It’s the uniquest I’ve ever seen
Seven years ago I did a home inspection for a young couple buying their first home. It was a fixer upper but at a good price, and they were willing to put in the work to earn sweat equity.
Recently the owners called me to come do a maintenance inspection, which is where I check to make sure things are still in good working order, still operating as intended, etc.
One of the items that regularly shows up in my home inspection reports is the lack of rain gutters and downspouts, and part of my verbiage on those downspouts is to make sure they terminate away from the foundation, at least three feet and preferably at least six feet.
The owner was quite proud to show me his custom downspout terminations, looking like aquaducts coursing through his xeriscape landscaping:
The aquaduct carried the water all the way to the street curb. The owner said, “I don’t want any erosion on my property.” I thought it was pretty cool, definitely the uniquest (uniquest?) I have ever seen to get water through landscaping and off the property.
I don’t keep documents for more than the legally required 5½ years, and I don’t keep pictures at all if they are kind of blasé, so I don’t have before and after pictures. Drat.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Posted on August 21, 2012, in Home inspections, Manmade, Photos, SNIPPETS and tagged gutters and downspouts, home inspections san diego, san diego home inspections. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
Great idea and great to see imagination being used
Emu
So uniquest! : )
Hi Russel,
That sure looks pretty, but what about harvesting the rainwater instead of letting it flow to the curb? Even a xeriscape garden could use some water, couldn’t it?
As to carrying the water away from the foundations: I’ve heard but I don’t know if there’s any truth in it that down here one should keep the soil around the house and its foundations moist with the rainwater – if there is any, that is – so as not to let it dry too much and have the house settle. We, btw, don’t have any gutters here, so all the rainwater will come down close to the house [http://pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/our-house/].
Take care, and have a good one,
Pit
P.S.: Installing a rainwater harvesting system is on the agenda, but we haven’t come around to that yet.
P.P.S.: Thanks for camping out in my blog again.
We don’t get enough rain here to harvest it. Our 11 inches a year all comes during about six weeks in December and January, and even then it doesn’t come in force like those afternoon Texas thunderstorms. If we get a rainstorm that lasts more than five minutes, people start thinking the world is coming to an end.
As to the old wives tail about keeping the foundation wet, well, it is just that, an old wives tail. I think some woman made it up a hundred years ago when she was watering all the flowers in the foundation planters. Husband came along and said, “If you wouldn’t water those so much, I wouldn’t have to prune them so much.” To which wife replied, “I’m not watering the plants, I’m keeping the foundation soil wet so that the house doesn’t settle.”
While the house is being built, you need water to pack the soil down. Those afternoon thunderstorms do that. Out here, we smooth the soil out where the house is going to be and then we water the soil for several days to pack the soil down. Then we let the soil dry and then build.
Settling cracks usually result from high winds and soil that is too wet. Think of your foundation as a big plate of jello. The jello initially was wet and jiggled. You don’t want that. Let the jello dry and it becomes pretty hard and stable. Great to build on. You can cause the jello to turn back into jello, though, by watering it every day. It becomes wet and jiggly, not good.
So, basically, the drier you can keep the soil around your foundation, the better you will be. Don’t want your house sinking into wet, mushy soil.
P.S. Good thing I have voice recognition software……lol
Double drat! Would have liked seeing the before…the after is beautiful!
When I first saw the pics without reading the post I thought “wow, look at those ruins, that’s a really nice aqueduct, Roman perhaps”(living in a ancient city it’s not surprising to find roman ruins when you dig to built whatever), and then it hit me, Romans didn’t go to the Cali lol. After reading it all makes more sense.
Where I used to live in Riverside county, it was illegal to allow gray water from the house to the street. Interesting and a tremendous effort.
I have never heard of rainwater being considered gray water. Interestingly, we home inspectors recommend draining the water heater once a year to get the sediment out of it. That water is considered gray water and cannot be drained to the street. Yet we are bathing in it and drinking it! Go figure….
Very cool.
One of a kind, indeed.
If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it
be good to yourself
David
Great looking aqueduct. The owner is an artist and an original thinker.
Smart guy
Channeling his inner Flinstone here, out of Bedrock!
That’s cool! HAHA