Expert: Bruce E. Johnson - 9/13/2008

Question
Hi we have a barn that floods. we can not make the ground outside lower or our place will be the lowest in the area and we will flood worse. There is a cocreate floor in the barn right now and what we were thinking is: if we had another layer of cocreate pored on top of it that would make the barn floor higher than the outside than we could stop the flooding, is this right? if so how do we support the walls to pore the new cocreate? if not the other idea we had is to build cinder block walls say a foot up and move the existing walls in so that they would sit in the cinder blocks. This would seam like a lot more time, money and work but we don't use the barn for animals it is used as a stodeo so it would be worth it.Any help you have for use would be great. Thank you

Answer
Hi April, you could have a house mover come out and see what it would take to raise the barn and pour a new elevated floor under it.  They are experts in picking buildings up and setting them back down again.  Without knowing how your barn is constructed I can't really give you many more ideas about the elevated slab.  Have you considered putting a french drain around the perimeter of the barn to drain the water away?  If there is a low lying area nearby you can pipe the water from the french drain to the lower area or you can dig a retention pond to hold the water.  A french drain is basically a trench filled with rocks and in the center of the rocks sits a perforated drain pipe.  As the water builds up in the pipe it flows through a solid pipe to an area lower than your barn.  This way the water won't build up around the barn and eventually flood inside.  I hope this information helps feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com