We had a big rain yesterday and I got a lot of water coming up thru the joint between the walls and the floor.

Also, the sump pumps were running full blast for many hours.

Any out there with a similar problem?

I see this ad for Basement B-dry, some sort of underdrains.  Any good?

Thanks.

Had a similar problem myself many years ago. Let me be the first to give you the bad news.

The only way to really solve such a problem is to dig the thing out and put water barriers on the outside of whatever place it is coming through. You have to block and redirect the water before it ever gets into the crack where it is leaking.  Seal your concrete walls/floors from the outside. Anything else may get you some temporary relief, but will ultimately fail.

Quoted: Had a similar problem myself many years ago. Let me be the first to give you the bad news. The only way to really solve such a problem is to dig the thing out and put water barriers on the outside of whatever place it is coming through. You have to block and redirect the water before it ever gets into the crack where it is leaking.  Seal your concrete walls/floors from the outside. Anything else may get you some temporary relief, but will ultimately fail.

Shit I bet you got all your weed wet.

Is the ground outside graded away from your house? Do you have gutter extensions?

I think what you are describing is generally known as a French drain. It consists of a perforated pipe that is buried at a depth roughly the same the bottom of the wall. The idea is that the moisture in the soil will find its way into the pipe, which is eventually discharged further from the house.

The root of the problem is expansive soils, i.e., clay. Is the dry late summer months, the soil will shrink away from the wall. When fall rains come suddenly, the water doesn't have enough time to permeate the soil, thus returning the soil to a normal sturation and moisture content. Instead, the water runs directly into the gap between the shrunken soil and the wall. As the depth of the water increases, so does the pressure against the wall. Eventually, the small crevices left by the cold joint between the footing and the wall are permeated, and the water escapes to the inside of your house.

The next problem you will be facing is cracks in the basement wall. These cracks are formed when the gap between the wall and the shrunken soil gets filled up with sand and other incompressible materials. When the once-shrunken soil starts to soak up fall moisture, it will re-expand as the moisture content rises. A rather large hydrostatic force will develop against your wall and small tension cracks will appear in the spring, when the soil is at its maximum critical moisture content.

Need any more good news?

Lets see,

Dzl, excellent technical soil analysis explanation. Kudos.


Depending on when your house was built, you have both outside and inside drain piping. Along the footing outside your house you have drain piping that is piped INTO your house through bleeder pipes in the footing and this is piped to your sump crock.

If the house is old, you have VCP vitreous clay piping that could have collapsed both inside and out. If the house is newer, the bleeders may have gotten plugged up outside or inside with mud/debris etc.

If you are interested in a permanent fix, you have to dig up and install new bleeder lines inside and outside.

People charge BIG money to do this.

You CAN do this yourself, depending on how handy dandy you are. Go to a house site that is having the basement installed and study what it looks like. ONLY DIG UP ONE SIDE OF THE HOUSE AT A TIME!!!! No more than 40-50 feet or so, or you can have collapsed walls. You can have a company come out and spray coat the side of the dug up basement with Watchdog plasticized basement waterproofing spray to fill in cracks and seal the wall.

Make no mistake, this is rather expensive. Unless you rent the mini excavator and do it yourself.

Best of luck!

Dram