Wet spaces, pink pork & packed privy

TO BETTER BANISH THE DAMP

How can we keep water from entering our poured concrete crawl space, which is at the level of the water table?—HELENE YAREMKO-JARVIS, LAC SERGENT, QUE.

Ordinarily, when water is getting into basements or crawl spaces, “it’s directly related to landscaping or downspouts,” says Roger Frost of Napoleon Home Inspections in Barrie, Ont. If your downspouts aren’t sending water far enough away from the cottage, you can extend them; if the land around the cottage doesn’t slope away from the building, you can landscape to steepen the grade.

But if your water table is consistently high, say, because your cottage is in a swampy area, such go-to fixes won’t work. “You’re fighting against nature,” says Don Fugler, a building scientist formerly with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. “The cottage is a boat floating in