Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Apopka, FL

Because the sand under this area is a recharge surface rather than a drainage system. Through the dry months and the early wet season it takes rain downward into the aquifer and the lot looks like it drains perfectly. By late in the wet season the profile is full and there is nowhere further down for water to go. The next ordinary storm then behaves completely differently from every storm before it that year.

It usually matters a great deal. Those low strips are graded swales, and they are frequently the only designed route water has off a group of lots. Filling one for a fence line or a garden bed removes drainage capacity that several properties share, and the loss is invisible until a storm large enough to need it arrives. The subdivision's original grading plan will show whether the strip was a designed swale or just a low spot.

Watch the time before drying starts more than anything else. Sand holds water against a slab edge and keeps feeding it, so the assembly does not begin drying just because the rain has stopped. If the source is still wet ground rather than a fixed leak, drying equipment will run against a supply that has not been cut off. Establishing whether the ground is still delivering water is the first thing a contractor should determine.