you should never allow water to pond next to your foundation when water is allowed to pond bad things happen the soil becomes saturated and may swell excessively distorting the foundation and damaging your home the only way you can prevent water from ponding near your foundation is to use a drainage system to drain the water away from your foundation this video shows you how to do that notice that in this sketch have a soil next to the foundation slopes toward the foundation now let's follow a raindrop and see what happens one drop will not do any real harm but a heavy rain will result in water ponding against the foundation causing the soil to swell and lift the foundation now let's see what happens when the soil slopes away from the foundation so long is the water ponds at least five feet from the foundation there is little chance that it will cause a problem so far we have assumed that the drainage follows the soil surface this is largely true when the soil surface all is mostly clay but look at what happens when the surface soil is mostly sand and there's a clay strata underneath the water simply drains through the sand and then follows the play surface underneath this can result in a lot of water draining into the area underneath the foundation this causes the play Sol to swell in the foundation to move if there is enough foundation movement the house will be damaged unfortunately this type of situation can be very difficult to detect since it is all hidden below the ground surface and also unfortunately the situation is not that in Harris County north of i-10 to give you a better idea of what proper drainage looks like consider this sketch there should be four inches of exposed foundation concrete all around the foundation the ground surface should fall as you move away from the foundation it should fall six inches and ten feet or six inches to the property line if the property line is closer to the foundation than ten feet this overhead view shows how rainwater coming off the roof should drain away from the foundation and then off the property in the front the water flows directly from the foundation to the street in the rear there is a swell that receives water from the rear most area of the backyard and from the area near the foundation this whale is shaped so that the water flows to the right and left sides and then is taken to the street through side swells the water at the sides coming off the roof at the sides is also directed to the side swells into the street creating swells with an existing house can sometimes be more work than most people want to do an alternative is to use an underground system to drain the water if you go this route it's better to have the area drains and drain pipes away from the foundation and to slope the ground to the area drains so that's where it takes the water it is also possible to use roof gutters is a part of your drainage system if roof gutters are not used properly however they can make the situation worse there are two rules you must follow the entire eave area of the roof should be guttered and the downspouts must discharge into an underground drain as shown in the photo or on to clay soil that is sloped so as to drain the water quickly away it is imperative that the water from the downspout speed to work diverted away from the foundation so that it is not caused problems for the foundation if you have enjoyed my video please visit my website at wwlp.com for more tips on how to properly maintain your houston area slab on grade foundation