A Hole or Sunken Spot Opened Up in My Yard (Bainbridge Island, WA)

What usually causes sinkhole or sunken spot in Bainbridge Island

In Bainbridge Island we check a collapsed or separated drain line before anything else, because a wet crawlspace a hundred feet from the leak is how it shows up here. Old clay tile or crushed corrugated pipe lets water wash soil into the pipe and away. Bluff soils above Eagle Harbor makes the signs misleading, so we confirm rather than assume.

Next: a leaking water service line washing out the trench. The most common cause on a sunken trench line. With clay that sticks to the bucket under sloped waterfront lots at Port Blakely, the symptoms can look identical to the first cause, which is why the meter test and the locate matter.

And poorly compacted backfill from an earlier dig: a trench that was dumped full and never compacted settles for years. Less common on custom-home acreage off Highway 305, but we've found it near Agate Pass.

First steps on a Bainbridge Island property

Bainbridge is the clearest case for locating before digging.

Do this before anyone digs till on the island interior in Bainbridge Island: keep everyone off it and mark it. Don't fill it until the cause is known. It takes minutes and it tells us whether the problem is on custom-home acreage off Highway 305 or inside the house.

How we fix it

The repair side is underground water leak detection. On 300- to 600-foot private drives that means confirm there is a leak, then listen in Kitsap Formation clay that swells and shrinks where the problem actually is, then confirm and mark. If what we expose is mid-century galvanized on waterfront cabins at the end of its life, we say so with the pipe in your hand.

From Agate Pass to Manzanita and out around Eagle Harbor, sinkhole or sunken spot is a regular Bainbridge Island call for us. Across the Agate Pass Bridge from the Kitsap side, and emergencies on sloped waterfront lots at Port Blakely dispatch immediately, any hour.