"the best crawlspace of all is filled with concrete and called a slab—or dug out and called a basement"

New Light in Crawlspaces | Building Science Corporation 

unless the unreinforced slab is built on uncontrolled (not an "engineered " soil, e.g. contains organic material), uncompacted, fill--and is cracked--and the cracks in the slab cause the ceramic tiles in your entryway, kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room, etc. to crack. 

as for crawlspaces, where are all the "tiny people with good workmanship? ... They all have gone on to fame and fortune in reality TV cable shows." 

face it, folks. the quality of new houses in the US from top (roof) to bottom (foundation) in the last 50 years has gotten worse while the quality of goods and services in other US industries has more than doubled.

too much rain, too much roof, not enuf gutter

facts: 

1. the gutter is flat, or very near flat. 

2. flow in the gutter is open channel. 

3. Manning's formula for open channel flow is: . 

4. if the slope (S) is 0, then the velocity (V) is 0 and the flow in the gutter (Q=V*A) is 0. 

5. if the slope is 0.0014, then the square root of the slope is 0.037. the velocity and flow in the gutter are very small--near zero. 

6. if the gutter is full, and the slope is 0, or near 0, then all or most of the water coming off the roof overflows the gutter.

  

7. there are two outlet pipes from downspouts--mine and my neighbor's.
8. the pipe on the right is buried. look closely--only a small part of the top can be seen.

9. question: where will the water go? answer: nowhere--this is a fact. 

close-up of the buried pipe

10. if the open end of the pipe from the downspout is buried, with nowhere for the water to go, then water backs up in the plastic pipe from the downspout.

11. when the plastic pipe from the downspout is full, then water backs up in the downspout.

12. when the downspout and the gutter are full, then water coming off the roof flows over the gutter and washes out the ground beneath it.

close-up of the washout

13. this is a new house, purchased less than one half year ago.

14. the house has a one year warranty.

15. the builder says that the gutter is not level. fact: the gutter is level or very near level. (in other words, "don't believe your lying eyes.")

16. the builder says that the plastic pipe is not buried. fact: the plastic pipe is buried. (in other words, "don't believe your lying eyes".) 
17. fact: the buried pipe looks the same today as the day that we bought the house.

18. the builder says "it's not our problem."
19. fact: the builder created the problem by installing the gutter level, or near level.
20. fact: the builder may have created the problem by installing a gutter that is too small for the roof area and rainfall intensity.
21. fact: burying the outlet end of the plastic pipe created the problem.
22. fact: we did not bury the outlet end of the plastic pipe. it was buried the day that we bought the house.
23. fact: the builder created the problem.

builder: Alan Toothman Construction Inc., Woodstock, VA

also,

• grading and drainage look like they were done by Rube Goldberg
• most of the crawl space is flooded 
• floors creak
• HVAC is poor
• inside trim is sloppy

virginia
shenandoah county
strasburg
stony pointe
toothman