Advice for this nightmare basement?

[nealtw]

Unless the trees are on the side of the gully I don't see the problem. Do you something about that than we don't?

 

[jmr106]

At the very back part of the yard, there is a 7' tall fence. The land from that portion slants down halfway into a type of gulley area that goes until just over the ridge of where it looks like the land slants back, if you're looking at it from a front-to-back point of view. It isn't really a ditch or anything, just where each side of the land slants downward and meets under the pine trees towards the front. If I pump out there, all of it will turn into a deep puddle and basically surround a lot of the trees. Particularly on the back right side where it tends to form deep puddles when it rains anyway. My concern for that is that the ground may become too saturated and the trees might not be able to hold their ground.

 

[nealtw]

The should have a tree expert on staff, I would ask his opinion before I ruled it out. There is likely set back rules but the city should be helping you with free advice.
Then I would be check elevations for the whole yard to see if you could be draining the basement with out a pump.

 

[slownsteady]

JMR: are you saying that water collects at the base of those trees naturally in a heavy rain? And does that water hang around for a while? It's not unusual for surface water to collect, as long as it moves eventually. No one can tell over the internet whether the water is a threat to the trees, but if the ground under them is not swampy for days after a rain, then the drainage may not be too bad. Your old map also shows the streams that were once there. In short, you should be trying to follow that stream bed with your discharge. hopefully, it's not into the house next door.

 

[jmr106]

I'm back with more pics.

I'm attaching a panorama of the back yard to show the general land shape. Under the trees on the right side, just over that slope...that's where the puddle photo was taken. It sort of goes down in that area. If I got the map location right and the intermittent stream (that's what it is, because the topo maps use a blue dashed line indicating that) is running through our property, then it would be going diagonally in the photo. It would run from the bottom left of the photo to the upper right in that direction. However, the puddle doesn't flow...just sits there and puddles when it rains. So that may just be because the back portion of the yard (from the fence to the center part of the trees) slopes down and the front portion of that area also slopes down at the right side.

I took a panorama closer to the ground to show the general back yard land layout from the trees facing the house. It is pretty flat, but not necessary directing everything at the house from what I can see. You can see that the discharge area from the house is a pretty decent distance. Given how the water pools in the back, I'm very wary of discharging anymore water near those pine trees. All opinions from those who work with trees and landscaping have warned me not to do that or risk having a tree come through the house. I can't do much about the puddling...that can stay for 2-3 days if it rains for 3-4 days. Eventually it goes away on its own, of course.

I took one just showing the general front yard. It isn't particularly sloped, either...it is rather flat. It is much shorter and of course discharging the sump out by the street and into the sewer is against city code. I'm in the big city, so I'd have issues from city ordinance.

 

[nealtw]

That water gathered there when those trees were seedlings. That puddle is the the water table and the trees are handling it just fine. The dirt absorbs the water at a rate that the trees are happy with.
If the water was running through the trees and down a bank into a creek I would be worried about them.
I would be checking elevations of the yard to see if you could just run a pipe out of the crawl space to this area with out a pump.

 

[jmr106]

I also have some more photos. This is from a while ago, when there was what I would refer to as a cloudburst-type thunderstorm. It didn't stick around for long, maybe 20-30 minutes at most. It dumped an insane amount of rain. As you can see, the street was covered from side to side with muddy water. Half or more of that water is actually coming out of the driveway/yard/culvert a few houses up the street. Due to decently high curbs on the yards and our driveway being elevated a few inches, that doesn't really run into our yard much. During more normal rains, it only does that on the opposite side of the street and extends out maybe a few feet and just runs down into the sewers. This area apparently gets a higher flow of water in general.

I am posting these to show what heavy rain does in our front and back yards.

You can see why I thought the stream might flow from left to right in the yard. According to the old map, if it is still there, it would run from somewhere around the area where I am standing and go diagonally under the yard all the way back to the right back part of the yard. The puddle back there under the trees doesn't move, and is opposite of the "flow" direction of what the stream should be.

During that particular storm, water was flowing rapidly, inches deep around the back of the house, all over the driveway out front, washing down through all back yards in the same center part, about half of a foot deep. I have a few videos of that time...the basement had a half of a foot deep of water (most of the way up to the blocks supporting the system, before more than one pump was installed and just the 1/3HP was there). I could hear sirens going all over the place. It was pretty crazy. That 1/3HP pedestal stayed on for about an hour straight to get rid of all of that water, so that was at least about 2,300+ gallons of water during that one hour. Of course, now I have upgraded them and the last time we had one of those storms about 2-3 months ago, both pumps kicked in. The water never made it out of the top of the sump hole itself, but took a while to go down. That was probably 80+ gallons per minute given that the pumps were both sharing the 1 1/2" pipe and that slows down some of the max flow of both. Another reason why I want to run 2" PVC when I get everything fixed.

 

[nealtw]

So all that water around the house finds it's way to your pump. The more you can raise the floor the less water you have to pump.

 

[jmr106]

So all that water around the house finds it's way to your pump. The more you can raise the floor the less water you have to pump.

Yep. Current plan is figuring out what to do about the water heater. The Lowboy ones apparently aren't efficient and are virtually non-existent in a gas version. The breaker can't handle an electric water heater without rewiring the house. Considering a gas-fired on-demand one. New pipes may have to be ran from the meter about 20 feet away. A plug would have to be installed down there to handle that (unsure what breaker to put it on). Can't get the electric on-demand one. I "could" remove the water heater and machine, elevate the floor and such and then have both put down on top of it. I'd rather get both out of the hole completely. Pretty much tired of worrying about them.

Still trying to verify if the current furnace can be turned horizontal. I'm going to try to get that off to the side and have both out of the hole completely.

The plan would be to fill the hole with 2.5 to 3 feet of crushed gravel and install a proper sump basin. Pretty sure I would still need to dimple board the walls before the gravel, then put the basin in and cement over the top of the whole gravel area. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I feel that even if I filled in the entire hole level at the top of the bricks with crushed gravel...I feel that because the wall is there, it would help the water flow more freely and possibly still flood the basement by going over the top of the bricks. I believe the water table may have raised a lot over the past 35 years...perhaps naturally and due to various drainage and constructions around the area. I would pretty much rather have a dry sump and pump that is never needed than to need one and not have it. Scared to get rid of it completely.

I need to elevate the crawlspace entrance somehow. The water runs right under the door crack from the ground outside. Adding anything to build up the area in front of the door would make the door get stuck on it when it is opened. I thought about building a little cement ledge under the front edge of the door and building a slightly smaller door and frame above it.

 

[bud16415]

Take a pipe or stick and pound it in the ground as shown at the tree line. Run a string from the ground at the corner of the house back to the pipe and put a string level on it so it is level. Measure from the ground up to the string at the pipe. Now measure the length of the string and report back.

 

[jmr106]

Also, an update on that furnace:

Found info that states that it is "RGP507EAMER 75K 3 Ton Drive Upflow Gas Furnace"

A google search only gave 3 results, and one of them is this:

http://cdn.globalimageserver.com/fetchdocument-rh.aspx?name=rgps-specification-sheets

It appears to be capable of being installed horizontally, but I see some warnings on there that it has to be installed a certain way and that certain sides shouldn't face up. Now the question is...can they fit it in that space somewhere on one of the sides of the hole? It has a lot of extra stuff on it (air handler, etc.) that I presume they would have to tailor to make it work horizontally somehow.

 

[nealtw]

Yep. Current plan is figuring out what to do about the water heater. The Lowboy ones apparently aren't efficient and are virtually non-existent in a gas version. The breaker can't handle an electric water heater without rewiring the house. Considering a gas-fired on-demand one. New pipes may have to be ran from the meter about 20 feet away. A plug would have to be installed down there to handle that (unsure what breaker to put it on). Can't get the electric on-demand one. I "could" remove the water heater and machine, elevate the floor and such and then have both put down on top of it. I'd rather get both out of the hole completely. Pretty much tired of worrying about them.

Still trying to verify if the current furnace can be turned horizontal. I'm going to try to get that off to the side and have both out of the hole completely.

The plan would be to fill the hole with 2.5 to 3 feet of crushed gravel and install a proper sump basin. Pretty sure I would still need to dimple board the walls before the gravel, then put the basin in and cement over the top of the whole gravel area. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I feel that even if I filled in the entire hole level at the top of the bricks with crushed gravel...I feel that because the wall is there, it would help the water flow more freely and possibly still flood the basement by going over the top of the bricks. I believe the water table may have raised a lot over the past 35 years...perhaps naturally and due to various drainage and constructions around the area. I would pretty much rather have a dry sump and pump that is never needed than to need one and not have it. Scared to get rid of it completely.

I need to elevate the crawlspace entrance somehow. The water runs right under the door crack from the ground outside. Adding anything to build up the area in front of the door would make the door get stuck on it when it is opened. I thought about building a little cement ledge under the front edge of the door and building a slightly smaller door and frame above it.

Just to clear this up. All the on demand water system I have referred to are gas. The cost is higher but installation is no big deal.

The way to deal with water at the crawlspace door is to built a curb on the outside that you step down into with a drain at the bottom with pipe running to the pump. That keeps the entry area dry and holds out surface water.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Ec...ankless-Gas-Water-Heater-ECOH200XLN/203404948

 

[jmr106]

Just to clear this up. All the on demand water system I have referred to are gas. The cost is higher but installation is no big deal.

The way to deal with water at the crawlspace door is to built a curb on the outside that you step down into with a drain at the bottom with pipe running to the pump. That keeps the entry area dry and holds out surface water.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Ec...ankless-Gas-Water-Heater-ECOH200XLN/203404948

Looks like that could work for the water heater. So these are usually mounted on the outside brick of the house? I'm guessing they already have the heat built in for things like winter weather when it is 10 degrees outside.

Do they use any type of electrical at all? Is an outlet required?

Is there anything similar that might be able to go inside of the basement, or is that usually not recommended and would cost a lot more for forced air venting and such?

Is there a way for me to figure out how big the current gas pipe supplying the water heater is? I put up the only pics that I could find of it with things to compare it to. I presume that is an old cast iron pipe. Would they need to replace that all the way back to the meter? It goes over and connects to the stove pipe and also branches off to the furnace with a flex hose.

Granted, with either option, I would then have an open vent on top of the roof that went down to the basement through the bathroom closet. But it gets it out of the basement, so I guess it could be capped off down there or something.

Just trying to get a good idea of how much this would actually cost for everything to be converted over to it. It appears that if I purchased something like that from Home Depot, for instance...there is a $500 rebate through Atlanta Gas Light, our company.

That is a good idea for the basement door. I do have a problem, however. When you go inside of the basement door, it basically grades down considerably until it reaches the top edge of the bricks around the hole. Essentially, it is funneling the water down. Someone has apparently put some cement or concrete over that area just inside of the door. I'd have to break through that to do anything with a pipe under there. I'm not sure that I'd get that depth for the drain, either...at least, not without shaving some of the bottom of the foundation rock (under the door) away in order to run the pipe. It is a bit hard to explain, but since it slopes down as you go inside of the door, the pipe would also have to go considerably under the dirt and also punch through the cinderblock wall. From the edge of the door to the actual bricks just a few feet away, it probably slopes down nearly a foot and that's just to the top of the bricks.

 

[nealtw]

Most of those heaters are made for the inside and they direct vet out the wall, Not sure it would fit in the crawlspace and if it did you would have to core a hole thru the foundation for the vent.There some that are made for outside and I think the restriction on both will be distance from windows and such. I think they run a bigger gas line from the meter for these, but I am not sure, but that would be copper now, not as big a deal as it used to be.
The drain at the entrance would be nice, sounds like it would be a lot of work.
I would leave that thought for now, you have enough on your plate to figure out.
Get the name and numbers off that furnace.

 

[slownsteady]

You may want to start a new thread in the HVAC forum for the heater, and another fresh thread for the furnace. This one is too long and winding for anyone to just jump into, and it seems you'll get more expert advice there.

 

[nealtw]

You may want to start a new thread in the HVAC forum for the heater, and another fresh thread for the furnace. This one is too long and winding for anyone to just jump into, and it seems you'll get more expert advice there.

Good Idea..............

 

[jmr106]

Most of those heaters are made for the inside and they direct vet out the wall, Not sure it would fit in the crawlspace and if it did you would have to core a hole thru the foundation for the vent.There some that are made for outside and I think the restriction on both will be distance from windows and such. I think they run a bigger gas line from the meter for these, but I am not sure, but that would be copper now, not as big a deal as it used to be.
The drain at the entrance would be nice, sounds like it would be a lot of work.
I would leave that thought for now, you have enough on your plate to figure out.
Get the name and numbers off that furnace.

Yeah, outside seems to be best, anyway. I was just thinking about how warm the external water heater would keep itself during the coldest of winter time to avoid freezing. For instance, one of the reviews by a customer of that one on that site states that it used to freeze up at 10F.

The drain...I'll have to figure that out later. For now, I'm also going to fix that gutter issue and try to get the water from that as far away from the house as possible.

 

[nealtw]

The outside units are rated for some temps but that will have to be checked, local suppliers should know if they are good in the area.

 

[zannej]

Nice little spiders you've got in your basement. Have you named them?

 

[jmr106]

Nice little spiders you've got in your basement. Have you named them?

Nope. They have met their fate with Raid Fumigator quite a lot of times, however (the smoke kind, not the liquid foggers). Lots of large, typical outdoor spiders down there and cellar/"vibrating" spiders. I once took a photo with my cell phone looking into one of the drain cinderblocks at the base of the wall, at the floor level in the hole. I was curious what it looked like in there, and upon blowing it up on the computer, I saw that there was a black window with the red hourglass visible. We've never had any issue with those coming into the house, however. I have seen them in little webs in cracks of the porches, as well...so not too much that can be done where they won't keep coming back in there. They're pretty common...most people here even have them in the water cut-offs by the street. I once opened ours to turn off the water to work on some basic plumbing stuff and I found a whole family in there. Momma spider wasn't happy when I pulled that cover off, and she was sitting right on the underside of it. She had a ton of baby widows with her, too.