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Ten inches of rain, and a few leaks ...

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

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Here in southern New England we've had lots of rain over the last week. Friday we got five inches all in a few hours.

Ground around houses is saturated. Water is coming through the cove joints in basements.

I have no sump pump ... but two building engineers told me sump pumps wouldn't prevent the water coming through the cove joints. It coming up due to hydrostatic pressure all around the concrete foundation.

I've recently learned (!) that three days of playing with a wet vac 24/7 aren't much fun. The 12 gallon tub fills in about 30 minutes.

Wondered if anyone else has dealt with this "cove joint seepage" problem.
Thanks.
Tom M.
 
Don’t know if it would help in your situation... I put perforated drainpipe around the base of the foundation which drains away from the foundation.
The only water I had in my basement was from a leaking water heater.
 
Thanks Elliot. House was modernized back in the 1960s, so I don't know if such a drain system was put in. Wonder if there's anyway to determine that, w/o digging up all around the house. ugh
 
Shouldn’t any water problems in the basement been disclosed from the seller in inspection documents?
 
There were no water/seepage problems in the disclosure. But we haven't had ten inches of rain in such a short time period in over a decade.
Good idea tho'.
 
Hi David - see my first post.
 
I called my insurance company and learned that this "cove joint" problem is so common, there's no coverage available. The seepage isn't due to a defect, as the cove joint is designed and built to *prevent* a tight seal. A tight seal would cause surface water moving down through the soil to erode *under* the foundation - and your house would slowly sink into the wet soil.

Looks like it's not covered by flood insurance either. https://www.pia.org/QS90526.pdf

Oh well ...
 
Thanks for the suggestion. As you know, a sump pump only pumps water out of a sump (the hole in the floor). So the water would have to run downslope from all corners of the basement, where it's seeping in, to go down into the sump. Then the pump would take care of it - but I'd still have water all over the floor. I suppose a dozen sump pumps in various areas might help, but all that work and money in hope of improvement is too dicey for me.

I could chisel out a trough all around the perimeter of the basement floor, slightly angled to a single low point (sump), where a pump could be. Put a perforated pipe all through the trough, then cover with gravel. That is an *expensive* project!

Frugal Tom.
 
Uggg! I feel for ya. Here's hoping once things dry up that you never have such a huge rainfall again anytime soon.
 
Thanks. This last string of storms was the worst in over a decade. Certainly nothing as bad as the West Coast fires! Wish we could follow John Turney's request and send our excess water out to the West. (Actually seems like a very do-able project with today's technology ...)
 

It’s Raining, Look Out For Basement Water Seeping – Rescon Basement Solutions

www.resconsolutions.com www.resconsolutions.com

This site suggests the fix is complicated... sorry! (However, I am not sure every basement needs to be dry. I have never had a house that did not have some seepage in the basement; every house I've lived in was built 1910-1935. I put an automatically draining dehumidifier in the basement, and generally everything stays dry between major rains.)

Fingers crossed we do send some of this incessant rain to the West coast!
 
thanks Mike. The seepage started on Friday evening, and is still coming in. Not fun to keep clearing the water with my wet-vac every 30 minutes 24/7.

I agree about not needing to be completely dry all the time, but frequent seepage leads to mold, and the current seepage has soaked and ruined 100s of books I had temporarily stored in boxes until I can afford to build shelves. Lumber is ridiculously expensive now!

Tom M.
 
Our first house had a basement water problem because the entire development was built in a swamp. Can't be done today. We'd get almost a foot of water in the basement every time there was a heavy downpour and guess what - we discovered the sump pump was in the HIGHEST part of the cellar. Before selling the house, we had a new pit dug in the Lowest part of the cellar and that took care of the water. Our building inspector told us there are two kinds of homes in Fairfield County - those that have sump pumps and those that need them. Fortunately our present house is high and dry - no basement water, just Camel Crickets.
 
Paul - that description of Fairfield County homes reminds me of Groucho in the 1929 "The Cocoanuts" - a comedy about Florida real estate.

"You can get any kind of home you want, including stucco. Oh ... can you get stucco."

 
NutmegCT said:
Thanks. This last string of storms was the worst in over a decade. Certainly nothing as bad as the West Coast fires! Wish we could follow John Turney's request and send our excess water out to the West. (Actually seems like a very do-able project with today's technology ...)
Click to expand...
Here in Toronto (and pretty much everywhere else) Once in a century storms are becoming an annual event. We are realizing that many of the assumptions our sewer system was constructed with are no longer valid.

www.cityfloodmap.com

Are Six 100 Year Storms Across the GTA Rare Over a 14 Year Period When Considering Probabilities of Observing Extremes at over 150 Rain Gauges?

City of Toronto, 100 Year Storm, IBC, Insurance Bureau of Canada, Mike Layton, Climate Change, Extreme rainfall, Basement Flooding, Risk, statistics, 100 Year, Climate Change, extreme weather, insurance bureau of canada, IBC, Intact centre, intact centre on climate adaptation, CBC ombudsman...
www.cityfloodmap.com www.cityfloodmap.com
 
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