Hello Everyone,

I am sure this topic has been addressed here, but I already spent 1/2hr looking and cannot find it. I apologize if this sounds repetitive, but I really need some help.

I own an old home built on a field stone foundation with red brick ont top of the field stone.
The basement floor is very old and cracked in several places due to water damage.Every time it rains heavy or for a few days, I get a lot fo water in the basement coming through the floor. This week, due to all the rain, I have new cracks on the floor from the water pressure and I can see the water bubbling through.

Everyone and everything I read tells me to install an interior french drain. Although I get the basic concept of the procedure I do have some questions about it.

1 - How far from the wall should I dig the trench?

2 - How deep should the trench be?

3 - Do I need to slope the perforate pipe and if so how much?

4 - Since the pipe will be installed along all 4 walls, how should the slope be done to ensure all 4 pipes will slope towards the sump pump well?

5 - How deep should the sump pump well be? I have seen some that are deep enough to accomodate a 5 gallon bucket, and others to accomodate a 30/40 gallon bucket.

6 - Should I bore holes in the bucket to allow water to enter it or should I just make the holes for the perforated pipes? I assume I will have to make at least 2 holes to accomodate the pipe sloping from opposite direction?

7 - should I wait until the water level goes down a bit or should I go for it now?

I wanna thank everyone in advance for your input. I am at the point that I can turn the cellar into a shrimp farm.

Paul

Probably a better solution would be to remove your entire basement floor. It's probably thin and pretty much broken up already. Then dig down a few inches (somewhere between 4 and 8) and spread 4 inches of crushed stone (maybe 3/4-inch size) and place a 6-mil polyethylene film vapor retarder over the gravel, with all joints lapped 6 inches and taped, and extending about 4 inches up the stone walls, embedded in construction adhesive. Dig a sump pit wherever it is convenient. Then pour a 4-inch thick concrete slab. The ground water will find its way through the gravel to the sump, and the pump will remove it.

Hi Richard,

So there would be no need for a perforated pipe along the walls?

In order for me to break up the floor I would ahve to wait until the water table goes down. I stopped the pump last night just to see how quickly the water would rise, and it took just over 2 minutes for the entire cellar to have 2 inches of water. I could see it rise from the sump pit.

The other concern with doing this is the lally columns. Since the hosue is so old I don't think the columns are on top of footings. I think they are just resting on top of the cement floor. If I break up the floor I would have to take 2 of them out and am afraid of what might happen sturcturally.

Thanks

Paul

Well, like any other water problem, the first thing to do is DEFINE THE PROBLEM! When the water recedes, do the garden hose test to see IF you have any leaks/cracks/holes/porosity in the foundation walls. If you do, they might be the source of the entire problem, and they should be repaired from outside. When that's done and if you still get water, then I would consider doing the slab. If you have a constantly high water table, then maybe a french drain around the perimeter outside is the solution.

But we don't know what the solution is until we DEFINE THE PROBLEM:

thanks again Richard.

I assume the garden hose test, is to point it at the foundation walls and see if water comes through on the inside, right?
The foundation walls are field stone, and I do not see any cracks or leaks on them, but maybe they are on the outside and water is finding its way in.
I just couldn't believe how fast the water rose from the sump pit once I unplugged the pump for a couple of minutes.
Either way sounds like a lot of work. I just hope there is no more heavy rain, so I can get this done before going in for surgery. After that I will be useless for 3 months.


really appreciate your advice.

Paul

Try to find LicensedWaterproofer's instructions for the garden hose test. I think what he says is to lay the hose on the ground next to the foundation and let it run full blast, and I believe he says to oberve inside in that location for about 45 minutes. If there is a leak, the water should appear by then. Then move maybe four feet away and repeat the process, making careful notes with each step. He also recommends doing a separate hose test above ground to look for leaks there, in the same step-by-step fashion, and to visually examine everything above ground for openings where water might enter. It's a slow process, but one that will pretty much pinpoint problems. Good luck with both hose test and surgery.

Hello again Richard,

I'm hoping both you and LWP will read this posting. I was going to email you but did not see an email address to be usde via this forum.

I woke up at 4:30am on saturday and spend the entire day until 6pm trying to keep up with the water in my basement. Let me see if I can describe what I am facing with in hopes you guys can direct me to a quick solution.

Foundation is field stone. I only see one visible footing where the field stones rest, which is the front wall. I do not see any footings on the other 3 walls.

I examined the cracks on the basement floor where the water is coming through, some of them are now 3 to 6 inches in diameter, and I do not see any gravel. All I see is dirt. It seems that the cement was laid on top of the dirt and no gravel was used.

The worst area of water puddling is in the back right corner (if you are facing the front of the house). To give you an idea of how fast the water is coming through the floor, I would start by vaccuming the right back corner which has to be done twice to get rid of the water. I then move to other ares of the basement and by the time I am done, roughly 20 minutes, the right back corner is completely full of water again.

Another issue is that the sump pit the previous owner dug is only 8/10 inches deep. The sump pump is in here and it turns on every few minutes. After doing some further investigation I figured out that the reason why the previous owner did not dig the pit deepr is beacuse he hit ledge.

I agree with you, Richard, with LWP and with others whom have stated that the best method to fix all this is to divert water from the foundation walls. I happened to be talking to one of my uncles about this, and he said the same thing. He did it himself to his house years ago and has never had water in the basement again.

The problem I am facing is, I do not have access to the back and right side of the house on order to dig to the footings. The right side has a 16x16 deck and a brand new mud room which sits on footings. I would have to destroy the deck and somewhow dig under the mud room to gain access to the entire wall.
The back wall has an addition tied to it which also sits on footings. In order to gain access to the back wall I would have to knock this additiong down.

So my question/dilema is; "is there anything I can do on the inside to stop the water until I can get to the outside?" I will be knocking down the deck and back addition to put up an new addition, but that will not happen until late summer or fall.

I am also puzzled at the fact that I cannot see any footing on the other 3 walls. Maybe they are covered by the basement floor since it has a pitch to the front of the house, but not sure until I dig outside.

My instinct tells me to follow Richard's advice for now and go down there, break up the floor, dig down 6 to 8 inches, pour 2 inches of gravel, perforated pipe all around, new deeper sump pit and then pour new cement floor. Is this a good approach for now? I am relaly worried about having this much water beacuse it smells musty down there and some of the joists have a black covering which looks like mold to me.

I could really help some guidance here. A whole day of vaccuming water is too much and today I am not home to deal with it, so I know how bad it's going to be when I get home

Thanks

Paul

Old stone foundations frequently did not have any footings...they just dug a hole and started piling up stones.

If you decide to install the drains and a new floor slab, be sure to use 4 inches of gravel, not two, and be careful about digging below the level of the bottom stones...in fact, just DON'T.

I don't know what your headroom situation is down there, but if you MUST dig, then if you go down 8 inches, do not excavate within 8 inches of the bottom of the stones. This means that you probably ought to dig only 4 inches, staying 4 inches away from the foundation, and then pour the slab on top of the 4 inches of gravel, which would mean you'd lose 4 inches of headroom.

If there is indeed ledge rock just below the floor, then that may be the cause of your water, since it may be acting as an impervious stratum, keeping all the water above it. Your short-term solution may well be an inside system of piping and sump pump. Your long-term solution may be waterproofing the foundation walls and installing a french drain around the outside perimeter of your house, either running to daylight if possible, or running to a sump pit and pump. Do NOT connect your roof downspouts to this pipe!

Good luck.

thanks Richard.
I knwo there is ledge around the basement specially on the back side of the house. When I hired an architect to draw the plans for the addition, and I started interviewing contractors to do the framing, one of them was the one that built the addition on the back of the house that sits on footings. He told me that the reason why he had to do that, is beacuse he hit ledge at around 4 feet, so had no choice but to pour footings.

I will start tackling this project this coming weekend. It will take me at least 2 weekends to deal with this.

Thanks again for your help Richard. It is much appreciated.

Paul

did/waterproofed old house- stone walls in PA last year.
house midway up on hill, upon heavy rains water would obv run from top of hill down but this HO has never had any problems with water backing up/coming up through cracks in floor, which basement floor has.

say this to point out he was told house is in high water table area, needs inside system etc etc. Only problems he had were openings between stones and where a water line entered bsmt wall,he`d get some water/dampness along cold joint/cove but it was due to the openings outside....not from what inside gang tried to bs him about...high water table/water coming up through footing etc.

Now this was HIS particular problem, yours may indeed be different or...a 2 part problem.

Let me ask.....have you TRIED to snake under floor THROUGH sump drain/line in PIT? If not....this is KEY-try and find an EXP-honest plumber and have him try snaking, what do ya have to lose?.....$100-125 is all.... if your lucky,there 'might' be another access point to try and snake under floor..but if it were me, i`d try and snake-through any sump line/drain in pit.

Problem with some basements, especially in the EAST, are some floors were poured pretty darn thin so, it doesn`t take much pressure to crack/heave those if you wish, i dont know if he is available but you could try, the guy i recommend here in MI is John S... 586-772-7222.. call and ask him what ya like but he WILL tell anyone that blockages DO occur under basement floors and can be freed by snaking through storm trap/cleanout `n through sump line in pit, not always but often.

Just had another lady who had alot of water/clear-water coming onto bsmt floor through cracks/along cold joint(gaps) due to blockage in sump tile under the FLOOR, she simply needed someone exp & honest to snake

Richard,

Given the fact that the addition I am building will be tied to the right side and back of the house, and the new foundation walls will have to be married to the existing field stone walls, would it possible to replace those 2 field stone walls with new poured concrete? I ask this beacuse I am nervous about how the new foundation walls will be married to the old ones, and since there will be an opening from the old basement to the new basement on the right side, a section of field stones will have to be removed. Since the ground will be excavated to pour the new foundation walls and make the new basement, I wonder if it would make sense to replace those 2 walls.

Paul

thanks LWP.
the water that I get and have been collecting and removing is all clear. the sump pit is only 8 inches deep with no bucket. Just the pump on top of the dirt.
Now I have to ask. how would I locate this storm/trap under the basement floor? You refer to it several times but I had never knew this existed (still learning) and more importantly how to find it. I do have a plumber and he is really good. I moved in to this house on Labor day weekend and the water heater died. Called around to get someone to come over and install a new one I bought at home depot, and no one was available. Through a friend called this guy and he came over on Sunday morning, installed it in less than 1 hour and charged me $150 for it. Since then I have never used anyone else.

Thanks for your reply and for all the advice you have shared with all of us here.

Paul

you may not have storm trap/clean out, just checking...cap has to be removed w/pipe wrench, its in floor

just a sump in the dirt floor huh, darn, will have no luck there

can`t seem to find pic/image right now, try later

http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm22/news/rainwater.html


http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm22/news/sewer.html


http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm22/news/floodfaq.html

lolol, best i could find right now....scroll down...past 'how to prevent clogged rains'...SEE 'clean-out-plug'

http://home.howstuffworks.com/how-to-do-drain-repairs.htm

maybe this one...what happ upon very-intense-rainfalls

http://ottawa.ca/city_services/waterwaste/orleans_rainfall_en.html#4


scroll down, couple pics of 'cleanouts'..again, NOT saying you have em or that everyones flooding problem will be solved by snaking em or snaking through sump pit tile but,snaking is all quite a few folks will need

if you have thin-cracked floor it may indeed have to be replaced, maybe install a good sump or 2 w/power back up

Think I have a bigger problem. It dawned on me that if I can see the only footing on one of the basement walls, that I may not be able to dig down any further. This wouldbe a huge problem since the height down there is only 6'.
How deep do footings typically go?

Rule of thumb: Footing Depth equals Wall Thickness.

Your results could vary.

Hi Richard and LWP,

Here's an update on my basement.

2 weekends ago I got soe fed up with the water in the basement that I decided to do something.

I closed the bulkhead entrance because it was also made out of field stone, leaked everywhere adn it was in a bad spot.
Then I went to the basement and where the previous owner had dug a hole for the sump pit, which was only 1 foot deep, I broke the floor around it so I could get a shovel in there, and made the hole 4 feet deep. Stuck a bucket full of holes in there, tossed the pump inside, plug it in and the next day all the water that was coming up through all the cracks on the floor was gone and the floor was drying.
I also installed another window down there so now I have a total of 3 windows which creates enough cross ventilation to not only dry the basement but also to air out the moisture.

This past weekend I rented an excavator(This was a lot of fun. Love the **** machine.
) to dig the hole in the back of the house for the new bulkhead, and at 9' I hit water. I didn't find any ledge, which is something I have been told I have lots of since I bought the house, but I was also told that the water table here is very high, and after seeing the water, now I understand why the basement height is only 6 feet in height.

Now I am waiting for a foundation guy to pour the walls for the new bulkhead so I can get access to the basement to break the floor, dig and lay a new floor per Richard's advice.

All this work has been rewarding since I got rid of the water in the basement but now I am in severe pain, due to a bad shoulder and 2 bad elbows. But I got to finish this before surgery next month.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I will post more updates as I go along and when the addition project starts.

Paul

And you saved a bunch of money by not installing an "inside system" that you obviously didn't need! Good for you.

WOW!! I am experiencing the same probelms with my basement. It too is an old fieldstone foundation with brick to (which is bowed in some areas), high groundwater, a clogged and improperly sloped interior french drain, a 2inch slab w/ cracks and minimal stone, mold, humidity, 6 foot ceiling, and improper layy columns.

I bought this old house 3 years ago and it just gets worse. In theory, I was aware of most of the suggestions for repair, but because like most, I lack the thousands and thousands of dollars to pay someone, I have all this headache to myself. Can someons give me an order of operation that I can go by? I will be doing most of the work myself or w/ the occassional helper. I could use more head room, but can I dig nay deeper? Can this be done in steps or sections? I would prefer to replace the interior french drain and not dig for exterior *stone walls, deck, etc) Is this ok? I also need a new bulkhead/ hole. Shouls this be first? Like I said, I kind of know how to acheive the end result over time, but w/ strctural issues( no footings under lally/s, sloped floor joists, etc.) It is just so overwhelming. What am I looking at for price for someont to do it vs. myself? Please help!

quote:

Originally posted by palges40:
Hi Richard and LWP,

Here's an update on my basement.

2 weekends ago I got soe fed up with the water in the basement that I decided to do something.

I closed the bulkhead entrance because it was also made out of field stone, leaked everywhere adn it was in a bad spot.
Then I went to the basement and where the previous owner had dug a hole for the sump pit, which was only 1 foot deep, I broke the floor around it so I could get a shovel in there, and made the hole 4 feet deep. Stuck a bucket full of holes in there, tossed the pump inside, plug it in and the next day all the water that was coming up through all the cracks on the floor was gone and the floor was drying.
I also installed another window down there so now I have a total of 3 windows which creates enough cross ventilation to not only dry the basement but also to air out the moisture.

This past weekend I rented an excavator(This was a lot of fun. Love the **** machine.
) to dig the hole in the back of the house for the new bulkhead, and at 9' I hit water. I didn't find any ledge, which is something I have been told I have lots of since I bought the house, but I was also told that the water table here is very high, and after seeing the water, now I understand why the basement height is only 6 feet in height.

Now I am waiting for a foundation guy to pour the walls for the new bulkhead so I can get access to the basement to break the floor, dig and lay a new floor per Richard's advice.

All this work has been rewarding since I got rid of the water in the basement but now I am in severe pain, due to a bad shoulder and 2 bad elbows. But I got to finish this before surgery next month.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I will post more updates as I go along and when the addition project starts.

Paul

The first order of business should be to stop the water entry. The first step toward that end is to waterproof the foundation walls on the outside. There are many entries in this forum that explain how to do it.

While you've got the walls excavated, it's a good time to install a footing drain. If your property slopes enough, you can run the drains to a daylight outlet. If not, you can run the pipe to a sump pit and pump, or to a drywell if your soil type and groundwater level make that practical. Do not conect your roof water downspouts to this piping. If you want to pipe them underground, run them in their own separate pipe.

It is not likely that you can easily make the basement deeper, because it is not likely that the stone foundations have a concrete footing. If you were to dig beneath the bottom of your wall, you would probably lose a few stones, if not lose a whole section of wall. I won't say it can't be done, but it isn't a do-it-yourself project; it's best left to professionals with experience doing such work, and it wouldn't be inexpensive.

After you've got your walls waterproofed, the next step would be to remove the basement floor, place 4 inches of gravel, and pour a new floor, 4 inches thick, with welded wire mesh, over a 6-mil polyethylene vapor retarder which is lapped at leats 6 inches and taped, and is turned up and taped to all walls and penetrations. At the same time, you can install footings under your columns.

Before installing column footing, you might have someone jack up your sloping floor joists, but again, this is work that should be done by a professional with experience. The jacking has to be done in the right places, and more importantly, at the right pace, usually very slowly over a period of days, and with the right kind of jacking equipment.