My situation is this. My home is +/- 80 years old. My basement is only under 1/2 of my house. 1/4 of the remainder of my house has a crawl space and next to that is a sunroom, built directly on a slab. In the basement there is a finished side, and a less than finished side. The finished side has wood panelling/rug. The other side has masonry walls and cement floor. It would appear that the basement used to be dry but now I have an occasional water problem. During a hard rain, especially one in which it rains hard after it's been raining a while, water comes in from the wall - the wall that is UNDER the side of the house where there is a crawl space/sunroom foundation (meaning - there is at least 16 feet of house over the ground next to where this leak comes in (I hope that is understandable - I spend so much time thinking about it, it makes perfect sense to me, but I'm not sure how to articulate it.) So - while I'm sure there's a breach in the wall I can't imagine how I'd get under there to fix it from the outside. (PLEASE - before the interior/exterior controversy starts - understand that I in NO WAY want an interior solution - I am in total agreement that letting water in to pump it out is nonsensical. I am absolutely searching for an outside solution) What I believe is happening is: My downspouts go/went into an underground rain sewer. Either we damaged it when we put in a fence, or the previous owners damaged it when they put in a playset, but now the rain sewer seems to drain into nothing. I have removed most of the downspouts from the rain sewer, however there's a few still going into it that I am not adept enough to redirect the gutters and am awaiting some help with them. Also, there is a drain outside my exterior basement door that goes into it - and - I'm not sure if it takes in ground water. I have had the rain sewer cleaned out and when they pushed high pressure water into it, water came into my basement. Now my questions are these: Does this make sense? My husband is skeptical of my explanation. And the basement waterproofing guy my friend recommended acted like I just fell out of the coconut tree. I figure the basement guy just wanted me to buy what he had to sell, so I discount his reaction, but I want to make sure I'm not just wishful thinking. Also - once I remove the downspounts, do I still need to have the (I believe this is the term for the termination point of the rain sewer) catch basin dug up and redirect the rain sewer so that it actually discharges somewhere? I just wonder if I offload enough water from the system can I let its dysfunctional discharge system be or will that eventually back up on me? Also - do I need to somehow fix the portion of the rain sewer that is somehow leaking - keeping in mind that it must be running somewhere UNDER 16 feet of my house - and if I should fix it - how? (without digging under my house.) Any help would be appreciated.

I think your diagnosis is well within the ballpark. The first thing to do is disconnect ALL your downspouts from that underground pipe. If the discharge of the pipe is somehow blocked, then the downspouts are, in effect, pressurizing the pipe, and then a pipe which was designed to collect water now is functioning to discharge water where it shouldn't be discharged.

That's the best I can do without knowing a lot more about your house, its roof, its downspouts and the underground pipe. But, if it didn't leak before, and something changed such as the construction of a fence near the pipe, then you are right to have the suspicions that you do.