Advice for this nightmare basement?

[bud16415]

I know your mothers plan is to sell the house soon, but if I was a buyer and saw that I would run not walkaway. If you do sell it most likely it will be subject to a home inspection and I suspect there will be recourse when the first big rain hits back on the seller. I bought a house once that had an awful well with no recovery the owner put up with no water hardly for 45 years and then had to dig a new good well for me to be able to buy it.

Is there any way you could relocate the furnace and water heater back up above grade by building a small addition on to the house to be an equipment room. I really think that’s what I would do with that high of a water table.

I have seen where a subdivision back in those days diverted water as you think might have happened. Those people are long gone but if that is the case sometimes local townships will help with fixing problems like that if they involve more than one property owner. In your case that’s true as the water is coming from someone’s property to yours and should be leaving yours to go back to a creek. You would have to know that to be the case and go talk to them it can’t hurt. if they say no then suggest you are going to plug it up and see where it backs up.

 

[nealtw]

It might be best to contact some landscape companies that specialise in handling water in your area.

 

[slownsteady]

Neal makes a good point (as usual). This problem goes directly to the value of the house. If you brought in a real estate agent to give you an estimate of your listing, he/she would be able to compare your house to others in the neighborhood. Then you could decide what the work would be worth - and it will be work. The downspout(s) are definitely worth routing away from the house at no real cost, but the rest of the fix is going to get involved.

 

[jmr106]

Out of curiosity, how much would something like this cost if a waterproofing company did it? I'm quite familiar with the surrounding cities and honestly wouldn't want any of those labor pool type people hanging around the house.

If I were to try to do this myself, do you think the wall would be somewhat easy to remove in order to avoid having to buy who knows how many bricks again?

How thick should I expect the concrete base of the floor to be in that hole? Would they have followed some type of older code for an allotted thickness, or just made it whatever amount? I'm kind of wondering if I'd be able to break that up for myself. This would be a project that would take a while, of course. Would I be able to sledge it out or would that just break it up unevenly? A jackhammer in that area seems a tad bit interesting.

I have entertained the idea that the water heater could be either moved outside (a house next door has a crawlspace basement and theirs was built on the back of the house with this little wooden containment room of some sort just big enough to hold the water heater) or converted to one of those on-the-fly electric heaters.

The bigger issue is what to do with that heating/air system. Regardless of who does the work (me or a company), that entire system is in the way, as well as the water heater that is right next to the wall. When the system was put in, they asked them about an outside unit. They said that they could put one in, but they'd have to punch an enormous hole in the foundation rocks of the house in order to run the vent pipes through. Obviously not a good thing.

A lot of friends who have seen it keep telling me, "Man, forget that. Just get yourself some hydraulic cement or mortar, run some flex perforated pipe into where it is draining at the brick areas and seal those pipes into the wall. Dig into the dirt on top of the washed in dirt and run them under it, all connecting into a plastic sump basin and put your pumps in there."

Without digging the basement out and it being an obvious code violation (not that the whole thing isn't anyway), their solution doesn't sound like it would work that well in that I'm not confident that the pipes would seal into those holes as well as they claim. Any thoughts on that?

I'm probably going to see if my mother will be able to find a realtor who can deal with the issue and see if the house will sell as-is. If my own estimates are right based on researching companies online, this whole project could cost about as much as building a whole room onto the back of the house to house the water heater and heater/air system. However, that wouldn't even work because all of the pipes would need be relocated and all of the vent hoses still wouldn't be going under the house to all of the vents unless a hole was punched into the original rock foundation of the house. So that's kind of a square-one thing that goes in a circle.

 

[slownsteady]

I think for any of us to guesstimate this would be hard because labor costs are dependent on your area. But let's get a better idea of the job.
How much headroom is in the crawlspace?
How far down do your foundation walls go?
Did you explore that metal cover and is there a stream nearby?

 

[jmr106]

I think for any of us to guesstimate this would be hard because labor costs are dependent on your area. But let's get a better idea of the job.
How much headroom is in the crawlspace?
How far down do your foundation walls go?
Did you explore that metal cover and is there a stream nearby?

Well, of course the dug out hole area with the bricks, you can stand up in and have about 7' or so from the bottom of the hole to the floor joists. The rest of the actual crawlspace dirt varies from probably 2.5 feet in some areas to as low as 1' or so towards to front area of the house under the kitchen.

Not sure how far the foundation walls go. Is the best way to tell to just dig a small hole down and see, beside the house?

I haven't dug down to find the metal cover as of yet. One reason being that details are slightly sketchy. I have asked my mother where it was located and her general response was "somewhere out there behind the house" and it wasn't really helpful. I can't remember if I actually physically saw it as a kid or not, or if I just remember my mother and father telling me about it as a kid and getting my own mental image of it. That was so long ago. Kind of scared to dig deep with the rain that we've had today (don't want to get a flow of water out of the ground if there is something drain-related down there that doesn't have tightly packed dirt as a barrier. I think that my idea of previous construction crews covering over a creek (say, back in '50 when it was built) with just nailing down tin over some kind of makeshift culvert is probably really unrealistic, even for those times. If anything, there's some kind of culvert pipe that was ran underground the ground. Who knows, maybe it has a hole or holes in it, isn't very stable, etc. I guess it could possibly be an old septic bank, but my idea is that this is like 6' from the back center of the house. I would think that even in older days when codes weren't as strict, they would have had that further away out in the yard somewhere. The idea of a "storm sewer" as my parents called it seems fishy to be in the back yard. Granted, a house up the street on the corner has or had a septic tank and we used to smell it sometimes years ago. So obviously they weren't on the city sewer at some point.

Maybe later today I'll try to dig down some and see what I can find. From what I understand, it was big enough that my father didn't seem to want to go through the trouble to dig it up so that the big tin lid could be removed. I once had someone suggest to me that it could be a drain cleanout for the sewer pipe. We have that out in the back yard and I know exactly where the general area of that is. It has the screw-on metal cap and everything. Apparently what I'd be looking for is an object of many feet wide by who knows how many feet long and covered completely with a piece of flat tin like you'd fine on a roof or something. That's going to be really interesting if it runs the length of the yard, though. Maybe I can find it and take some pics.

 

[slownsteady]

Sounds like it could be an abandoned septic tank or drywell. If you have a rough idea of where it it is, you might be able to find it by thumping the ground with a shovel handle or something similar. You'll be able to hear a difference if you hit it.
Whatever you do before you know the scope of the problem should be considered a bandaid.

With the low headroom in the crawl space, that kind of rules out working the area there. If you know enough about the foundation, you might be able to manage the water from the outside of the house.

 

[nealtw]

Well, of course the dug out hole area with the bricks, you can stand up in and have about 7' or so from the bottom of the hole to the floor joists. The rest of the actual crawlspace dirt varies from probably 2.5 feet in some areas to as low as 1' or so towards to front area of the house under the kitchen.

Not sure how far the foundation walls go. Is the best way to tell to just dig a small hole down and see, beside the house?

I haven't dug down to find the metal cover as of yet. One reason being that details are slightly sketchy. I have asked my mother where it was located and her general response was "somewhere out there behind the house" and it wasn't really helpful. I can't remember if I actually physically saw it as a kid or not, or if I just remember my mother and father telling me about it as a kid and getting my own mental image of it. That was so long ago. Kind of scared to dig deep with the rain that we've had today (don't want to get a flow of water out of the ground if there is something drain-related down there that doesn't have tightly packed dirt as a barrier. I think that my idea of previous construction crews covering over a creek (say, back in '50 when it was built) with just nailing down tin over some kind of makeshift culvert is probably really unrealistic, even for those times. If anything, there's some kind of culvert pipe that was ran underground the ground. Who knows, maybe it has a hole or holes in it, isn't very stable, etc. I guess it could possibly be an old septic bank, but my idea is that this is like 6' from the back center of the house. I would think that even in older days when codes weren't as strict, they would have had that further away out in the yard somewhere. The idea of a "storm sewer" as my parents called it seems fishy to be in the back yard. Granted, a house up the street on the corner has or had a septic tank and we used to smell it sometimes years ago. So obviously they weren't on the city sewer at some point.

Maybe later today I'll try to dig down some and see what I can find. From what I understand, it was big enough that my father didn't seem to want to go through the trouble to dig it up so that the big tin lid could be removed. I once had someone suggest to me that it could be a drain cleanout for the sewer pipe. We have that out in the back yard and I know exactly where the general area of that is. It has the screw-on metal cap and everything. Apparently what I'd be looking for is an object of many feet wide by who knows how many feet long and covered completely with a piece of flat tin like you'd fine on a roof or something. That's going to be really interesting if it runs the length of the yard, though. Maybe I can find it and take some pics.

Plan B
Remvoe the water tank.
Install new plastic tub for the sump, like this. higher than the floor
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-a-Sump-Pump
Drill holes on the blocks to allow water to flow freely, cover your side of the block with dimple board from the top to about 2" from the floor cover all the floor with crused rock, leaving just enough room under the furance for a 2 1/2 " skim coat of concrete.
Add 2 1/2" skim coat of concrete.
If you change to electric hot water you can put it just about anywhere or with this done you could put it back where it is.
This would be a whole lot easier.
I never ment for the dimple to go behind the wall.

 

[jmr106]

Plan B
Remvoe the water tank.
Install new plastic tub for the sump, like this. higher than the floor
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-a-Sump-Pump
Drill holes on the blocks to allow water to flow freely, cover your side of the block with dimple board from the top to about 2" from the floor cover all the floor with crused rock, leaving just enough room under the furance for a 2 1/2 " skim coat of concrete.
Add 2 1/2" skim coat of concrete.
If you change to electric hot water you can put it just about anywhere or with this done you could put it back where it is.
This would be a whole lot easier.
I never ment for the dimple to go behind the wall.

So holes would be drilled into the blocks and the water would flow out and hit the dimple board and fall straight down. What is used to attach the dimple board to the inside of the wall? The cinderblocks are solid, but they just seem a little more "crumbly" in composition compared something like a solid cement wall, of course. From the previous photo, it looks like they used some kind of screw or nail with a plastic fitting on it to help seal out water from going through the hole and/or keeping the screw or nail from slipping through the dimple board.

A sump basin would need to be a larger/wider type in order to keep the pump from coming on too frequently and shortening pump life (since the current space is 80 to 90 gallons and can fill up every 3-4 minutes after a few days of rain with continual heavy rain). Any idea if they make basins in a larger square-like size that might fit the current sump pit somewhat?

Okay, so I'd leave a 2" gap between the bottom of the dimple board and the floor. The water would run down onto the floor among the crushed rocks until it reached the sump hole? How deep would the rocks need to be?

What is the 2 1/2" skim of concrete for around the furnace, or should that go on top of the rocks for the entire length of the floor of the hole? The furnace/air system is elevated about a foot or so off from a 1" cement block on the floor.

 

[nealtw]

Not sure of the sump size. The skim coat would cover everything. 3/4" grushed gravel, no sand. Pehaps dimple board over gravel so wet concrete dosn't plug up gravel.
If you find a box like that you would suround it with gravel and with the aprox 4" of grave under the concrete wouldn't loose any storage for water, you just want a pump that is deffinitly big enough.
For the dimple board the is a hard plastic strip for the top edge and you drill into the block, 3/16" and use tap con screws.
BTW, jack hammers come in all sizes, sludge hammer in small space, really tough.

Besides this I still think you need to have a good landscaper for suggestion on how to remove water from around the house to a lower level.

 

[bud16415]

Some houses are built over a crawl space without a basement just because the water table is too high or gets to high certain times of the year. IMHO conventional building methods of block and mortar and sump pumps and such are just fighting nature and nature always wins.

We have 100’s of people around here that have dug out crawl spaces and installed equipment and most end up wishing they had built a shed addition to hold the stuff in the long run, or converted a spare room into a utility room.

 

[nealtw]

Some houses are built over a crawl space without a basement just because the water table is too high or gets to high certain times of the year. IMHO conventional building methods of block and mortar and sump pumps and such are just fighting nature and nature always wins.

We have 100’s of people around here that have dug out crawl spaces and installed equipment and most end up wishing they had built a shed addition to hold the stuff in the long run, or converted a spare room into a utility room.

We built 2 houses with a river running thru them. One they just started by adding 1 ft of 6" chrushed and built above that. The other one on acerage and no height restrictions but it wouldn't look right to raise it. So every day we had to pump the hole out and they installed 2 sumps one for the perimeter drain and one in the basement as a backup.

 

[bud16415]

We built 2 houses with a river running thru them. One they just started by adding 1 ft of 6" chrushed and built above that. The other one on acerage and no height restrictions but it wouldn't look right to raise it. So every day we had to pump the hole out and they installed 2 sumps one for the perimeter drain and one in the basement as a backup.

Oh I know they do it every day and in some areas around here the good lots were cherry picked many years ago and people want to live in an area so bad they will build in a swamp.

When we were looking at short sale properties before we bought the place we are at now we looked at one really nice house that had been sitting 2 years. After a year the bank got tired of paying the electric bill so they turned off gas and electric. This nice looking house filled with water the line was half way up the basement wall and the realtor tells us it needs a furnace and water heater as they had a little water down there. But the sump pump has no problem keeping up. As we stood and talked for five minutes it cycled on a couple times. Upstairs the plaster was coming off and the whole place was black mold. A year before it was worth maybe 120,000 and like it was I offered them 20,000 and got laughed out. We bought the place we are in and another year later they had an auction so I went and the place sold for 8,000.

This place of the OP’s just sounds like the equipment never should have been below grade.

 

[nealtw]

Oh I know they do it every day and in some areas around here the good lots were cherry picked many years ago and people want to live in an area so bad they will build in a swamp.

When we were looking at short sale properties before we bought the place we are at now we looked at one really nice house that had been sitting 2 years. After a year the bank got tired of paying the electric bill so they turned off gas and electric. This nice looking house filled with water the line was half way up the basement wall and the realtor tells us it needs a furnace and water heater as they had a little water down there. But the sump pump has no problem keeping up. As we stood and talked for five minutes it cycled on a couple times. Upstairs the plaster was coming off and the whole place was black mold. A year before it was worth maybe 120,000 and like it was I offered them 20,000 and got laughed out. We bought the place we are in and another year later they had an auction so I went and the place sold for 8,000.

This place of the OP’s just sounds like the equipment never should have been below grade.

I think He would agree about the funace not being under the house.
If the furnace wasn't there or was a horizontal one the ground level down there could be brought up past the water level.
If you knew the path of the water if it is like a stream, you could re-route it around the house.
Even fixed this could be a hard sell.

 

[bud16415]

The big thing around here the last few years is an outdoor wood stove. They sit out in the back yard a 100 or more feet from the house. Some guys build a little building around them and some build a huge building that holds a couple years worth of wood, and some just let them sit outside. They make hot water and run it thru PEX to the house in a trench that is insulated. All the mess and danger is outside.

If they can do that I would think blowing hot air a few feet to get into the heat ducts wouldn’t be so bad. I’m not sure but the addition could be like a pole construction of a garden shed or something sitting up close to the house. I think I would build a nice room 10x12 with a slab floor to hold the equipment.

Not sure what would cost more fixing the water problem or moving it up.

 

[nealtw]

The big thing around here the last few years is an outdoor wood stove. They sit out in the back yard a 100 or more feet from the house. Some guys build a little building around them and some build a huge building that holds a couple years worth of wood, and some just let them sit outside. They make hot water and run it thru PEX to the house in a trench that is insulated. All the mess and danger is outside.

If they can do that I would think blowing hot air a few feet to get into the heat ducts wouldn’t be so bad. I’m not sure but the addition could be like a pole construction of a garden shed or something sitting up close to the house. I think I would build a nice room 10x12 with a slab floor to hold the equipment.

Not sure what would cost more fixing the water problem or moving it up.

Ok If we a looking at all things that might be done.
I see what looks like an AC unit outside, why not a heat pump. The unit inside could be much smaller and horizontal, then the whole hole could be backfilled to original depth, but we are assuming there was no problem before it was dug out.

I still think as this water is being dumped on the surface now, how much drop is there from the house to the area of the trees.
It might be possible to dig a trench around the house not to close but deep enough to pick up a drain from the basement and still find daylight at the trees.

 

[bud16415]

I’m not sure where the OP lives? Around here a heat pump is nowhere to be found except the water to water type where you have two wells. But that might be a good plan. Getting the surface water away from the house and to lower ground can’t hurt at all. It sounded like it was coming in below grade but finding out would be a good plan and if it didn’t solve the water problem it would be good to keep the yard dry anyway.

 

[nealtw]

I would be looking a the trench arount the house even if that just went to a sump and pump and the one below the house would be a back up..
I think there is a temp that heat pumps do quit working so that would be a concern in some places..

A new mud room outside the side door could take the furnace and tank.. But then back filling the crawl space would still be a pain.

 

[jmr106]

Not sure of the sump size. The skim coat would cover everything. 3/4" grushed gravel, no sand. Pehaps dimple board over gravel so wet concrete dosn't plug up gravel.
If you find a box like that you would suround it with gravel and with the aprox 4" of grave under the concrete wouldn't loose any storage for water, you just want a pump that is deffinitly big enough.
For the dimple board the is a hard plastic strip for the top edge and you drill into the block, 3/16" and use tap con screws.
BTW, jack hammers come in all sizes, sludge hammer in small space, really tough.

Besides this I still think you need to have a good landscaper for suggestion on how to remove water from around the house to a lower level.

Ah, okay. So the cement would cover the 4" of gravel and the water would come out and run underneath the cement among the gravel. What would I do around the bottom 2" of the wall where the dimple board stops just before the floor? Cement up to that point and stop before the edge?

I have a pump pretty much already picked out. iON BA75 Storm Pro 3/4HP. Uses only 7.7 running amps, but kicks out 76 gallons per minute and is submersible. Stainless steel pump and it can handle 1/2" solids (piece of dirt or grit that somehow got through into the sump, for instance). I would also have an SEC America Pump Sentry that uses marine batteries on a backup system to power the main and backup pumps if necessary, during a power failure.

What are the chances of a septic tank contributing to the water problem in the basement if there is one outside near the house?

 

[nealtw]

Ah, okay. So the cement would cover the 4" of gravel and the water would come out and run underneath the cement among the gravel. What would I do around the bottom 2" of the wall where the dimple board stops just before the floor? Cement up to that point and stop before the edge?

I have a pump pretty much already picked out. iON BA75 Storm Pro 3/4HP. Uses only 7.7 running amps, but kicks out 76 gallons per minute and is submersible. Stainless steel pump and it can handle 1/2" solids (piece of dirt or grit that somehow got through into the sump, for instance). I would also have an SEC America Pump Sentry that uses marine batteries on a backup system to power the main and backup pumps if necessary, during a power failure.

What are the chances of a septic tank contributing to the water problem in the basement if there is one outside near the house?

No, the idea is to let the warer come thru the wall and down to the bottom where it would get to the gravle the grave would cover the bottom of the floor and hide the bottom of the dimple board. Or the grave could be put in first and the dimple borad could be bent out to cover the grave and then add concrete. The idea is to let the water go where it wants to as long as it is behind the dimple and under the concrete.
Sorry I have made the assumption that the house was on a city sewer.
Is there a septic tank, do you know where it is and where the feild is.
That adds a whole bunch of different problems.