A Hole or Sunken Spot Opened Up in My Yard (Port Townsend, WA)

What usually causes sinkhole or sunken spot in Port Townsend

Start with a leaking water service line washing out the trench. The most common cause on a sunken trench line. Around Point Hudson and Fort Worden the housing dates from an 1880s Victorian seaport ringed by mid-century neighborhoods, which makes this the likeliest answer to sinkhole or sunken spot.

Then a collapsed or separated drain line. Old clay tile or crushed corrugated pipe lets water wash soil into the pipe and away. We've seen it near Fort Worden more than once, usually on copper on the Hastings Avenue grid.

And an old dry well, cesspool or septic component: older properties have forgotten structures that eventually cave. Less common on waterfront near Point Hudson, but we've found it near Water Street.

First steps on a Port Townsend property

In Port Townsend's Uptown and Downtown historic districts the service line may be a century old and its route unknown, so tracing comes first.

First steps for sinkhole or sunken spot near Cape George: do the meter test. Note whether it appeared after rain or in dry weather. Keep everyone off it and mark it. Then call; the rest is a locate through outwash sand under the historic districts, not guesswork.

How we fix it

When it's the buried line, the fix in Port Townsend is underground water leak detection: we correlate, repair, if you want us to through clay seams in the uplands at the marked spot on acreage toward Cape George, and listen. Pipe and cable locator and the mini excavator ride on the first trip so it's finished the same visit.

Water Street, Cape George, Uptown: near any of them, sinkhole or sunken spot gets the same crew and the same equipment. A dedicated trip across the Hood Canal Bridge, day or night, with the mini excavator on the trailer for small Victorian lots in Uptown.