long time unless it was causing the garage to flood.

[black2002ls]

I'll check the doors next time we're out there...assuming they accept our offer. The house behind this one also sits up higher so the back yard has about a 1-2 foot retaining wall with drains so I know this add to the amount of water passing through.

If it dries out and the grading is corrected, do you think the driveway will lower back down? It does have gutters all around. I'll have to see how much of the roof runoff flows to that side.

You MAY see a small drop in the driveway. I have seen cases where the water issue was corrected and the flatwork returned to its original position, however, those were all dry/drought conditions where the flatwork had dropped.

Our standard for standing water is 72 hours. As long as the standing water is gone within 72 hours we don't consider there to be a problem. That doesn't mean the low areas will be dry, it means no standing water.

With the retaining wall on the same side, if it is dumping water on your side, I would tied the gutter on that side to a drain, and run it to the back of the yard. Along with that, I would put in collection boxes along the way to help get the water from the other side of the wall out of there.

[8mpg]

I'll check the doors next time we're out there...assuming they accept our offer. The house behind this one also sits up higher so the back yard has about a 1-2 foot retaining wall with drains so I know this add to the amount of water passing through.

If it dries out and the grading is corrected, do you think the driveway will lower back down? It does have gutters all around. I'll have to see how much of the roof runoff flows to that side.

Id check into see where the house drains lead out to... If there is that much soil movement on the driveway, you may have a cracked sewer pipe causing the swelling.

[GeorgeG.]

Isn't there a "rule of thumb" for locating the sewer line? I had to call the city to power jet our sewer line at the clean out and he mentioned it usually runs in the direction from the clean out to the meter. After the second call, they sent someone with a camera to see if there's a broken pipe or roots. He said the same thing and actually verified with their locator gadget.

On another note...Looks like they went with another offer Apparently our offer was better, but they wanted to be fair and go with the first one they received...oh well. There was another in Prosper that we liked as well.

[talisman]

On another note...Looks like they went with another offer Apparently our offer was better, but they wanted to be fair and go with the first one they received...oh well. There was another in Prosper that we liked as well.

Wow. I have never heard of that happening before. Most sellers will try and draw you both into a bidding war.

[03mustangdude]

Never heard of that either your real estate agent must be pissed.

[GeorgeG.]

Wow. I have never heard of that happening before. Most sellers will try and draw you both into a bidding war.

I know...and I was hoping for at least a chance to offer more. This was the first house in a long time that we both agreed on.

Never heard of that either your real estate agent must be pissed.

My wife's the agent. I'm a little more pissed cause we'd like to be moved before school starts and while we like Prosper(the second house), it's a little more expensive.

I think I'm going to write a sincere letter about how the next house is the perfect house to raise my family, blah, blah, blah, lol. That actually worked for one of her buyers.