Floods

[Manmademusic]

Im curently building a studio in my basement. Yesterday after a hugggee rain. There seamed to be some flooding at the bottom of the walls. The floor is cement and then its the dirt from outside. We have french drains. Its a 50 year old house and we have always kinda had a leaking problem... I would hatttttteeee if this problem held me back form making my studio. So shoot some ideas this way. Either how to fix it, how to look at it or something similar that happened to you. THANKS ... you guys rock

 

[frederic]

Im curently building a studio in my basement. Yesterday after a hugggee rain. There seamed to be some flooding at the bottom of the walls. The floor is cement and then its the dirt from outside. We have french drains. Its a 50 year old house and we have always kinda had a leaking problem... I would hatttttteeee if this problem held me back form making my studio. So shoot some ideas this way. Either how to fix it, how to look at it or something similar that happened to you. THANKS ... you guys rock

That does suck, and why my home studio is in the garage loft. My wife gave me the choice of a larger basement, or a smaller garage loft.

Seeing the water stains on the basement wall at about 4' high, the choice was simple.

Install a sump if you don't have one, its an excellent worse case scenario fix.

Now, there are all sorts of waterproofing materials and sprays you can use, but the thing they don't tell you is sealing the inside really isn't that intelligent. Yes, these barriers will hold the water out for many years, however it doesn't stop the water from getting into the concrete foundation, and over time, it will start to crumble.

The *right* way is to dig around the house, and seal it on the outside. THEN seal it on the inside Big job by hand.

Anyway, if you have a french drain around your property, you shouldn't have flooding inside unless its clogged, not laid correctly (meaning the pipe goes up instead of down, don't laugh, its been done many times), or the outlet of the french drain doesn't hit the town sewer, or pour into a buried gravel pit.

Could simply be you just have a high water table, and in that case, a sump pump is your best friend. Make sure you install a battery backup powersupply to your sump pump, and mount it closer to the ceiling than the floor.

This is what I did... because when it rains often the power goes out, defeating the purpose of the sump pump(s). I can run the sumps for about 5 hours, giving me more than enough time to drag the generator over and fire it up.

Hope that helps.

 

[adam]

the first thing you need to do is determine the source of the water leak. It is likely that the drains are clogged somewhere, perhaps off pitch, etc. - something that makes them less efficeint.

Do you also have gutters? Are they leaking? I would start at the top of the house and work your way down trying to determine the cause. I would then check whether or not it is coming from below - the water table as frederic mentioned.

How is the land around your house graded? is there pooling water, does the soil grade towards the house?

As Frederic mentioned, you need to fix the problem outside before you do anything inside.

I had a similar problem in a corner of the basement of the house I just purchased. It was primarily because of bad gutters. Once they were fixed, 95% of the problem went away. I think the other 5% is because of poor drainage and a shifting of the soil grade after years of water spilling over the gutters and onto the ground near the foundation. That's a fix that can wait until spring.