People are often confused about keeping the right moisture levels around their house when it comes to properly maintaining the foundation. The proper moisture levels vary dramatically depending on the type of foundation you have. Keeping a constant moisture level around your foundation is important to prevent from having settlement problems down the road.

With Slab Foundations, you wish to have the surrounding areas around the slab with balanced moisture levels – not too dry and not too wet. The underneath of the slab typically doesn’t matter unless there are other drainage or plumbing issues. When it comes to pier and beam construction, this is a different story. You want the underneath of the crawl space to be bone dry. This is how it was when the piers were put in and this is how it should be maintained.

With Pier and Beam Foundations, when the moisture levels underneath the house are too high and/or fluctuate dramatically due to draining and/or plumbing leak issues. You can generally tell if the underneath of pier and beam houses are dry by seeing cracks in the soil in the crawl space. This is a good sign. If you see water puddles, call us to get an assessment of the problem.