Advice for this nightmare basement?

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jmr106

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My parents bought their house in 1979. After my father passed, my mother took over the house. This house has a terrible basement. My father never knew what to do with it. The previous owners didn't seem to, either. The FHA made the former owners remove the water heater that was in the kitchen at that time and put it in the basement, before an FHA loan could be made to my parents. The basement was just a crawlspace dirt basement, so they dug out an area for a dirt sump at one end and put the water heater at the other end. It measures about 15' long x 3.5' wide and about 3.5' deep with a cinderblock retaining wall around the interior. They left the bottom of it dirt. As you can see, the crawlspace all over the place under the house isn't flat like in a lot of basements. I have no idea why. It was apparently like that when my parents got it. Not sure what the former owners did or why it has a lot of ups and downs everywhere. The house was built in 1950 and is a brick house.


Eventually, a central heat/air system was installed in between the water heater and sump hole years and years ago. There was nowhere else to put it and it couldn't have been put in another room or the attic. It is elevated about a foot to prevent it from being flooded, since water runs freely on top of the dirt floor in the hole. As you can see with that water heater, yes, it is sitting directly ON the dirt that the water (coming out of the retaining wall) freely runs on top of inside of the hole. I know that is bad for it, obviously.

When it rains moderately for 2-3 days, the pump comes on. That is to be expected. If it rains heavy for a day or day and a half, the pump comes on a lot. During one of the 3-4 rain events where a system stalls out over the area, both pumps sometimes work a ridiculous amount, pumping sometimes 75+ gallons per minute and up.

It is a nasty mess down there. My mother is selling the house in the spring, so I'd rather put money towards another place rather than invest a lot into try to fix this.

Now, my mother and father wondered for all of those years why the sump flow was so high. My father dealt with basement flooding a lot inside of that dug out hole. Everything else stays dry. I began studying a map of our area. Down at the end of our street where you turn onto another cross-street, the corner house there that is in line with ours has a creek in the back yard that is openly visible. I looked at the map and their back yard and area where the creek is would be running right through our back yard (possibly near the house). My father once dug up something about 6-8 feet from the back of the house. He was metal detecting for fun and dug up what he thought was a "storm drain" covered with a big piece of tin. From what I understand, it was too big to remove to see inside. I'm wondering now if this isn't that creek that is flowing underground and was covered over before they put the houses on this land in 1950.

Are county records required to have this documented somewhere if a creek or stream was once covered over and runs underneath our property? How can I investigate it further? I'm speculating that when it rains a lot, whatever means they have used to contain the underground creek that they possibly covered over...it may be overflowing that. Certainly so if they just nailed a bunch of tin over it. The water leaking out of the sides would seep into the ground and cause the high underground flow that I described above.


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A couple of more pics...

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Welcome to the site and yup, that is ugly.
It looks at the pump like there is a concrete floor and it looks like mud is coming in around the hot water tank.
When the house was built they likely put in a perimeter drain about the level of the bottom of the foundation but when they dug the trench under the house they went well below the drain level and now you are into a stream or spring or perhaps this is just the water from around the house and the roof just bypassing the old drain if one is there, it may not be functional.
1. make sure all landscaping is sloped away from the house, re-rout downspouts away from the house, well away.
2. the interior block wall should have been waterproofed on the dirts side with proper perimeter drain that leads directly to the sump with drain rock and drain fabric to keep the mud out and then the pump should have been a sealed canister to keep all moisture out of the area..Fabric and gravel should have come up to the surface to pick up any water and then the dirt in the rest of the area should have been covered with poly.
Non if this sounds cheap or easy.
 
There is a light layer of concrete that was apparently put on top of the dirt near the pump, in the pump hole and partially extending up to the other side in the hole. However, it is so light of a layer that it is literally breaking up if you walk on it. Somebody didn't know what they were doing. I don't know much about construction, but I would imagine that this concrete should have been at least a few inches thick. As you can see, even the side of the sump hole is crumbling and reveals how thin that concrete layer is.

No, none of that sounds very cheap or easy to do. Do you think I would be successful in diverting the water to the sump hole by putting some type of plastic drain pipes into the cinderblock holes at the base of the wall and sealing around them somehow? I have no idea how to make such a thing work, however. Sounds kind of whacky, but without tearing the wall down and/or doing a ton of digging in an area where there is very little to do that, it sounds like a better temporary solution.
 
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First on the list is to get water away from the house on the outside.
Next would be to dig out much of that skim coat of concrete and dig a tench out for a perfearted pipe and gravel to run water to the sump. Dimple board on the inside of the block wall will devert yhe water down and then a new skim coat of concrete.
Dimple board is made for the outside but in the photo they have used it on the inside down the wall under the floor to where the drain pipe is.

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:agree: Also called sheet drain. In your case, it might be better / easier on the outside of the blocks. But in either case, you have to supply a french drain at the base of it to channel the water away. I think you've been lucky that the existing sump has been able to keep up. I would attempt to move the water before it gets there.
Interesting about the "creek" in the back. You may never find the answer to that question. But you might get some knowledge by digging a few test holes in the yard to see if the moisture is dissipating as you get further away from the stream.
 
Thanks for the help, guys. Due to how close the dirt is on the outside of the wall, there is no way (or space) that I could put the sheet drain on the outside of it where the dirt is. At least, without tearing the whole thing apart. I would for sure have to do an install on the inside of the wall.

The thing is...that area on the back side of the pumps. That is solid cement. You can see the part where it is actually quite straight. It is many inches thick. I have no idea why that particular area what such a thing, but the rest doesn't. I wouldn't be able to dig that up to put a perimeter drain under that. It would literally take a jackhammer, and I'm not sure how far down it extends. At least down to the base of the sump hole. I don't even know why that is there, as it serves no purpose. This was all dirt before they dug it out, so somebody put that there for an unknown reason. Everything else appears to be dirt except for that part. Very peculiar.

Okay, so when they built this wall, they just put some kind of mortar or concrete and stacked the cinderblocks up. A lot of places have little cracks and crevices where the water sprays out a little bit in various spots. Should I seal those places before putting up the sheet drain, or are you saying to just put the sheet drain on the wall and the water will just come out and hit it and fall down to the bottom?

What is used to affix the sheet drain to the cinderblocks that would actually make it stay attached to the wall when it got wet?

Okay, so say that I get the sheet drain up. What goes underneath? Dig a trench and basically put a drain of some type all the way around that it would go into so that it would all come out in one spot near the sump? I guess I don't understand exactly how the trench would work. Would rocks or something be on top of it to allow the water to flow into the pipe faster? I have heard of the perforated pipes and such. I just wonder if the water would flow into that type of pipe and the trench itself fast enough to basically not start going everywhere on the dirt again.

With the exception of a few places, water is building up in the wall all the way around since the cinderblocks are hollow. I can literally look down into the top holes of the cinderblocks and see the water inside of them sometimes. So technically would I need to make more holes before putting the sheet drain up on the wall?

Well, during the days when my father was around to mess with it and I was really young, they only had a single 1/3HP sump pump. I have no idea why it didn't occur to him to install more than one. So I have heard the horror stories that my mother has told me about him going down there to find that the water overtopped the pump and it tripped the breaker. Or, the power would go out and he would go down there to find about 3.5 feet of water basically up to the inside of the bricks and covering the water heater halfway.

When I got old enough to understand about sump pumps, learned to do pvc plumbing and such, I installed double pumps to keep up with the flow, seeing the impending doom if there was only one. The other day after the 3-4 days of rain, the second pump came on and they were both barely keeping the water in the sump hole. They both pump a combined 105 gallons per minute total, so that's why I have so many questions about the trench and it keeping control of the water. I will likely be installing either a 1/2HP or 3/4HP iON Storm Pro. Still figuring out which to put in there. The latter can do about 4,500GPH by itself. The 1/2HP can do about 3,800GPH. Granted, there was wiggle room for the water and a lot of times for the pumps to "catch up" However, the submersible pumps seem way better in that they can run longer and are cooled by the water that they are in. They seem to pump a lot more water, too. It wasn't until recently that I found the SEC America corporation that actually makes real backup inverters that can convert the marine battery power to power the main pumps. Before, I tried one of those 12V systems and it was junk. Failed in no time. With that, I don't have to worry about the power going on. So I'll be getting that pretty soon, as well. With the heat and air machine and the water heater inside of that hole, that's about $8,000 worth of damage if it floods due to power failure.

I carefully looked at the map and there seems to be a direct line with that creek/stream with our back yard. I have noticed that the middle of the back yard floods during heavy rain. All of the yards near ours do, too. It doesn't really slope down, either. By floods...I mean that there is about 6" of water running down the middle of our yard and neighbor's yards as if following some source. They all seem to be in the same place. It eventually goes away, but takes a while.
 
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The thing is...that area on the back side of the pumps. That is solid cement. You can see the part where it is actually quite straight. It is many inches thick. I have no idea why that particular area what such a thing, but the rest doesn't. I wouldn't be able to dig that up to put a perimeter drain under that. It would literally take a jackhammer, and I'm not sure how far down it extends. At least down to the base of the sump hole.

Your sump hole would likely have collapsed years ago if it wasn't supported by solid concrete. And that is part of the reason why I suggested outside the wall for the sheet drain.
The object with the sheet drain is to cover the full height of the wall, capture the water and allow to drain below the base of the wall. I don't mean to go under the wall, but to divert it completely top-to-bottom. You should read up on french drains or foundation drains, which is essentially what you want to do here. You can search the threads here and on other home repair sites. If you put the sheet on the inside, you would still need to excavate at the base of the wall, below grade. if the sheet is on the outside, it would catch the water before it entered the blocks. The dirt that you remove when putting in the sheet gets replaced, so that is holding the sheet in place against the wall.
Thinking outside the box (or the trench, in this case) I wonder if you could build a barrier wall, like the block wall with a sheet drain, out from under the crawl space somewhere in the backyard. You have the advantage of building it in a less confined space and the ability to make it as deep as it needs to be to block / divert that stream. It may divert the water well enough to keep the crawl space less wet. But this is just a thought, and may not be the right solution.
In any case, to make this right, be prepared to dig into this project. There is no easy answer that I can see.
 
Are you sure? it looks to me that mud has washed in around the water tank and maybe tyhere is concrete below this mud.
I did intend to suggest the dimple board to be inside the block wall, as you have pointed out the blocks are full of water and to solve that pressure from building up you drill half inch hole in blocks to let the water flow. as the blocks may fill with mud over time, two or three sets of holes so as the lower ones plug up water can get out of the next hole, that would give your repair a longer life.
In the photo I posted, notice that the sump is sealed, that is so no moisture in the area as moisture is not good for the house.
So my plan would be.
Jack hammer the concrete out, or just a trench about 12 wide beside the block walls and remove the concrete sump, unless you can find a plastic sump that fits inside it.
If you are not up to doing this work yourself, call the readymix companies and get referreces for a labourer that can do this work. Every city up here has companies with names like labour ready and they rent you a man for about $30 an hour, just make sure you get their most experienced man. And it is important you know what you want and you are onsite to make sure the plan is followed.
I would pull the tank out to make room to work and depending on age and condition of the old one maybe just replace that with a new one.
Dig the trench down about a foot and add 3/4" crushed gravel to 10" below the top of the concrete. Lay drain fabric and install perferated pipe in the trench and plumb to the new sump and top up the gravel to the top of the pipe and wrap the top gravel and pipe with fabric.
Drill the holes in the blocks to allow easy water flows
All the dirt in the rest of the crawlspace should be leveled and covered with at least 6 mil poly and draiped over the block wall.
Intstall the dimple board so that it reaches from the top of the block wall down and bends out to cover the pipe like in the photo. Use RED tuck tap to seal and joins and cuts that have to be made to allow for fit. Tapcon screws can be used to fix the board to the wall. Tape the joint between the board and the poly that covers the rest of the dirt.
Replace the concrete and replace the tank.
Take photos as you go so any home inspector can appreciate that the work was done in a reasonable fashion to solve any and all problems.

If you hire labour like I suggested you will have to rent the tools. Much cheaper than hiring a contractor. Half the time the contractor just has a rentle place send out the tools and he supplies the same labourer that you can find.
 
We never talked about where the wter is going, make sure it is not coming back into the area.

1 1/2" PVC extends out and away from the basement for about 20 feet or so. A flexible plastic extension pipe is attached and carries it about another 20 feet. The discharge site is on a grassy part of the yard, and basically flows on a slight incline. It flows in our yard, but is feet away from the fence and eventually runs into the neighbor's back yard, but they don't even use their back yard or care at all. Even when it hasn't rained for a couple of days after a 3 day rain, the pump will sometimes take two days to stop coming on. Sometimes it will come on every 20-30 minutes all day for two days after the rain. Even with drainage problems and the setup, isn't that a bit much given that it is discharging a good distance from the house? I find it hard to believe that it would be running back in from 40 feet away on a quick basis. That's like 5,000 gallons per day if it comes on every half of an hour, and that's when it isn't even raining. It should be all out of the bricks and dirt and everything after a couple of days.
 
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If the stream is in back of your house, and you are concerned about that, then why would you be dumping water there??? If it seeps into the soil, then it is contributing to the flow that you are worried about. You need to move the water downhill and away from your house
 
If the stream is in back of your house, and you are concerned about that, then why would you be dumping water there??? If it seeps into the soil, then it is contributing to the flow that you are worried about. You need to move the water downhill and away from your house

No other option. The back yard is about 175 feet long and maybe 40 feet wide. The back portion has massive pine trees that I wouldn't want to risk discharging under and making the ground soggy in addition to rain. It goes almost back to them, but has a little distance. The back of the back yard slopes down a little, but would retain big puddles. The middle part is theoretically where the creek would be running, if not a little closer to the house. No other place to discharge. The front yard is half of that size. Discharging to a sewer is, of course, illegal.
 
Unfortunate. What is the general grade of the area around your house? Is it sloping toward the front? Does your house sit higher or lower than your neighbors on either side?
 
I grew up in a house with a pump in the basement that just dumped water outside and came back in until the ciy sewer came in and then we worked something like a french drain so the water to access the sand around the sewer pipe and that carried water away for years. Then when that didn't work anymore One of my brothers just hooked into the sewer, never was cought. But I woulodn't suggest that. The city dosn't have a storm water system at the road?
 
I grew up in a house with a pump in the basement that just dumped water outside and came back in until the ciy sewer came in and then we worked something like a french drain so the water to access the sand around the sewer pipe and that carried water away for years. Then when that didn't work anymore One of my brothers just hooked into the sewer, never was cought. But I woulodn't suggest that. The city dosn't have a storm water system at the road?

When I first became old enough to be aware of the sump and how the water flow worked, I actually extended the PVC pipe out further away from the house. They literally had a pipe sticking out of the side of the house that was about 1.5 feet long and dumping right outside of the basement wall where it would just go right back in. Now it goes a considerable distance from the house.

I'm going to post a few pics of the back yard that I took the other day after it had been raining for a few days on and off. You can see the large pines in the back. It slants downhill there, but then has a little uphill area right after that which traps big puddles. I have some more that I can't find right now for some reason, but they actually show the large flooding that runs right down through the center of all of the yards towards the discharge location. During downpours that last for a while, it literally looks like a creek flowing from yard to yard. Granted, it dissipates fairly quickly, so sometimes I second guess whether there is something flow under there or not. The map puts it at 1,100 to 1,200 feet away. Straight shot right through our back yard if the creek on the corner goes straight. Not a thing related to a creek is visible in the yards behind us or yards on our side. It has to be going somewhere, and the part that is visible down the street is straight for as far as you can see it, so I believe that it runs straight up. My initial theory was that back when they were developing the land, they build some kind of halfway culvert. I don't know why, but I envisioned some type of gulley with sides and a bottom. An open top with tin nailed over it (and then covered over with dirt), which would have lined up with what my father found. Then I got to looking around online recently and found a video. Our house is right outside of Atlanta. It was a home inspector's video where they had this large flat tin-covered thing covering an actual concrete bomb shelter under the dirt. Their water line was many feet up the wall, so at some point thousands of gallons had seeped into there. Then there's the possible septic tank, I guess is still theoretically possible since it was a 1950's house. Maybe the water table is just high in the area, I'm not sure. Going to test that out sometime by digging a hole and seeing what happens. I have pondered digging for the said object just to make sure that I don't have some big concrete structure under the ground sucking in a ton of water and overflowing when it gets full. All I know is, my mother was saying over the past few days, "That pump is STILL coming on??" It hasn't rained in 3 days now. It has virtually stopped now, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time for all of the water to go out and stay out. I have no reason to believe that the water that is being pumped 30 feet away is seeping back into the basement, though. Seems improbable.




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The sump discharges here. It goes straight out about 30+ feet from the house and 90's off to the right just shy of the fence. It discharges on our property in the grass, 3-4 feet from the fence. To my knowledge, they have no sump next door. Instead, their water heater is in the house (one of my parents knows the lady that owns that house). The discharge point is way back in their yard and isn't visible. It just casually runs across the ground through the fence without being seen. Their tenant never uses the yard for anything.








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Back of the house, sort of showing the grade of the land. It doesn't look like it is sloping towards the house that much to me.

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That spot just in front of the old trash can...that long dirt strip. Grass doesn't like to grow there. There is always flowing puddle on top of the ground there. I presume this is the spot where whatever that object dug up in the past is under the ground. The brick hole is maybe 10-12 feet from this area, a few feet on the other side of the wall.


Typical puddling around the other corner of the house when it rains a lot.

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That basement door does get a little flow underneath it, but not that much. Haven't really figured out a solution to block the water from going under there. Building a new door won't do it. Inside the edge of the door is concrete. Outside of the edge of the door, a couple of large patio stones are embedded in the dirt. If any more dirt was added to the area, the basement door wouldn't open properly. Also, yes, that downspout does need an extension on it. Working on getting one for that.
 
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I would do a couple pirk tests near the tree line.
And running pipes for the downspouts will have to be looked at.
 
You have a crawlspace not a basement. It is fairly common around here for crawlspaces to somewhat follow the contour of the ground rather than having a completely flat floor. This is true in new homes selling for $500K and up. Flat lots in this part of NC are pretty rare. If the builder goes to the trouble of terracing the land to make flat lots they'll generally do a slab foundation instead of a crawlspace.

The ground should all be covered with plastic, ideally I'd want a flat floor covered with concrete, which is why I bought one of the rare homes with a basement in my neighborhood. In my part of NC you won't find a completely in-ground basement. The back of my house is completely above grade.
 
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