slownsteady
Well-Known Member
Jmr: with your new-found knowledge of sump pumps, you should check in on this thread and share some of your info: http://www.houserepairtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20077
Advice for this nightmare basement?
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nealtw
Contractor retired
A french drain is as I understand it usually a spot in the yard where you can dig a trench or a hole and fill it with gravel, dump water in it and water will dissipate
into the ground around it at a pace that will not cause a stream or erode the ground.
Your description of the area in the trees sounds a lot like a french drain.
The water that lays a little behind the house, may run to the neighbors may also be seeping into the soil and finding it's way back into your basement.
into the ground around it at a pace that will not cause a stream or erode the ground.
Your description of the area in the trees sounds a lot like a french drain.
The water that lays a little behind the house, may run to the neighbors may also be seeping into the soil and finding it's way back into your basement.
slownsteady
Well-Known Member
I have a feeling you can throw a wheelbarrow full of dirt on the spot where that puddle forms and that little problem would be gone.
Gotcha. Just left them a ton of info to think about/find out so that they don't have to spend a year trying to research everything for their problem. Wow, I thought I had a tough issue. At least mine can be fixed/moved and adjusted by a lot in order to alleviate or solve the problem. I have never seen a house built that close to a body of water like that. Unbelievable. They're going to need a brute-force pumping system for that one, along with a good backup system. If they use the battery backup system that I'll be installing, they'll need 3 really high capacity marine batteries and a minimum 3/4HP standalone main pump. That would probably keep them with power for about 2 days. There is a very irritating equation that I have spent a while doing before, which basically tells you how many hours the battery can power the pump for if it goes on for x amount of time, pumps for x amount of time and stays off for x amount of time. Realistically, with 3 top of the line batteries, they might still be able to have no power for 2+ days and not flood at all. There are some amazing pumps and backup systems out there nowadays.
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It is possible that it might go away completely. I might just do that at some point. It doesn't really hurt anything and we never go back there, I'd just rather not discharge the pump back there.
I'm still mulling over just how much to fill in the hole and what would logically happen if it were filled in at different depths; ranging from raising it just a foot or two with crushed gravel to raising it all the way to within a foot or foot and a half of the top of the bricks. I'm pondering the latter, actually. I'll still be installing a sump basin, pump and backup pump there just in case. I'll add a backup system just in case, as well.
This isn't really a "common" situation, I don't imagine. Logic tells me that with filling in the hole and raising it above the water table as much as possible, it should alleviate some or perhaps all of the flow. But the bricks are there and allow that space - almost an easier flow path unlike the dirt that they surround. The other part of my logic says that adding such a large amount of material within the hole will displace the water some (like adding a bunch of ice to a half-full glass of water - the water goes to the top even if there isn't that much due to lack of space) and may actually cause it to rise up to the top of the bricks. If there was enough water flow built up, of course. Not too fond of those stories about it "flooding up to the top of the bricks" when it was just a water heater down there, though. I have never seen that, but that was what happened when they only had a single 1/3HP down there with no backup when the power went off. I'd rather prepare for the same amount of water flow that I have now and have it look nicer and basically not be as messy than to not put anything there and have it flood all over the place down there. I'm still not entirely convinced that raising it almost up to the bricks with crushed gravel will keep water from reaching and/or trying to go above that point. I don't know exactly how high the water table is, of course. But the hydrostatic pressure behind the bricks pushing the water that would already be in the gravel...it makes me wonder how that is going to work. However, if I filled in the hole with just dirt...it may flood. The situation would be terrible for a sump basin, as well.
So basically if I filled the entire hole over with either gravel or dirt - even up to the level of the original crawlspace - I'm not convinced that the hydrostatic pressure behind the bricks wouldn't try to get an advantage. The bricks add an interesting mix into the equation in that they are hollow and wouldn't function like the dirt. That may sound strange.
I don't really know what to expect of it, even if I raised it up to a foot from the top of the bricks. I'm not concerned about water coming out of the surrounding crawlspace dirt, but rather, the displacement pressure forcing the water up through the gravel in the hole.
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nealtw
Contractor retired
I think we can a agree that the problems are understood.
Always first on that list is budget. If you were going to give the house away cheap you would not have had a new roof installed.
Raising the floor will cut down on volume of water to be pumped. maybe all of it.
I think you have to talk to a Rheem dealer for info on flipping the furnace or re-arranging it as is but get it as high as possible and see how that fits the budget as well as the new water system.
If that does't fit the budget we can quit talking about it and look at other solutions.
I am not sure we covered the question , was there at one time a septic system here. Is there a possibility that there is still a drain field that is feeding water back to the house thru the old sewer pipe?
Always first on that list is budget. If you were going to give the house away cheap you would not have had a new roof installed.
Raising the floor will cut down on volume of water to be pumped. maybe all of it.
I think you have to talk to a Rheem dealer for info on flipping the furnace or re-arranging it as is but get it as high as possible and see how that fits the budget as well as the new water system.
If that does't fit the budget we can quit talking about it and look at other solutions.
I am not sure we covered the question , was there at one time a septic system here. Is there a possibility that there is still a drain field that is feeding water back to the house thru the old sewer pipe?
Still unsure on that one. I should probably hunt for a septic tank and dig around here and there. I kind of put that idea of going to the courthouse on hold due to a lot of stuff going on at work lately and my desire to just forget about the hole. The water heater for sure will be converted to gas-fired and moved outside maybe next month. I figure that it may cost $2,000+ installed. I'll get a $500 rebate on it from the local gas company.
Going to try to get that model info on the furnace later today. If it can go horizontal, in a month or two, it will be moved to the crawlspace.
I want to stay in budget, but our overtime at work runs from late March all the way to December, 7 days per week except for any time off here and that that can be requested. So there will be a lot of extra money (just not extra time) to be able to get stuff done.
I figure that for the water heater install (going to make sure that it can handle the freezing temps outside), the flipping and relocating of the furnace, the crushed gravel to fill the hole nearly to the top, dual pumps, sump basin and backup, I'll probably be around $4K to 5K for everything. But it handles the problem. That is my chief goal...to get it over and done with.
nealtw
Contractor retired
I see you have good news on the furnace. I would look at hanging it maybe right over one of the block wall so when you are finished with filling the hole with new sump you might end up with nice clean area for someone to get to, to change filters and service the unit.
Okay, so I know for sure that I'm going to try for an external on-demand gas water heater. That gets the water heater out of the hole completely and also a new water heater, because that one down there won't last its quoted lifespan. You'll see why with the photo I took yesterday morning when I went down to look for the model on the furnace. Trying to get to the back side of the furnace, I sank into about 3 to 4 inches of mud. The water heater isn't covered in mud, but is essentially sitting on a mud/water combo. Definitely not good for it. Doesn't matter now anyway, of course.
The furnace is going to be hanged from the floor joists. I like that option better than on top of the crawlspace dirt, even if it was elevated on something like cement blocks. In the near future, I'll be checking on both of those to make sure that they are a done deal. Whatever needs to be done to make both of those happen, I'm going to do it.
My planning is now regarding what to do with the hole, which will be completely empty after those two are moved. The higher it is filled, the less water should need to be pumped out. I still need to measure the exact depth on both ends (it seems like the sump end isn't as tall or something on the back end...probably just the illusion that the washed-down dirt on the other end makes). I'd like to keep a little distance from the top of the bricks just to have a low point in the basement. We've never had any water in the actual crawlspace area, but if a freak storm every did happen that caused that, it would go into the hole and not everywhere else. That's going to be a heck of a lot of gravel. What, probably around 5 to 7 cubic meters or something like that? That's obviously going to be in the several tons of gravel estimate, I would imagine. Getting that down there should be pretty interesting. I thought about building some kind of steep wooden slide going from outside of the basement door and slanting all the way down to the sump end of the hole. Once in the basement later, I can move it over as it builds up.
A positive point is that even with a sump installed, the floor would technically be raised by about 1.5' (down to the bottom of the 18" sump basin). That's 1.5' less of a pumping head and gives another 5 gallons extra per minute even on a 1/2HP pump, so I likely wouldn't need a 3/4HP pump. Change the pipe to 2" PVC. Throw a couple of 1/2HP pumps in there with silent check valves (one as a backup that may never get used, but I'd rather have it there in case of a main pump failure) and the final thing will be battery backup. Without the 3/4HP pump being necessary after the floor is raised, the dual pumps could actually be entirely powered by the battery backup in the case that both were ever needed and the power was mysteriously out. I don't ever see that happening, but it would make me feel better.
My new questions would be:
Would dimple board along the inside of the wall still be necessary if I filled the entire hole just about to the top of the bricks with 3/4" crushed gravel? If dimple board wouldn't be needed, should I drill holes in the base of the wall or leave it as-is? The sump basin will be put into the top of the gravel when I have filled it about halfway, and then I would just fill around it. Trying to do it later would cause the gravel to keep collapsing in on itself and I'd never get the basin in. The basin would likely extend about halfway down to the floor. I would put in a basin that is wider and not as deep, but the smallest depth that they come in seems to be about 18". The hole is about 3' to the top of the bricks, so it would still need to do some pumping if the water did rise that high.
Of course, those are cinderblocks that make up the wall. They have two holes in the top of each one of them and of course go all the way down to the floor. Spiders, dirt, whatever, goes down into them. Should I go around and fill all of them with crushed gravel and smooth over the top of them with cement to seal them off? Or would that do more harm than good? Just want to make everything be a little neater and as closed-off to open water as possible.
The way the current basement door situation is, the water just runs under the basement door and along the sloped-down path until it reaches the cinderblocks. It goes flush at the top of the blocks. I presume that part of the water that runs in goes into the cinderblocks and the rest of it runs in between the holes and down the inside of the wall. So I will definitely have to figure out a way to permanently stop that from the outside.
Once everything is installed, I'm still planning on skimming over everything with the 2.5" or more of cement all across the top of the gravel. The basin would be sealed around the top edges and that would kind of hold it in place in the gravel, as well.
Probably the only thing that I'm (likely unreasonably) wondering about now is...if I fill this whole thing in, will I cause a water problem elsewhere due to pressure building up? Theoretically, the water should flow through that 3/4" gravel like it isn't there, right? So if the basin that I install is wrapped in netting (to keep out debris) and sits halfway down into the gravel with plenty of holes in the basin, it should still be able to pump out if water did come up to that point. The gravel should be fine for still allowing proper drainage and not causing pressure to build up behind the walls, right? I mean, I want it to pump less, which is why I'm raising the floor. But I also don't want it building up and spilling out elsewhere and flowing into the closed sump from above if that that makes sense. Like over the wall or something. That's kind of what scares me about having a closed sump with a proper lid and such on it, too.
The furnace is going to be hanged from the floor joists. I like that option better than on top of the crawlspace dirt, even if it was elevated on something like cement blocks. In the near future, I'll be checking on both of those to make sure that they are a done deal. Whatever needs to be done to make both of those happen, I'm going to do it.
My planning is now regarding what to do with the hole, which will be completely empty after those two are moved. The higher it is filled, the less water should need to be pumped out. I still need to measure the exact depth on both ends (it seems like the sump end isn't as tall or something on the back end...probably just the illusion that the washed-down dirt on the other end makes). I'd like to keep a little distance from the top of the bricks just to have a low point in the basement. We've never had any water in the actual crawlspace area, but if a freak storm every did happen that caused that, it would go into the hole and not everywhere else. That's going to be a heck of a lot of gravel. What, probably around 5 to 7 cubic meters or something like that? That's obviously going to be in the several tons of gravel estimate, I would imagine. Getting that down there should be pretty interesting. I thought about building some kind of steep wooden slide going from outside of the basement door and slanting all the way down to the sump end of the hole. Once in the basement later, I can move it over as it builds up.
A positive point is that even with a sump installed, the floor would technically be raised by about 1.5' (down to the bottom of the 18" sump basin). That's 1.5' less of a pumping head and gives another 5 gallons extra per minute even on a 1/2HP pump, so I likely wouldn't need a 3/4HP pump. Change the pipe to 2" PVC. Throw a couple of 1/2HP pumps in there with silent check valves (one as a backup that may never get used, but I'd rather have it there in case of a main pump failure) and the final thing will be battery backup. Without the 3/4HP pump being necessary after the floor is raised, the dual pumps could actually be entirely powered by the battery backup in the case that both were ever needed and the power was mysteriously out. I don't ever see that happening, but it would make me feel better.
My new questions would be:
Would dimple board along the inside of the wall still be necessary if I filled the entire hole just about to the top of the bricks with 3/4" crushed gravel? If dimple board wouldn't be needed, should I drill holes in the base of the wall or leave it as-is? The sump basin will be put into the top of the gravel when I have filled it about halfway, and then I would just fill around it. Trying to do it later would cause the gravel to keep collapsing in on itself and I'd never get the basin in. The basin would likely extend about halfway down to the floor. I would put in a basin that is wider and not as deep, but the smallest depth that they come in seems to be about 18". The hole is about 3' to the top of the bricks, so it would still need to do some pumping if the water did rise that high.
Of course, those are cinderblocks that make up the wall. They have two holes in the top of each one of them and of course go all the way down to the floor. Spiders, dirt, whatever, goes down into them. Should I go around and fill all of them with crushed gravel and smooth over the top of them with cement to seal them off? Or would that do more harm than good? Just want to make everything be a little neater and as closed-off to open water as possible.
The way the current basement door situation is, the water just runs under the basement door and along the sloped-down path until it reaches the cinderblocks. It goes flush at the top of the blocks. I presume that part of the water that runs in goes into the cinderblocks and the rest of it runs in between the holes and down the inside of the wall. So I will definitely have to figure out a way to permanently stop that from the outside.
Once everything is installed, I'm still planning on skimming over everything with the 2.5" or more of cement all across the top of the gravel. The basin would be sealed around the top edges and that would kind of hold it in place in the gravel, as well.
Probably the only thing that I'm (likely unreasonably) wondering about now is...if I fill this whole thing in, will I cause a water problem elsewhere due to pressure building up? Theoretically, the water should flow through that 3/4" gravel like it isn't there, right? So if the basin that I install is wrapped in netting (to keep out debris) and sits halfway down into the gravel with plenty of holes in the basin, it should still be able to pump out if water did come up to that point. The gravel should be fine for still allowing proper drainage and not causing pressure to build up behind the walls, right? I mean, I want it to pump less, which is why I'm raising the floor. But I also don't want it building up and spilling out elsewhere and flowing into the closed sump from above if that that makes sense. Like over the wall or something. That's kind of what scares me about having a closed sump with a proper lid and such on it, too.
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I'm going to try to have them hang approximately where it is now, but a bit over that back side wall if they can. Theoretically so that the filter would be facing the side where the door is and accessible from what would be the built-up hole with gravel.
nealtw
Contractor retired
Once the furnace and tank a moved you could let it flood once and see where the high water level. I would drill holes thru the blocks first and I would drill thru all the blocks so water has no resistance to running and dirt will fill into the blocks so drilling holes high up too will give it years of use. With feet of gravel in the hole to filter the dirt out of the water it would have decades of use without worry.
Keep in mind that if you raise the floor and set the pump feet higher, and allow water to come and go as it pleases, it will be there throw out the wet season, it should not bother you anymore and there will be a lot less water movement and therefore a lot less dirt being moved around. So I think that dirt will not be a big problem.
But for extra insurance for the drit plugging all the holes in the block you dig out the outside of the top row of blocks and put in the landscape fabric to cover the top set of hole and then level the dirt to the top of the blocks.
The ramp from the door to the hole, if that is like a side walk shape could you dig down outside and tunnel on an angle to get inside beside the ramp. If that would work then you could run a drain down and break thru a block for a drain just outside the door..
I would not worry about up pressure at all, as long as you have pump level set below the floor level.
Then I would cover all the crawlspace with poly and have it run under the concrete and no I don't think you will need dimple board if all this works out.
I'm pretty confident that with 2 days of heavy rain, if nothing was in the hole to damage and I let it flood, it would likely go up to the top of the bricks. Did the math on that hole capacity about a month or two ago. Somewhere around 1,300 gallons to the top of the bricks. The ground level outside is somewhere around 6 inches higher than the top of the bricks inside, so they didn't even do that right. If I let it flood, I wouldn't be too surprised if it flooded over the top of the bricks and started running into the dirt behind the wall. That and the stories my mother has talked about with it flooding up to the top of the wall (when there was no system and just a water heater) when my father dealt with it. I'm expecting some sump flow still, even after I fill it in. There isn't a lot of pressure behind the walls, I think it just runs out fast because it builds up a foot deep or more in the walls. I'd like to fill the bricks with gravel and seal the top of them flat. Even if there is sump flow, the worry will be gone of it flooding the equipment. I would fill the whole thing in with dirt, but that wall would certainly make everything flood and it seems evident that we need a low point and sump to get moisture away from the house.
nealtw
Contractor retired
Just a few points,
The water will never fill to to top of the hole and run over to the dirt, as the water on the out side of the wall will be at the same level, it would just be flooded.
With that in mind and you may be right, I would set the pump up to where you would like to have it set when you are done. The system should work as planned with or with out the gravel, although I can not imagine why it wouldn't work.
It is hard to say what came first there may have a pump there before the dug out for the water heater. Hopefully it was dry before but who knows.
Normally the crawlspace is lower that the landscape around the house, Part of the problem you have it the dirt around the house isn't high enough, it should have been raised and sloped away from the house. That wouldn't stop an underground stream or a spring but it would have moved rain water away from the house.
If the house was built today the outside of the foundation would have been waterproofed up to about 8" from the brick, drainage would have been installed at the bottom off the foundation and it would have been back filled.
The crawlspace would have been 4 ft deep. Even if that was done at your house, it wouldn't have helped when they dug that hole they would have been below the perimeter drain anyway.
The water will never fill to to top of the hole and run over to the dirt, as the water on the out side of the wall will be at the same level, it would just be flooded.
With that in mind and you may be right, I would set the pump up to where you would like to have it set when you are done. The system should work as planned with or with out the gravel, although I can not imagine why it wouldn't work.
It is hard to say what came first there may have a pump there before the dug out for the water heater. Hopefully it was dry before but who knows.
Normally the crawlspace is lower that the landscape around the house, Part of the problem you have it the dirt around the house isn't high enough, it should have been raised and sloped away from the house. That wouldn't stop an underground stream or a spring but it would have moved rain water away from the house.
If the house was built today the outside of the foundation would have been waterproofed up to about 8" from the brick, drainage would have been installed at the bottom off the foundation and it would have been back filled.
The crawlspace would have been 4 ft deep. Even if that was done at your house, it wouldn't have helped when they dug that hole they would have been below the perimeter drain anyway.
nealtw
Contractor retired
If moving the gravel sounds like a big job, look into a rental for a small conveyor system.
https://www.accessconstructionequipment.com/products/conveyors.html
https://www.accessconstructionequipment.com/products/conveyors.html
I'm planning to use the gravel so that I can cement the top of it when I am done and seal the basin in so that it won't have a chance to move around much in the gravel. I doubt that it would anyway, but I'd like to have that cement barrier between. I theoretically could just leave the open hole, but I'm not too fond of all of that moisture running across the floor. It has been doing it for a long, long time, of course. It messes with the humidity in the house and at certain times of the year you have to fight white powdery mildew when you first see it on something and not let it take hold anywhere.
The plus side of all of that gravel will be that it will filter the dirt and debris out of the water so that the sump basin should have pretty clean water in it. Dirty water certain affects the longevity of the pump.
I'm wondering if they didn't have that pump before the crawlspace was dug out. I can't figure out why they didn't put in a proper basin. I don't know, maybe the codes were different back then and didn't require it. The inspector that checked the house certainly wasn't very thorough and missed a lot.
The plus side of all of that gravel will be that it will filter the dirt and debris out of the water so that the sump basin should have pretty clean water in it. Dirty water certain affects the longevity of the pump.
I'm wondering if they didn't have that pump before the crawlspace was dug out. I can't figure out why they didn't put in a proper basin. I don't know, maybe the codes were different back then and didn't require it. The inspector that checked the house certainly wasn't very thorough and missed a lot.
nealtw
Contractor retired
I lived in a house with a flood basement much like yours and we just poked a hole in the concrete and dug a hole and set the pump in, no inspections. I don't think we even thought about permits or inspections.
We had open ditches at the road and it went about 200 yds and under a main road but the culvert wasn't deep enough. When they raised that main road, my mother spent hours on the phone talking to engineers about lowering the culvert. They assured her that is was at three feet now and it will be a 6 ft when they are done. He forgot to mention they were raising the road 5 ft. After that the pumps were running almost 24/7 all winter,and that's when we just pumped it into the sewer line.
We had open ditches at the road and it went about 200 yds and under a main road but the culvert wasn't deep enough. When they raised that main road, my mother spent hours on the phone talking to engineers about lowering the culvert. They assured her that is was at three feet now and it will be a 6 ft when they are done. He forgot to mention they were raising the road 5 ft. After that the pumps were running almost 24/7 all winter,and that's when we just pumped it into the sewer line.
slownsteady
Well-Known Member
I am sure you would want access to the pump and maybe the pit in general, so I'm hoping you don't mean to cement it all in. The gravel isn't going to move, so put that worry aside. BTW, makes sure you get the recommended type of gravel for drainage; there are many grades and some may pack too tight to be helpful.
If you fill the trench up to ground level, you can cover your whole crawlspace with plastic sheeting, which is recommended anyway, so your gravel bed will still be protected from debris.
I just mean around the top of the basin. The lid and such will still be removable, the pumps accessible, etc.
nealtw
Contractor retired
like this.
Yeah, like that second photo. The cement would only go around the outside edge of the top of the sump basin (not over the actual lid, but just the little exposed outside part poking out of the gravel. Theoretically, the basin would stick up just enough out of the gravel for the thickness of cement to be flush with the top of the basin. I'm not sure whether the cement should actually touch the outside of the basin itself. I don't imagine that it would take much work to break that little bit of cement around the edges if anyone wanted to move the basin in the future, however.
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