Free 2 minute home check

Your house has been trying to tell you something.

Here are the 15 signs almost everybody walks right past.

Water damage hardly ever starts with a flood. It starts with a door that sticks in one room, a smell you have stopped noticing, a crack that got a little wider this spring. By the time it looks like a real problem, the cheap fix window has usually closed.

Walk your house and check off what you see. The gauge scores it as you go, and at the end you get a straight answer about what it means and what to do next.

Nothing is sold to you inside this tool. Most people who run it find out they do not need us yet, and we tell them so.

DryDampWet

Signs your house is showing

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BBB A+ Accredited since 2010 4.5 on Google
23 reviews

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$0 Inspection, no obligation

Tap any line that matches your house. Tap it again to undo. Skip anything you are not sure about, and do not guess.

Under the house

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Grab a flashlight. This is where a water problem shows up first, and it is the part of the house almost nobody looks at.

A musty or earthy smell when you open the crawl space or basement door

That smell is not "old house smell." It is organic growth, and growth needs moisture to exist. No moisture, no smell.

White chalky residue on the block or concrete walls

It is called efflorescence. It is mineral left behind after water passed through the block and evaporated, so it is proof water is moving through your wall.

Concrete that feels cool and damp to the touch after a dry week

After several dry days it should feel dry. If it does not, water is coming up from below rather than in from a storm, which is a different fix.

Standing water, mud, or puddles sitting on the vapor barrier

A vapor barrier is supposed to keep ground moisture down. Water sitting on top of it means it is arriving from somewhere else, usually the outside grade.

Rust on nails, joist hangers, ductwork, or anything metal down there

Metal rusts at sustained humidity above roughly 60 percent. Rust is a long term humidity record, and it tells you this has been going on a while.

Outside, at ground level

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Walk the full perimeter of the house, slowly. Most crawl space water problems are actually yard problems.

Cracks in the foundation, especially stair step cracks that follow the mortar joints

Direction matters. Stair step cracks usually mean movement, hairline vertical cracks are often just curing. Photograph it with a coin laid right beside it, because a coin never changes size and your memory of how wide the crack looked absolutely does. Six months later you compare the crack to the coin, not to what you remember.

A gap opening up where the foundation meets the siding or brick

This is one of the clearest signs the two are no longer sitting where they were built to sit, and it is an open door for water at the same time.

Ground that slopes toward the house instead of away from it

You want roughly six inches of fall over the first ten feet. This one thing causes more crawl space water in this area than anything else, and dirt is cheap.

Gutters that overflow, or downspouts dumping right at the corner of the foundation

A thousand square foot roof sheds over 600 gallons in a one inch rain. A downspout at the corner puts all of it against your footer.

Ground near an exterior wall that feels soft, spongy, or has started to sink

Soil that stays saturated loses its ability to carry weight. Sinking dirt beside a wall usually means water has been sitting there through more than one season.

Inside, where you live

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These are the ones people get used to. Walk through like you are seeing the place for the first time.

A musty smell that is clearly stronger in one specific room

One room means one source. That is good news, because a localized smell is far easier and cheaper to track down than a whole house that smells damp.

Staining or discoloration on walls, grout, or trim that keeps coming back after you clean it

If it comes back, cleaning was never the fix. Something is feeding it moisture on a schedule, and finding that schedule tells you the source.

Fuzzy or dusty buildup around AC vents and returns that returns within weeks

Your return pulls air from the whole house, including whatever is under it. Buildup at the vents is often the crawl space announcing itself upstairs.

A door or window that started sticking in the last year or two, in one part of the house

Houses move with the seasons, so a little is normal. What matters is a door that never came back right, and whether it is in the same corner as anything else you checked.

Floors that feel soft or bouncy underfoot, or that visibly slope toward one wall

Set a marble down and see which way it goes. Soft floors usually mean the moisture stopped being a dirt problem and started being a wood problem.

What neighbors say

4.5 out of 5 across 23 Google reviews · Read them

“My husband and I had a great experience with this company. They were professional and always on time. Their solution to our water issue seemed well thought out, and we chose them because of their experience in waterproofing.”

Susan Hood

Verified customer

“Dwayne Spencer and his team were excellent, fair-priced, and took great pride in doing an unconventional job the right way.”

WH Cravens

Verified customer

Where we work

We are based in Cookeville and work throughout Middle Tennessee and the Upper Cumberland. Not sure whether you are in range? Put your zip in below and we will tell you straight, even if the answer is no.

Step 2 of 2

Now find out what that score actually means.

Counting the flags is the easy part. What matters is which ones you checked, whether they cluster in one area, and whether what you are looking at is a drainage problem you can fix yourself this weekend or something that needs a person under the house.

Your read out tells you which of the two you are looking at, and exactly what to do first either way.

Takes 10 seconds. Your results appear right here on this screen.

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Where should we send your read out?

Here is the honest version, because you are already wondering.

Yes, this is our lead form, and yes, we would like a shot at earning your business someday. So here is exactly what happens. Your results show up on this screen the second you hit the button, and a copy lands in your email so you have it when you need it.

If you are inside our service area, we will reach out one time to offer a free look under the house. You say no, that is the end of it. We do not sell your information to anybody, ever, and we do not hand it to a call center.

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Your read out

What to do first

Want somebody to actually look?

We will come out, get under the house, and tell you what we see. If you do not need work done, we will say so and leave.

(931) 525-6009

BBB Accredited with an A+ rating · Lifetime warranty on our work