Leaky Basement

[suchadog]

During the recent hurricane activity, Frances and Ivan both moved through Atlanta leaving the ground saturated. We had a lot of standing water in our backyard for a brief time. After the storms passed through, we noticed water under the edge of the carpet in one room in our normally bone-dry, finished basement. Oddly, the water was on an inside wall, not by the exterior foundation. Investigating, I found that water came in through the foundation wall in a small crawl space through the hole where the sewage line goes to the septic tank. It ran across the concrete covered crawlspace to the interior basement wall.

The problem is that the sewage line is simply pushed through a rough hole punched through the foundation. There is no sleeve around the sewer pipe, and nothing but dirt filling the opening. The crawlspace is not level and a hump in the surface appears to have kept water out of the basement until this really heavy rainfall saturated the ground outside. Then the water ran over the "hump" and down the wall.

The fix I am contemplating is to cut a section of PVC in half, and push the halves through the opening around the sewer line to provide a sleeve around the line, then fill the sleeve with foam, then inject epoxy filler around the sleeve. Will that be adequate to solve the problem? Any other suggestions?

[HayZee518]

Sounds like a plan! Go for it!

[LazyPup]

Sounds like you have a good plan worked out,,about the only thing i might do differently would be to put a couple clamps or nylon wire ties around the PVC to hold it in place.

I would fill the epoxy to the outside first, then fill the sleeve with foam.

[suchadog]

Did it per the plan. Pressed waterstop cement in around pvc first. THen filled in sleave with GreatStuff. Kind of over did it with foam. Stuff grew out of sleave about 6 inches. It is REAL tight now. Not a plumber, so your responses helped build confidence.

[LazyPup]

Remember what that man on the TV show ,"The A Team" used to say?

"Don't ya love it when a plan comes together?"

One project down and no doubt many more to go. We are very glad that we could be of help and look forward to helping you again.