Serving Hammond
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Hammond, LA
Basement seepage, failed sumps, and hydrostatic pressure against the foundation are extracted and dried, and the path from the ground is identified so the loss does not repeat. Groundwater and basement seepage are extracted and dried only after the path from the soil is identified — a wall, a slab, a drain, or a failed sump. Drying the interior without stopping that path returns the same water to the same floor.
Frequently asked questions
Sixty-two inches. How different is that?
It alters the nature of the problem rather than its magnitude. In a drier climate a building gets intervals in which minor damage resolves and small faults show nothing; here that interval never arrives, so damp stays damp and a trivial defect keeps progressing. Intervals of maintenance that suit a drier place do not suit this one.
The ground here is sand over a hard layer a few feet down.
Water passes through the surface readily and then reaches something it cannot pass, at which point it spreads sideways along that boundary. The top foot behaves perfectly while everything below it is saturated. That is why a soakaway sized on how fast the surface takes water disappoints once it has been in use a season.
Why does nobody build below ground here?
Because anything below grade would sit inside the water table, which stands close under the surface across the parish and hardly shifts with the weather. That is an obligation to pump permanently rather than occasionally, and nobody takes it on. It is why the local stock is slab and raised, and why most writing about basements has no application here.
These questions come from the Hammond page.