QUESTION FROM Kesha

QUESTION from Kesha on 10/26/2008
We are buying a house, inspection found that when the dishwasher is running water is seeping through to the outside between the brick and foundation. A plumber said it is the dishwasher and drain. Will we have to go through the wall or the foundation to fix this? Is it possible that installing a new dishwasher and drain will repair this?

ANSWER FROM POLICY-Wizard™

Dear Kesha:

Unfortunately, the answer is "it depends". If when your dishwasher is running you are seeing water seeping outside your house between the brick and your foundation, the problem could be with you dishwasher and / or its drain. But on the other hand, I've seen cases where the problem has been caused by a dishwasher / sink's drain pipe being routed through an outside wall, and then when the pipe got cold in the wall and froze, it burst. And then when the dishwasher was running, it would leak water between the brick and foundation, just like you described.

So until a trained professional can inspect your dishwasher, drain and plumbing, you won't know for sure what is the actual cause.

Hope this is helpful.
Home-Wizard.com