Window well filling with water from the side

[IamAllThumbs]

We had a big thunderstorm with hail and dumping water today and I happened to grab something in the basement by the window and realized the window well was filling up. Within minutes the water was getting to window level, so I popped the screen and started bailing buckets from the window well. I was touch and go keeping up with it for a while but I won the battle after 45 minutes of bailing and something like 28 5gal buckets. It would have gone forever but the storm moved away.

I had thrown a piece of plastic to on top of the window well grate, but at the rate it was filling it was obvious it wasn't rain from the top. I could see an area where the metal well meets the foundation that was spurting water: (it's a bit blurry because the water was moving of course, but the arrow shows it comes from a specific spot)



Too late today to try and figure it out, but I have never health with drainage systems/problems before, any advice on how to approach the problem? what could cause water from the yard/surrounding area to get concentrated in this one spot?
Maybe the problem is that there is a hole or a break in the "seal" between the window well and the wall? (I assume they're supposed to be sealed together). Can I / should I try to plug the hole? how? some kind of tar goo?

The ground around the house is "river rock", I'm pretty sure there is a weed barrier under it (the house is 25 years old and I didn't see it getting built), but I don;t know if there is additional draining/french drain below that and where it's supposed to go from there.

I have 3 other basement windows and while they had a little water in them, they didn't start filling up like this one. an hour after the rain stopped they were all empty of water, even the troublesome one, so I think the window wells themselves are fine as long as the rest of the year doesn't drain into one of them.

While I'm at it you can see the window well corrugated metal is rusting away, do I need to worry about that? change it? brush it and paint/seal it? (I wonder what the dirt-side looked like).

Of course, I'm about to leave for a trip and the next week and half looks like more heavy thunderstorms, so I'll temporarily rig a sump pump tomorrow (this one because I can't find a small/relatively inexpensive sump locally)
That should buy me peace of mind until I come back and can troubleshoot the root cause.

 

[Flyover]

Might help to understand a few things. To start with:

- Is the house built on a slope and if so is this window well on the upslope or downslope side of the house?
- In general what is the grading like around the house? (Is the house on a little manmade hill, even just a few inches, above the surrounding terrain?)
- Is there a nearby downspout from the gutter?
- Is there a sump pump, and how close is it to this window well?

By the way I am not sure for certain but I believe the curved wall of the window well is not meant to be waterproof; its main function is to retain the earth or ground material away from the window. It's your drainage systems (downspouts, sump pump, french drains, etc.) that do the work of keeping water out, as well as eaves and window well coverings, not to mention proper grading. You said you have a screen over the window well and not a plastic cover? I'd replace the screen with a plastic cover unless you live in the desert or something. (But I am not an expert; others might have different advice.)

 

[IamAllThumbs]

The house mostly has the group sloping away from it, although the area close to that window well is almost flat (under a deck) and the area directly around the weel slops away from it but the years was a giant puddle because of how hard the rain was coming down. I guess I need to figure out why all the water was coming mostly from that magic spot, likely by removing the river rock and seeing what's underneath.

The crawl space sump pump is at almost the opposite corner of the house and was running every often last night, so I think that part of the drainage system is working as advertised.

I can look into plastic well covers, but the problem was definitely not from direct rain into the opening but from the side stream.

 

[Steve123]

The window well is supposed to have a drainage line (typically 4 or 5 inch plastic pipe) that runs down to your perimeter drain beside your footings. The pipe likely originally had a small grate over it. This line could be clogged, or non-existent.

You could try digging a bit and see if you find the drain line.

If that don't get you anywhere, your options are to put a piece of acrylic over the window well to keep the rain out of it, or calling a pro to take care of it. If you google "wet basement name-of-my-town" these are the guys that would do that type of work.

 

[IamAllThumbs]

Putting a cover is something that I will likely do, but the other windows, including one 6 feet from this one along the same wall didn't have a problem, so the main problem was the water rushing down the metal side.
The other windows and the last inch of water in this window well dissipated fast enough after the storm ended so I think the drainage on the well is OK, it just couldn't deal with the volume of water coming from the side of the well.

I'll be out of town through next week but I'll dig and see what I can find when I get back home.

 

[Flyover]

Putting a cover on something that I will likely do, but the other windows, including one 6 feet from this one along the same wall didn't have a problem, so the main problem was the water rushing down the metal side.
The other windows and the last inch of water in this window well dissipated fast enough after the storm ended so I think the drainage on the well is OK, it just couldn't deal with the volume of water coming from the side of the well.

I'll be out of town through next week but I'll dig and see what I can find when I get back home.

I'm not sure what part of Colorado you're in; maybe the drainage system was designed to accommodate typical rainfall in that area, and this was just a very extreme/unnatural deluge for that area? You didn't tell us. I haven't been to Colorado (though I'd love to; actually it's on my list of places I'm eyeing for retirement) but as I understand there are huge climate differences between the front and back slopes, between places like Denver and places like Grand Junction, etc...

 

[IamAllThumbs]

The weather has been unusually rainy the past few weeks and it definitely qualified as a huge/extraordinary storm. The store my son worked in had some minor flooding and the local Facebook channel was full of people asking recommendations for water mitigation, so I wasn't the worse off, but I'll kick myself if it happens again next huge storm.