Water in basement

Hi RFD'ers,

I have water in my basement. It is a new custom build in Southern Ontario, where during the backfill of the foundation, the waterproof membrane was damaged in a few areas. To limit the cost, waterproof membrane was installed in the interior of the house prior to the concrete floor being poured, which was to route the water to the weeping tile under the concrete and gravel and carry it away from the house. The basement plumbing has only been roughed in and the concrete floor where the basement bathroom is to be hasn't been concreted over as the toilet flange hasn't been installed yet.

It has been moderately raining for the past few days and I encountered this sight when I went to the house today.

I took a video of the areas where water is coming into the house. https://youtu.be/nXdDWCygYlM

The basement is my main concern as the other areas where there look to have water seeping/dripping through could be explained by there not being any aluminum capping/flashing on the exterior of the house yet (fyi - we have a flat roof but pitched for drainage).

There is also no power to the house yet, so the sump pump is not working as yet. I know ideally, the outside waterproofing should be fixed so the water is managed properly before it gets into the house not after.

Question is should I be gravely concerned? I will be bringing this all up with the builder, but I know they will be coming up with explanations for this, so I want to know how much I should be pushing back on their statements.

I am going to frame and drywall the basement myself to save some money, but I need to get the basement water issues addressed first.

TIA.

 

I think a waterproof membrane on the inside is a waste of time. I'm assuming that the water isn't coming from plumbing rough in. Most likely it is entering through the seam between the foundation footer and the foundation walls.

Does the house have French Drains? Are the roof gutters installed correctly with downspouts leading the water away from the foundation? Is the landscape graded correctly to prevent pooling against the foundation? Did the builder install a sump with footer drains? All of those things will help keep your basement dry.

 

Membrane on the inside is doing nothing, might as well take it down.

If that is the sump in the video you don't even have the pump installed so all that water is simply pooling up under the foundation looking for the easiest route to escape and has no where to go but into the basement.

Get it running then see what is going on!

 

First, I will say that the trend is for water problems to occur over time. So, if you are starting with a basement that is already letting water inside that's as good as it will get. It is downhill from there.

Exterior waterproofing (membrane, perimeter drainage system) is critical. Starting out with a damaged system would be unacceptable to me. Yes, the perimeter will probably have to be excavated but during construction is the time to do it.

Now, without power you are seeing how your basement will perform during an outage or if the pump quits. How confident do you feel in your basement's waterproofing? Do you feel like investing a lot of time and money into finishing off the basement knowing that the water will come in if the sump pump stops working?

 

What everyone else said, it's only going to get worse but it's better to know now than later. My basement started with very little crawling water, over the years it just got worse. The water has found it's way in. Like it's mentioned above, if you have a pump try it and see what happens. If that doesn't help, then there are many options but none of them are easy or cheap.

I ended up solving my water problem with an interior french drain, not a drop since.

 

I had basement water problems for several years. Sump pumps kept the unfinished basement from flooding, but I would get puddling here and there, mostly during the spring when we would get heavy rains and the ground was still frozen.

I have also had interior footer drains installed. As the previous poster said - not a drop since. I have my sump pump on a dedicated circuit that I can connect to my generator if power is lost.

 

Waterproofing is done outside, water mitigation is done inside. Proofing is the way to go, especially since you're still in the construction phase. Whomever damaged the outside system should be on the hook to fix it, IMO.