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.
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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