Water leaking into basement…how would you fix this?
We bought an older house and the basement leaked. We’ve repaired everything to stop the leak except this one corner. Any thoughts on blocking it off or sealing it? TIA
That looks like a mess. Possible below grade window, possible dryer vent at ground level. Some sheet metal or other stuff in the ground...
Normally I'd say do the usual stuff like make sure the house has working gutters and downspouts and the water is directed well away from the house. And to grade around the house so all water flows at least 10 feet or more away from the house. But, in your case I'd start digging to find the source of the leak and what is going on in that area.
That looks like somebody poured a concrete patio and re-routed a downspout right into a boarded over basement window.
As said above- use downspouts to get as much water away from the house as possible.
IF that IS a downspout poking out of the concrete base, I'd consider re-doing the downspout so the water leaves at a higher point, and point the downspout away from the house.
You don't say anything about gutters and it would be good to know if they're nearby. There are two ways for water to get into the basement, either up from the ground or down from rain. I would get some 10'X25' plastic sheeting and slope it away from the house to see what happens. If that solves your problem, do something to make it permanent. If you have water with the sheeting, you may have an underground issue which requires a bigger fix.
Thanks for the responses. I’ll clarify the best I can.
We recently purchased this house and the previous occupants thought themselves quite handy, They were not.
The entire basement was leaky so we, and professionals, sealed it up and now it’s perfectly dry except for this corner. Those pipes you see, literally go nowhere and do nothing. They are capped off on the other end. There’s no window.
So I grabbed a hose and some handhelds and pinpointed where the water was getting in.
Gutters aren’t part of the equation. The water flows from the deck toward that corner and pours into the gaps you see. If you look closely you can see the quikdam diverting water and that’s how I know where the water is entering. (Or not entering with the dam in place)
I could divert the water by creating a barrier diverting the water, but that’s not the answer.
What I’d like to do is lay a cement slab covering that entire wall and corner, sloping away from the house.
Having said that, I feel like that’s to simple of a solution, or there’s an even better way to fill up that entire gap and make it look good as well.
Apologies for not being more clear and thanks again for reading.
Water is either coming in from the surface or under ground. Best to eliminate and ground source water to see if water stops. You cannot block water. You can only divert it to give it a more desirable place to go. If the source is above ground it should be easy to build up around your house, keep gutters clean and discharging 10 feet out and run further out. I suspect from the photo you need to build up and grade away in the area in the photo. If it underground water you either divert or pump it out but much more work involved. hope this helps.
It looks like you are purposely diverting water to the foundation. There should be no rain funnel there. What is in the pink circle ? Looks like a perfect area for the rain to follow.
Typically the ground is sloped up to the foundation so that the rain water is directed away from the house.
You've asked several times how to divert the water away and several people have asked about that weird panel that's half buried but we've gotten not answer from you what it is. You need to find out what it is before simply burying it under concrete.
Forget everything up to this point. Here’s the facts. Water go in. I want water to not go in. In the first picture you’ll see where water goes in. In the second picture I want to seal all that one way or another and make it look better. I swear as god as my witness I can’t make it any clearer. If there were any other considerations, I would include them I promise. But there aren’t. There’s no window, the tin is not relevant, forget what the pros have done and the ambient temperature is a comfortable 85 degrees.
OMG! We’ve gone from the ridiculous to the surreal. Yes it is a good place for water to enter as seen in the first photograph. I want to make it so water does not enter as seen in the second photograph. It is no more or less relevant then the rest of the area that water is getting into.
This is madness. Are you guys messing with me? I’m not pushing back. I’ve literally answered every question. “It’s not relevant” or “that doesn’t matter” are valid answers. There’s absolutely no more information needed to seal that gap. What the pros did to the rest of the basement doesn’t matter one little bit. That piece of tin is absolutely not a thing. Gutters are in no way a problem. The situation is there’s water going in a gap, how would you cover it?
New Hampshire location. House built ~1930. Renovated in 2007. Added bump out (~10 ft) in kitchen with a deck above. 2 French doors to access the deck, one in the master bedroom,one in the upstairs hallway.
Some time ago, not sure when, maybe a 2-3 years ago I started getting a small brown dot in the ceiling just under the deck where it attaches to the house. In a particularly strong, long rain it might create a small drip for a few hours, usually about 24 hours after the rain stopped. I would usually wait until it dried up, then prime/paint it. Eventually we were putting in new cabinets and painting the living room and kitchen so I had a contractor look at the issue. He tore out some of the ceiling and a few boards off the deck. But could see nothing obvious. I have pictures of all the construction and that, along with what he saw, gave him reason to believe the renovation work and the construction of the deck was done properly. So all he could come up with was "replace the deck and the roof below it" to the tune of 17k. I thought this over, looked at the little brown dot, and thought this was hitting a finishing nail with a sledgehammer. I then got the idea of caulking everything on the deck that I could find; the french doors the light fixtures; everything, I used the Gorilla clear caulk. Tough to work with but seemed to be the best solution. Anyway, they finished the kitchen work and fixed the ceiling at the same time. Bingo, for maybe a year, lots of rain and snow, no water. Fixed the problem for less then $50 and was quite proud of myself.
Now it's back. Small brown dot,mild dripping. So the point to this long, boring story is what to do. I have a real suspicion the root cause is one or both of the french doors. Replacing them is ~10k with no guarantees. Everything is in the 10's of thousands with no guarantees. I can just keep slapping compound on it and painting it, but it has gotten to the point I'm worried about structural issues. So I guess this is a question of "what would you do?" I have put a plastic seal over the french door assembly just above the leak yesterday to maybe eliminate that as the cause. I am fully aware that "water will find a way" so it might not be just over the brown dot. But the dot does not appear anywhere else except right under this door assembly. I would think after all this time it would. Is the brown color a clue? How does one attack a problem like this? Servpro?
09-17-21, 08:28 AM
