Water in Basement.....Help

[jim_wilson]

Sounds like you have the same problems I do. I also have started to accumlate woodworking tools and was looking to get my basement dry so I wouldn't have a pile of rusty tools from them sitting down there. Sounds like overall your quickest easiest way to solve this problem is to put in the interior perimeter drain going over to your sump pump. Like I said in the earlier posts I have one of these in my basement and by and large it works pretty good. The problem is that it doesn't prevent the water from getting in under the floor in the first place so you still have the issue of moisture coming up thru the concrete even if you don't have actual liquid water. What I was going to do in my basement is to lay down some of the Grace Bituthene foundation waterproofing membrane right on the floor and then pour some of the self leveling concrete over that in layer 1-2" thick. The floor in my basement is pretty uneven in most places so I can solve the moisture problem with the Bituthene membrane and then the self leveling concrete layer over that will both protect the membrane and level off the floor at the same time. I was going to then paint or put linoleam tiles on the concrete layer to finish off the floor.

Since the interior drain would be an easier solution than digging down the exterior foundation it sounds like that would be your best way to go at this point. Just make sure your sump empties somewhere away from the foundation. When I dug my foundation down and put in the footer drain I also put in a separate drain pipe for the sump and buried it underground in the trench with the footer drain. Once I finish the drain piping off this will all go out into my backyard and terminate in either a drain field or a drywell. Previously the sump pump was going out thru a window and had a hose just draining into the backyard. Problem with this was that whenever it got cold the hose would freeze up and then the sump had nowhere to go. This would happen quite a bit when we got weather like we have had recently where there is a lot of precipitation and fluctuating warm and cold weather.

As a side note even with all the precipitation we have had recently and the warm weather I have not had any water in my basement or the entryway foundation. Previously I would get up to 6 inches at the bottom of the entryway. Looks like the footer drain and the foundation waterproofing are doing something. I will know for sure if we get some heavy rains this spring. If I get a chance I will post some of the pics I took when I put the footer drains in this fall.

 

[scott_vt]

Hi Jim,
That self leveling concrete sounds interesting. Would info on that be available from the link you gave me the other day?
Yes, the sump pump drains out the left side of the basement and heads down the hill into the woods. Obviously, by putting those floor drains in and then putting that membrane material down on the floor and pouring the self leveling concrete on top of that may be the ticket. Do you have any more info on that jim? Sounds like some snow coming for tommorrow.

scotty

 

[jim_wilson]

I haven't actually used any of the self leveling concrete yet myself but there are two places I know of off the top of my head where you might get more info. Quikrete makes a couple of different self leveling products - they have more info on their web site:

http://www.quikrete.com/catalog/catalog_commercial.html


The other place I have seen self leveling concrete products mentioned a number of times is by the people who do the radiant floor heating. Many of the radiant floor heating contractors will lay down the piping and then pour a couple of inches of self leveling concrete to encase the piping. There might be some info on this on the www.jlconline.com site too. I have never seen the Quikrete self leveling products at any of the big box home stores - you would probably have to go to a masonry supply store or a good local lumberyard that deals with contractors.

 

[Catmando]

If the perimeter is filling with dirt then you have no protection that keeps the backfill around your house from being washed away. There must be some spots where you can see the soil lower than when the house was built.

Is it possible to have access to the drain so that you can get a garden hose in the weeping tile? You might be able to jet rod the drain clear. But the tile will probably fill again.

The normal way that weeping tile is installed is this. Once the basement wall is in place the water proof membrain is placed under the tile and up the wall to just above grade. The drain tile is then set so that the bottom of the tile is a bit above the footing bottom. Like has been pointed out some type of screening is then placed over the tile to keep soil from washing through the drain holes in the tile. This placement furnishes a low resistance to the flow of water from the outside of the basement wall to a drain. What it does is to keep the water table next to the house below the footing, or the basement floor.

I had a problem almost like yours. The contractor wasn't fussy about setting the blocks on the clay on the footing. The clay washed out over time and caused leaks. The other thing was that there was no waterproofing between the tile and the footing. In one place I cut through the floor and installed small tile inside under the floor. In the other section I dug up the outside tile and placed membrain between the tile and the footing/basement wall. Both fixes worked.

The last work I did on the house I used the 4"PVC tile. Over the tile I put a couple of feet of crushed concrete. Then covered that with 10 mill plastic film. Then backfilled the rest of the way with the clay that I had dug out originally. Using crushed concrete eliminates the need for a screen over the tile.

Best of luck to you.

 

[scott_vt]

Catmando,
That brings up a very good point. The original foundation drains still exits in the lower back left corner of the property. Im wondering if an outfit like roto rooter might be able to some how flush those lines clear? I might try that before ripping up the cellar floor.

scotty

 

[scott_vt]

Good Afternoon Guys,
I know this thread is close to being ancient history but Im finally gettin around to doing something about the problem before the spring rains !

The west wall of the basement has allways had water issues since the foundation drains stopped working years ago ! I finally have some time to devote to this project and have just got started on rectifying a bad situation. I started by clearing the entire wall length of all the equipment that I had there and then using a masonry blade in my skill saw I scribed a 1/4" deep groove along the length of the floor out approxiamtely 16" from the base of the wall. Then I rented an electric powered jackhammer from HD to break up the floor in that area. The run was about 31' front to back, and I left one section about 18" long in the middle of the run.

The jack hammer worked like a charm, and Im guessing it only took me about an hour of actual jack hammering to do that whole run. The floor was between 2" to 3" thick from what I can tell, for the most part !

Now starts the tedious job of excavating all this mess up and removing it from the basement ! Something tells me its going to be a little at a time !

Here are a few pics of the operation !

 

[Bird]

I do not envy you that job, Scotty. Good luck with it.

 

[scott_vt]

I do not envy you that job, Scotty. Good luck with it.

Afternoon Bird,
Yeah, my back doesnt envy this job either !!!

 

[mjarrels]

Funny thing about holes in the ground... I want a dry basement and the guy next door wants a water well...

mark

 

[JB4310]

Scotty,
Your stealing my work, I just noticed this thread or I would have replied earlier, I've been doing basement drainage systems for 25 years, along with some other construction specialties.

Basement drainage is some what geographic specific in what is acceptable practice in a given location, since your house is here in CT I feel comfortable explaining a few things.
First of all you've gotten good advice as you are approaching it the same way that we (a fairly high priced contractor) would.
Also:
* we as contractors don't stop the water we only control it.
* water under a basement is normal, not a defect, anytime you dig a hole your gonna have water (well).
* The best way (the most accepted way here) is a perimeter drain under the basement floor along the footing, top of pipe even with top of footing, 4" perforated ads pipe set in 3/4 crushed stone trap and very critical that there be a 1-2" layer of stone between footing and floor. this system all tied into a basin and either a pipe out under the footing to daylight on the property (the ideal method) or if topography prevents this, then a sump pump.
* The water table is not rising, typically it's the water in the ground that is trying to perc down, in clay or other poorly drained soils the water moves very slowly, exerting hydrostatic pressure on the foundation finding passage through the cold joints, cracks etc.
* IMO outside footing drain systems should only be considered when a daylight discharge is possible, and never brought back into a sump inside the structure, you want to hold as much water back out of the basement with the foundation and have the drains inside at the point of need. in general outside systems are more expensive and less effective, impossible to maintain in the future and often cause more problems than prevent.

Don't over excavate, don't dig lower than the footing, a few inches of stone around the pipe is fine, and we do not recommend filter fabric, except in certain cases, seen it do more harm than good, I tell people that if the inside of the pipe gets blocked, we can clean it, if the outside of the system gets blocked than you have to open up the floor and redo. if you have water coming down the wall then you need to leave a weep joint between floor and wall, if you have water coming from hatchway stairwell then you need a threshold drain (our most common job).

PM me if you have any specific questions and good luck with the 5 gallon bucket brigade.