Water under a house is easy to miss. Nobody walks through a crawl space. Often the first sign is a smell, a damp patch in a floor, or hearing water run with every tap in the house turned off.
Call (206) 813-0805Don't go into a crawl space with standing water if there's wiring, a furnace or ductwork down there, until the power to that part of the house is off. If you can only reach the panel by standing in water, don't — leave it and call.
A sewer-gas smell from under the house usually means a drain line, not a supply pipe. Treat that water as contaminated and keep out.
If it's clean water from a pipe, shut off the main.
Hardwood cups, vinyl seams lift, carpet feels damp at the edges. Often the last layer to show it and the first to be blamed.
Usually dried if caught early; carpet pad generally replaced.
Plywood or boards that soak water up and hold it long after the surface feels dry. Swells, and can delaminate.
Dried with air movers and dehumidifiers from below; replaced if it's lost its strength.
The framing. Wood that stays wet for days grows mold and, given long enough, rots.
Dried and checked with a moisture meter; treated if mold has started.
Batts between the joists hold water like a sponge and sag.
Almost always removed rather than dried.
If heating ducts run under the floor, water or sewage can get into them.
Inspected before the furnace is run again.
The plastic sheet on the ground. Water pooling on top of it can't soak away.
Pumped off; the barrier is often replaced, especially after sewage.
The soil itself. If the water came from outside, it may stay wet for a while.
Can't be dried like a room; the fix is stopping the water getting in.
Pipes under the floor. Supply lines and drain lines both run through crawl spaces. A supply leak is clean water under pressure and spreads fast. A drain leak is slower, dirtier, and often runs for weeks before anyone notices.
Water from outside. In Burien, the drainage on your lot is yours to maintain — roof downspout drains, driveway drains, and any private pipe up to where it joins the city's system. When one of those blocks or breaks in a winter storm, roof water can end up at the foundation instead of away from it.
Sewage. A backed-up side sewer or a failing septic system puts Category 3 water under the house. In Boulevard Park, the sewer district documented septic systems failing every year when stormwater ponded over the drain fields. That kind of water gets the same cleanup as a sewer backup — removal and disinfection before drying.
A finished basement is the same problem turned on its side. Drywall wicks water upward, often well above the visible line. Carpet and pad hold it against the slab. Anything stored on the floor — boxes, furniture, the water heater's base — sits in it.
If a sump pump has stopped and water is coming up, the priority is getting the pump running or the water out before it reaches outlets, the furnace or the panel. After that, it's extraction and drying, same as anywhere else in the house.
More urgent than it looks. It's waste water, so what's collecting under the floor is contaminated, and it keeps growing every time the toilet is flushed. Use a different toilet if the house has one on a separate line, and get the leak and the crawl space dealt with together.
Usually a drain or sewer line leaking or broken somewhere under the floor. It isn't only unpleasant — sewer gas can contain hydrogen sulfide and methane. Air out the rooms above, don't go down with an open flame, and have the line and the crawl space checked.
Keep clear of anything electrical the water is near. Check whether the pump has simply lost power or tripped its breaker — only if you can reach the outlet or panel without standing in water. If it won't restart, the water needs pumping out before it rises further, and the basement will need drying after.
Usually several days, sometimes longer. It depends on how much water there was, how long it sat, and what it soaked into. The honest answer comes from moisture readings on the joists and subfloor, not from how it looks — a crawl space can feel dry while the wood is still wet.
Call (206) 813-0805. Answered any hour, across Burien.