We have lived our house which is about 34 years old and had a problem that happens when we have really heavy rains (I live in Chattanooga, TN). There are certain places in out crawlspace when water comes in. Now these places are all same side of the house. Anyway, I have spent tons of money having excavation done to raise up the ground, put drainage in, have the foundation around the most problematic areas sealed, etc. My last work involved them digging along the wall that leaked the most to the foundation. Sealing it and lining it with plastic on the outside. I then had them raise the ground about 8-10 inches. Now all water runs away from the house. I did not have them dig the areas where there is just a little seepage because it was advised that the raised ground should take care of it. I have also on this side near the driveway (its a circular one that goes around to the back of the house) drains to catch water that runs to the house (the water does not go up to the house as now the ground is too high). There are about 4 6 inch drains and 1 12 inch drain. All the water now flows away from the house or into these drains. All my gutters (2 on this side of the house) are flowing freely. The gutters go into buried black drain pipe that from what I see is flowing well. The gutters never back up and water pours out the pipe into a ditch that flows away from the house. Before I had all this work done I installed under the crawlspace at the lowest point a sump pump with piping that takes the water to the outside at a point that is about 2 feet lower than the house foundation.

I am still getting water in. Granted it is not nearly anything like it was before. There are 2 places that look really like small puddles. They are about a foot to a foot and a half in diameter with about maybe a quarter of inch of water. They only show up when we have continous heavy rain. The worse spot is just about 5 feet away from the sump pump and it seeps out pretty fluid, but not like it used to. On the outside wall where it is at I cannot get to dig to the foundation because all the main power lines run there under the ground. There is one other spot that is not too bad, but it seems bad because it runs down from the the far edge of the problematic side of the house to the other end. It kind of looks like a cups of water was spilled or something for a 10 foot length (hard to explain).

As I said we are still getting water in and I have tried everything. It has been suggested to me that perhaps we have a water table nearby. My neighbor next door has his basement flood when I get water in my crawlspace due to heavy rains (we are on day 2 of heavy rain with a total of 5-6 inches of rain so far). I also saw another neighbor behind me pumping water out of his crawlspace. So I suspect this may be it. All the seepage is coming through cracks in the mortar of the cinder block foundation and they are all at the actual footing. None is from the soil itself on the inside nor from higher cinder blocks. Again it takes torrential rains for this to occur.

So what else can I do? I have a sump pump for the main area which is working and has improved the situation much. The smaller areas I need to channel the water I suppose to the pump, but we are talking in some spots 60 to 70 ft or so. I have had a basement/crawlspace guy say he could do the whole house for 3000.00. He said he would drill "weep holes" and dig along the foundation, putting in piping, limestone gravel and then sump pumps. By doing this he said all water will be channeled away to the sump pumps and the rest of the crawlspace would stay dry.

Any advice? Oh also what is the best way that after this seepage comes in to dry it out? Thanks.

 

jdaresta,

Listen to the guy, if its guaranteed and you can see other jobs, the price sounds reasonable!

Good Luck!

 

Well I may go with him, but I am not sure now. It turns out most of my leakage was due to the excessive rain we have had we have sections of town that are completely sealed off due to flooding. The rivers and creeks near us have exceeded flood lines (http://www.wrcbtv.com/news/news.cfm?DID=8478). I have to say the leakage I had compared to neighbors and others is very little. I had at the door neat my crawlspace a half inch of water that was gone by this morning. The small puddles I mentioned were bigger, but nothing major. The only other place I had water was under our concrete porch where we have storage. The sump pump I have worked like a charm to help keep the main area where water was coming in from leaking. Most of this though I actually think was cause by the drains on the outside being clogged up. Once I unclogged them and kept them clear all was well and within a couple of hours seepage stopped. So I may trench some of the edging my self. I really think all this rain was a unusual occurence. However, eventually hope to call the guy to do some work.

 

Referring to my post above, I am still having water problems. Granted again we have had record breaking rain here. I am fristrated though because the problems are all on this one side which is higher than the back part of the house. Recently the problem side where water comes in the most I put in a french drain along it (I have a cloth to prevent dirt from getting in). This seemed to work fine for the past week and half even in heavy rains. Well for the last 2-3 days we have had drizzle and ligth rain. All of sudden yesterday and today I have water seeping in. I am really frustrated because where it is seeping in at has between the house and the driveway maybe 2 1/2 feet wide of soil. The driveway is typical width and on the other side of it is a lower ditch. The width of the soil between the house and the driveway seems to short to really be collecting huge amounts of water and the water that does come in I would think would go to the French drain. It seems impossible because of the distance that the water is coming from the ditch area. I am jsut really frustrated because I have had the surrounding ground graded, raised up, drainage improved, etc. I am at a loss of what I should do next. As I said the main problem spot is the same spot all the time. I can see the actual crack in the cinder block where its coming in. As I mentioned I have one guy who can do that internal pipe stuff around the house. It just seems that the water should be prevented from coming in at all. Any ideas on what I can do. Also, other than these waterproofing guys in the phone book that do these internal systems, who can I call that could help me prevent the water from coming. Thanks in advance.

 

Jimmy,

To prevent water from coming in would require a large amount of work and MONEY. As you mentioned, the space between driveway and house is narrow and if you want to stop water from coming in, exterior waterproofing methods would have to be done. The best you can do, after doing all that you said on the exterior is to do the interior drain tile. Basically you want a way to get the water pumped out to relieve the pressure that it is creating and coming through your walls.

It is a matter of spending the money, getting a guarantee and be done with it. There is no easy fix in this situation.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks. More and more I was thinking that it was getting pointless to do more work on the outside. One question, what do you mean drain tile? What was presented to me from the interior waterproofing guys was that you drill weep holes in the problem area and then along the footing you dig a trench, put in pvc pip with holes, cover with crushed limestone or gravel and then run it all to a sump pump. Is that what you are refering to? Also, if I had the above work done and I put in a sump pump, should I put two in? Have one in one location that would be primary and another in a second location that would be the secondary? If I get a contractor should I have them do the same? Thanks again!

 

Jimmy,

What you described is what I would recommend. 2 Sump pumps is not needed but a good on site evaluation would help determine that. Rarely have I seen 2 being installed.

The best thing I can recommend to ensure that you never have problems, especially in a storm and the power goes out is a water powered emergency sump pump back up.

I would not even consider a "Battery Back Up Sump Pump". Reason you may be asking is that it is not a guarantee that they will work when needed. As with most homeowners, we don't always check on things when we are supposed to. If it is out of sight, it definitely is out of mind!

I would recommend a good water powered sump pump backup like the Guardian, normally available through a plumber since they don't sell these over the counter. They are not cheap, runs about $450 - $500 but this must be plumbed into a 3/4" line, and installed before going to any fixtures or tees. There are others on the market that may be cheaper but I can only give you my opinion on these. I like them and trust them. Labor on these can be $350 plus. The water pressure from the city powers this and does quite well - for every gallon of water used, 2 gallons is pumped out. It requires a 1 1/2 PVC pipe for discharge.It does come with a Backflow Preventer for the water inlet pipe but you will need to get a check valve for the 1 1/2" PVC line. It can lift the water up to 15 feet at 407 GPH. At 10' it is 580 GPH. It does have an adjustable float that is placed adjusted just above your existing sump pump. So when the power does come back on, your's would kick on and the back up automatically shuts down. Simple and very effective.

I am an advocate of this and have installed many, especially after a client calls and says their battery back up failed. What usually happens is the batteries fail or if wired in on its own circuit, the power goes out, breaker trips and it doesn't recharge. Other cases, the batteries have just failed. If you don't check on it, you will have problems. At least the water pressure is more of a guarantee than the battery backups. I stress this is just used as an Emergency Back Up.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for the response. The one I have now is a small pump in from Lowe's . I paid like 70.00 for it. To be honest, the water that seeps in now is very slow and not a whole lot. Yesterday it was like every hour it cut on. This morning, it was like every 5 minutes. I think the problem I have when it goes to 5 minutes is that I have it pump the water up about 5 feet (due to the way my house and such is situated). When it pumps out, a little of comes back down to the container. Also, I did not slope it down enough once its pumped. The thing I am not sure about is that with a slow leak or maybe not heavy, but a consistent, somewhat flowing trickle that last for a few hours, how often the pump should cut on. The one I have is pumping out fine now currently. It has a float on it to cut on when the water raises enough. It is in a 5 gallon paint buck with the bottom lined with 2-3 inches of gravel. Is there an advice or web site references to a proper sump pump design?

What I may do is make the hole bigger/deeper and have a bigger container, put in a bigger pump in with better pvc design and then put some trenching in for that one area to draw the water down until I can afford to get those waterproofing guys in.

Hopefully by doing all of this I will have peace of mind and hopefully it will not hurt me when I ever try to sell the house.