States / Virginia
95 counties · median score 12
Crawl space moisture in Virginia
Most of Virginia drains well: only 10 of 95 counties score high or elevated, and the median is 12. Chesapeake City is the exception at 73; crawl-space moisture problems here usually come from grading, gutters and plumbing rather than the soil itself.
- 1Wettest county Chesapeake City
- 2High or elevated 10 of 95
- 3Median score 12
- 4Driest county Buchanan County
Virginia's soil, taken as a whole
Across the 21,898,172 acres mapped in these 95 counties, 11% of soil with a drainage class is somewhat poorly, poorly or very poorly drained, and 29% of acres report a seasonal water table within about two metres. That is a dry figure; wet soils here are confined to river bottoms and wetlands. 95 of the 95 counties have mapped soils subject to occasional or frequent flooding.
| Drainage class | Share of mapped acres |
|---|---|
| Excessively drained | 1.7% |
| Somewhat excessively drained | 5.6% |
| Well drained | 71.4% |
| Moderately well drained | 10.5% |
| Somewhat poorly drained | 3.2% |
| Poorly drained | 6.1% |
| Very poorly drained | 1.5% |
Radon. By EPA zone, 40 Virginia counties here are zone 1 (highest potential), 23 zone 2 and 21 zone 3; 11 are not in the EPA table. EPA says to test regardless of zone; a sealed crawl space is the cheapest moment to add radon venting if a test calls for it.
Every Virginia county
Sorted wettest first. High and elevated counties link to their own page with the full soil breakdown.
What drives the Virginia numbers
The wettest county, Chesapeake City, is 47% poorly drained by dominant condition, with a seasonal water table averaging 0.5 ft below grade across the 92% of acres that report one. The driest, Buchanan County, is 96% well drained. 1 Virginia counties reach the high tier, where poorly drained soils, group D clays and a shallow water table occur together.
The score is a guide to the soil, not to a house: a well-graded lot with working gutters in a high county can have a dry crawl space, and a bad downspout can flood one in a low county. The R408 calculator sizes venting or encapsulation for any footprint.
Sources: USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access (muaggatt: drclassdcd, hydgrpdcd, flodfreqdcd, pondfreqprs, wtdepannmin), acreage-weighted; EPA Map of Radon Zones, county table (June 2024 JSON). Checked 2026-10-23.