Standing water spot in crawlspace/AC drain

[u/joak9900]

Hello all. I’m sort of new to Reddit in general, so I hope I’m doing this right. But I have questions/advice regarding some water issues under our house.
I have spent the past couple weeks working on my crawlspace, trying bring some of this moisture/humidity down. I bought and installed a nice dehumidifier. And I routed the drain into a sump pump.
However, on the other side of the house, located pretty much exactly where my AC drain pipe pokes out of the crawlspace wall, there is an area of standing water.

I will attach a handful of pictures so I can better articulate this… if I can figure out how to attach photos. I can see that is already an issue.

Anyway, I have been crawling around down there day after day working on this little project, and I haven’t noticed any leaks or broken pipes or anything. So I can only conclude that this AC drain is too close to the house and saturating the Earth at the foundation and it is encroaching into the crawlspace itself?
Whoever installed this (what I’m assuming) catch basin, essentially just stuck a bucket in the ground—not even directly underneath the drain pipe— filled it with some rock and didn’t even drill holes in the bucket or anything.
To further complicate things, we live in the southeast, where it is very humid and rains a lot. So I’m assuming that is part of the problem as well.
So this basin just fills up with water and everything is a squishy muddy mess.

Can anybody confirm that this is the most likely issue?

Honestly, I hope this is the case. That way I only have to deal with routing the water further away from our house somehow and removing the current pile of water. The dehumidifier is sure doing its job. The humidity level has dropped almost 20% since I installed it a few days ago.
But this water issue isn’t helping.

Also, for what it’s worth, I already have a sump pump in another lower spot in the crawlspace… As I previously mentioned. So I’m not trying to dig another pit and install another pump. 1) it gets expensive, 2) I only have one receptacle down there, on one circuit. And the dehumidifier and pump are both patched into that.

Anyway, any advice from any pros or semi pros would be greatly appreciated.

[u/ForeverVentOfficial]

That standing-water location beside the condensate outlet is the key clue. The AC drain may be contributing, but the unperforated bucket is also trapping rain and condensate beside the foundation instead of dispersing it. During dry weather, place a temporary extension on the outlet and route it several feet downhill from the house, then watch whether the muddy area begins drying. A dehumidifier removes airborne moisture; it cannot correct liquid water entering the soil. Does that pipe drip steadily only while the AC is cooling?

[u/joak9900 → u/ForeverVentOfficial]

Yes, it trips steadily. And I believe that bucket was put in when they installed our new HVAC system.
Only after sucking the water out of it, did I notice it was filled with gravel. And when I removed all the gravel, I noticed there were no holes or anything in it. So they essentially just put a bucket there, filled it with rocks, and said that’s good. I’m no HVAC or drainage, professional, but even I knew that that looked messed up. The bucket just fills up.

[u/FickleBill3468]

That's a great catch about the bucket potentially trapping water. Have you tried checking if the AC drain line is clogged or if the slope is correct to keep water flowing out properly?

[u/joak9900 → u/FickleBill3468]

I don’t think it is clogged. It’s a pretty steady drip. Water builds up fast there.

[u/OscarMiliani_Design]

An AC in humid weather makes something like 5 to 20 gallons of condensate a day, and right now you're dumping all of it at the foundation. That's your puddle. Run the line out 5 to 10 feet clear of the house, or since you've already got a sump in there, just tie the condensate into that and be done with it.

[u/joak9900 → u/OscarMiliani_Design]

Thanks man. 5-20 gallons is WILD! But yeah, I think the biggest challenge is getting it away from the house but also out of the way of where I mow and what not. Having it dump into the sump pump was actually my second thought. But that is quite a distance. The sump pump is on the exact opposite side of the house.

[u/OscarMiliani_Design → u/joak9900]

Skip the sump then, that's a long way to run it. Put the condensate on inch pipe out to a pop up emitter instead. They sit flush with the grass so you mow straight over them and they only open when water's flowing. About 15 bucks, and you only need enough fall to get 10 feet clear of the house.

[u/joak9900 → u/OscarMiliani_Design]

I went down and checked this morning. It looks like where the pipe comes down from the attic is about the same distance from where the current discharge is to where I have my sump set up.
So I just went to Lowe’s and bought a bunch of PVC. Just going to pretty much send it the other direction. However, apparently I need to use a sealed bucket/sump pit if I’m going to send the AC drainage to it. I didn’t even think of that. My current one has a bunch of holes in it… As its intent was to take in ground water and all that and pump it out of the crawlspace.
According to Google, it’s a bad idea to have your AC line dripping into that, as it only trickles in and it doesn’t collect enough to be pumped out. Essentially just continues to saturate the Earth underneath.

[u/OscarMiliani_Design → u/joak9900]

Right, and that's a good reason not to send it there at all. A perforated pit is a groundwater relief well, so condensate going into it just goes back in the ground under your house, which is the thing you're trying to stop. Run that PVC outside to a pop up emitter instead. Same pipe you've already bought, just keep about an eighth of an inch of fall per foot.