Steven L. Smith, Bellingham, WA Home Inspector (King of the House)

One tough find, especially at a new house that looks good otherwise, is discovering a wet crawl space.  Dry is necessary in a crawl space. It is important to keep not only the lumber in the crawl space dry but the humidity levels upstairs will be a problem if water from below evaporates up. I once had a client query if it was not okay to have substructure water, just as long as there wasn't a plumbing leak causing it. 

The resounding answer to that question is "no." In a practical sense, seasonally, we northwest inspectors see some crawl space water at some houses. That might even be the case when a sump pump is in place. However, often the sump pump is not installed properly. A homeowner sticks one down at a wet corner but there is no means used to route all water to the pump. For a pump to be effective, in most cases, the catch basin and pump must be sized properly and water from all wet areas has to be routed or sloped towards the pump. Water does not run uphill in excitement, even to meet a new sump pump. 

Resolving crawl space water issues is sometimes easy: fix a plumbing leak, control runoff water. On the other hand, the resolution might, also, include expensive repairs: pumps, grading, adding gravel by people who charge lots of money to crawl around under there. The builder, the inspector and the homeowner need to have a low tolerance for crawl space water.

Thanks for stopping by,

Steven L. Smith