Basement flooding please help wid advice

Dustinjohnson23 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-12-2008, 05:25 PM

Recently a big storm came through, and my finished in basement flooded with about 4 inches of rain. The water came underneath the basement walls from the crawl space. I discovered the water coming in the crawl space from two seperate areas. One being a pipe that leads to the outside of the house, I presuming a septic tank pipe. The spetic tank is no long in use because the home is hooked in to city sewer. I just bought the home 30 days ago so I am not sure if the pipe is used for that. I can not think of a reason why an builder would put a pipe to drain out underneath the house. The second area is coming from a wall I think. I noticed a trinkle of water coming down from a dirt mound in the crawl space so I'm presuming the water is coming from a wall and traveling through the dirt mound, unless it another pipe. I really need advice on how to fix this or people who I should contact to fix it. If anyone have an idea of how much it might cost, that would be handy to. Please help cause im really concern that it might eventually rot out my floor. A bad odor is already set in, either from mold or wet carpet. Thanks!

HayZee518 · #2 (**permalink**) 09-12-2008, 06:15 PM

check to make sure rain water drains away from your house. before the backfill is put in usually a perforated drain tile is put in the trench with gravel. the drain tile is channeled away from the house foundation/footing. your not in use septic tank should be filled with sand right to the top inspection cover. storm drains should never be drained into a septic tank anyways. if your house was constructed in one "pour" then you could all but eliminate leakage at the base ment bottom. if your footing was poured first and cured, then the walls were poured, at the bottom of the wall the footing has a "key" set in it so it [foundation walls] locks together but there is still a space not detectable between the foundation and footing where water could come in. you'll need a backhoe to check this out. plan on about $5000 for finding out where your leaks are.

Dustinjohnson23 · #3 (**permalink**) 09-12-2008, 06:35 PM

Is that $5,000 to just find where the leaks are or the find the leaks and possibly fit them? I'm not the most handy man when it comes to homes so it hard to understand some of the term's used. I moved from of the dirt away in the crawl space and noticed some white stuff that is kinda like rock hard and looks like foam. The home was constructed in the 1960's I believe

comfortnow · #4 (**permalink**) 10-16-2009, 04:25 AM

I have heard about something called sump pump....it is fixed with an automatic switch, and when water gets into a basement, the pump is automatically activated and water is pumped out. I heard this is a permanent solution for basement flooding.