groundwater in basement

[Christian]

Hi,

Last night I noticed I had water leaking in around nearly every inch of my unfinished basement, along the very bottom corner where the wall meets the floor. We're talking about very little water here...dry in a few spots, just some light moisture in others, and in a couple of spots it's slightly worse.

It looks like they had the thing waterproofed in the past too...there is sort of a "ledge" all along the bottom....which I was told was waterproofing...

I do have a sump pump too...I tested it last night by raising the plunger and it does work. It seemed quiet. I've lived there for a year and never really noticed it running however. I've never had a sump pump before...isn't the pump supposed to PREVENT the water from leaking into the basement like I'm seeing now?

I've owned the house since April 2008 and didn't notice this last year, at least not to this extent. I might've had some moisture in a couple of corners of the house, but definitely not all the way around the basement like this.

Any advice or information would be so helpful. We used to get water in the basement at my parent's house due to a crack in the foundation...I really don't want to go down the 'water in the basement' road again...

Thanks!

 

[csweihe]

Where is the water coming from? after a storm> neighbor's yards? I had the same issue and decided to build a burm wall with dirt and sod to direct the neighbor's water out to the street. I also raised the level of my drip edge and directed it away from the house. Hard labor but, cheaper than a drain tile. I've been dry for 3 years. You may be able to redirect water (house run off/gutters) into a rain garden and use plants that adore lots of water. the web has tons of resources for rain gardens.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Christian:

There are something called "weeping tiles" around your basement concrete walls. These weeping tiles are little more than plastic pipes with holes in them buried around the base (or "footing") of your house's foundation.

Typically, these weeping tiles are connected by pipes buried in the ground under your basement concrete floor to either a sump pit (if you have one) or a "catch basin" or "floor drain" (typically located in or near your basement laundry room).

The purpose of these weeping tiles is to allow excess ground water to drain away, thereby eliminating the hydrostatic pressure of the ground water which is what makes this water want to flow into your basement. If the weeping tiles around your house were working properly, then the water in the soil around your house's foundation would drain into the weeping tiles, and the only remaining ground water would be retained in the soil by capillary pressure. That is, there would be no excess ground water that would create a hydrostatic pressure that would drive water into your basement walls as you've observed.

If it were me, I'd hire a drain clearing company that offers video inspections for drain lines and ask them if they can run their video cameras into your sump pit to inspect the underground buried pipes and the weeping tiles around the house.

I'm suspecting the weeping tiles around your house are all clogged up with silt and not working to remove the excess ground water in your immediate area.

 

[Christian]

Nestor:

Would the house have these weeping tiles and also the hollow baseboard system on the inside of the basement (that I mentioned in my other post)?

I'm also having trouble visualizing how these hollow baseboards actually drain the water into the sump pit...

 

[yesitsconcrete]

whatever water's intruding can't get to the sump UNLESS it covers the floor sounds as if there's no pipe to either 'catch' OR direct the water,,, not sure what YOUR system looks like but just sounds as if its a small curb,,, you've already noted it was a waste of time,,, unfortunately, this water problem'll only worsen

not sure how a pump would ' PREVENT the water from leaking into the basement ' when its true purpose is to mechanically remove water FROM the sump,,, you're ALREADY ON the ' wtr in the bsmt ' road ! ! ! if you've seen it before, you probably know the solution, too,,, good luck ! ! !