Water in the basement

[Jim Nazium]

OK TB, help me out here. About once a year, after a day or two of very heavy rain, I get water in my basement. It doesn't flood, there's just maybe a quart of water or less that seeps through the cracks between the walls and floor, and there are some discolored spots on the walls that look like there's moisture behind them.

I can call a contractor to have them look at it, but I'm sure they'll tell me I need to spend thousands of dollars. What do I really need? It doesn't bother me much but I don't want to let the house get damaged.

 

[hondo4life]

They will probably tell you to install a sump pump system and repair the foundation for $Texas.
It could also be that you need better drainage around the exterior. Gutters and/or French drains may solve that problem. Also not cheap.
If you do have gutters, you could collect the rain water in barrells instead of letting it dump on the ground.
You probably need to fix those cracks, though.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

If you really need to spend thousands of dollars then you really need to spend thousands of dollars.
Not a single person on TB can answer your question via a forum with any certainty.
If you have water damage and mold problems you may need to spend thousands of dollars fixing those symptoms of the problem and still have to the fix the the real problem too.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Drainage is mucho importanté!

If your guttering is just emptying out beside the house, that's no good.

Work on the outside drainage as much as you can, & see if that helps next time.

There is a method to not fix the leaks & instead build a drain around the perimeter of the basement that empties to a pump.
You basically put up facade on the walls that allows the water ingress behind it to just go to the drain.

 

[sowilson]

The easiest/cheapest first step which may address the issue is to make sure your landscaping runs downhill from your house (i.e. slope the ground away from your house). Next, is the use of gutters and downspouts that extend away from the house (get the water 8' away and it should stay away from the foundation). Adding a sump pump is reasonably inexpensive compared to excavating the basement walls, sealing them, backfilling and adding drainage tile.

 

[Stumbo]

Hey, JN. Sorry to hear about your water problems.

Yeah, whatever you can do to keep water away from the house will help. My dad and my brother and me, way back in the day, put a concrete walkway around our whole house. We also installed gutters.

When it rains, check out water flow around your property and the houses around you. Gutters with extended down down spouts, maybe some drains near the edge of your
property that pipes water around the house. Had to go this for my mom's house.

My lot is mostly sloped towards the rear so I have drainage issues in back. Possibly water may flow in a certain direction on your lot.

You might also check with the city and enquire about water tables.

 

[fhm555]

Our old house is dug into the side of a bank and when we first got here we had occasional seepage downstairs if we got a really heavy rain. The solution for us was to divert the flow away from the house off the hill we are dug into. We did this by digging a small trench angled across the property so the water drains off the hill and down our driveway. It's a dirt driveway and drains a lot of the hill already so we felt it was the best way to route the flow. Once we got the trench dug, we put in an eight inch french drain with the usual slag and sand, and left the dirt from the trench on the low side of the thing to act as a stop/sluice when the rain gets really heavy. Since we put in the drain, no more water downstairs. Since it is above what we have cleared for the yard, the diagonal hump is not a problem and is now covered over with grass. I just have to be careful not to level it with the mower when I'm cutting grass on the hill.

 

[bolophonic]

I had a house with moisture problems in the basement. I installed gutters and a sump pump for backup, but the biggest factor in correcting the problem was to improve the grading around the perimeter.

 

[Jim Nazium]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. I have gutters with extended downspouts already, and generally I think the grading situation is pretty good - the house is on a little ridge, so the front drains down toward one creek and the back drains down toward another. But there are some flat spots right next to the house, so that may be something to look at. I'll start getting the pros out here for recommendations.

What about firing the drummer? Would that help?

 

[sowilson]

What about firing the drummer? Would that help?

Firing the drummer always helps, rage quit too !!

 

[P. Aaron]

A basement is a bowl of cement in a sea of dirt. We need however, that dirt to stay wet in order to sustain life here on this planet.

So, does your basement have window wells?
*Does the exterior grade from your foundation run downward? If not, it needs to.
*Are your gutters cleared regularly and do the downspouts have 24-36" extensions to ensure that wash water drains away from the foundation?
*Being in Maryland, like MI, your home sheds about 50,000 gallons of rainwater per season.
*Depending upon the year built, your home's foundational drain tile areas may be in need of repair. Unsexy, expensive but necessary because nature is ALWAYS trying to take your house from you.
*If your basement walls have cracks, better they be vertical than horizontal. Vertical cracks are typical. Horizontal means the earth has plans to go one way while your foundation wanted to stay where it is. Horizontal cracks usually need serious and expensive fixes and can drastically reduce your home's value because that type of crack is indicative of a structural problem.
*If you run out of ideas, the internet & YouTube can be a very helpful place as well.
*There's no shame in calling a professional having exhausted all other possibilities.

 

[Gaolee]

A couple questions:
1. Is it a finished basement?
2. Do a couple quarts mean a puddle or dampness?

If it's a finished basement and you are getting water intrusion, then you probably have more issues behind the finishes. I'm not being an alarmist. Best to cut a hole in the wallboard and see what's back there. If it isn't a finished basement and it's not harming anything, then no worries. Water gets everywhere every so often. If it can dry out, then no harm, no foul.

If you are getting a whole lot of water, then consider epoxy injecting whatever cracks you can find. You don't say how old your house is, but concrete shrinks when it cures, and it cracks over time. The construction joke is that a concrete mixer is just a truck load of cracks looking for a place to happen. Your basement walls may have minimal or no rebar in them if it's an older house, or the concrete may have been poured with too much water in it. Or it may not have been consolidated properly. All of those things lead to cracks. None is a big deal, but they make a passage for ground water to get in. Epoxy injection can solve these problems. You can buy the materials and do it yourself. It isn't cheap, but it is a whole lot cheaper than hiring a knuckle dragger like me to do it.

 

[tlc1976]

Drainage is mucho importanté!

If your guttering is just emptying out beside the house, that's no good.

Work on the outside drainage as much as you can, & see if that helps next time.

There is a method to not fix the leaks & instead build a drain around the perimeter of the basement that empties to a pump.
You basically put up facade on the walls that allows the water ingress behind it to just go to the drain.

That's what my basement has, and it actually works quite well. Plastic water channels glued to the perimeter of the basement, sealed well, that all meet up in the lowest corner. And a hole carved in the floor for a sump pump, with a ridge around it so the water is contained from the channels to the sump. Mine cycles the most in the spring when the snow and frost melts. Rest of the year it only runs due to the dehumidifier I use to keep the basement air dry, that conveniently empties into the sump hole. It stays completely dry unless the pump fails, and I keep everything raised on pallets or whatever just in case.

I know the right way to do it is dig around the foundation and reseal it from the outside, put in drain tile and regrade the lawn. My friend just did it on his house to the tune of $10,000. I don't have even a fraction of that. I'll just stick with the water channel system that was here.