Water in Basement.....Help

[scott_vt]

Afternoon Guys,
If this is what semi retired people do, then Im ready to go back to work fulltime !

Anyway i had a chance to do a little experimental excavating, and here is what I found. The top of the footer is about 4" below the floor level. I only jackhammered 14" out from the wall and the footer comes out from the base of the wall about 5" or so. That only leaves me about 9" for my trench. My question is that enough or do I need to jackhammer farther out from the wall ? Please say no ! The bottom of the footer seems to be about 14" below the cellar floor level approx. John or others whats your feeling on this ?

I have included a sample photo of the partially excavated trench, and also some tools of the trade ! I have been using a plastic bin to cart this stuff out of the basement and pulling it with my woodstove poker ! Innovative arent I ?

This afternoon Im sitting here wondering if this job qualifies as " Eddie Walkers " as how many jobs youve accomplished list ???

 

[Egon]

Use your own judgement. leave the area exposed for a while and see how the water responds. Maybe put in a few small holes that are deeper and watch what happens.

I'd suggest getting a saw and cutting a straight line for the inside of the concrete. Make a better job for finishing.

Retirement is when you start working full time. Get used to it.

 

[JB4310]

Your fine with the 9" it will give you the 2" on each side, as far as the depth goes, you want the top of the pipe even with the top of the footing and remember the 1 -2" of crushed 3/4" stone on top of the footing and pipe, 2" concrete cap is fine so your good there. you only need about 3" of stone under the pipe, so that puts you at about 8" below top of footing to dig.

You want to use the 4" ads corrugated pipe, no need to "pitch" the pipe, if you want to use some filter fabric, only on the bottom and half way up the dirt side of the trench, not all around the pipe, tee in a 4" plastic floor drain at the far end of the trench away from the sump pit, just to be able to inspect or flush the pipe if needed. Home depot has a high strength concrete mix (5000psi) 80# bag, that's what we use, it's a little tougher to work with but just make it a little softer/wetter and it's OK.

For the sump liner, wider is more important than deeper, 24" max on the depth but 18" MIN on the diameter, the reason being is that the submersible pumps have a short travel float and if the pit's dia is to small the pump will cycle more often.

Scott, if you do all of this you will have a better job than a contractor would do, first of all we never cut the floor wider than is necessary, 3-4" past the footing, dig under the floor and roll the pipe in (less to break up and remove, less to replace = time = well you Know) we or any other contractor I've seen ever uses a saw to straight line the trench, just a 3' wide chisel, sometimes we'll scribe a line to follow, I know you said you scored it with a saw and Egon mentioned it to, it will make it easier for you to finish the concrete..

 

[JB4310]

Scott, I see by that first pic your floor was tight on the footing, like I was referring to before. looks like you have a plastic "vapor" barrier, you don't have to replace that.
John,

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenon John,
Thanks for all that very valuable information !!! Hopefully I can help you out some day in one of my fields of experience !

 

[RobS]

That's quite a project Scotty, I don't envy you a bit. You will enjoy the benefits though as you'll be able to use your basement again.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin Guys,
I finally got a chance to do some excavating and pretty much did half the length of the wall Im installing the drain on. As you can see by the pics the water is only about 2" away from the to of the footer. Like everyone else in the northeast we got copious amounts of wet snow and lots of rain. I had the day off, ok Im not sure that would be the correct way to say that ! I had some free time and boy is that tough work getting that stuff dug out and removed from the basement. But we are making progress !

John, I just read your last post on the elbow on the far end for cleaning purposes etc, I was getting ready to ask that question and see you allready provided that info ! Thanks, I bought a good hoe for material removal and three 10' lengths of 4" pipe today, but forgot the elbow ! Of course the way Im going along on this project it will be spring time before its done !

 

[JB4310]

Scott, digging when it's flooded makes for heavier work as you will end up removing much more material due to it getting loose and slurry like.

Something is different about these pics, the 1st pic in your post #41 clearly shows the footing in a typical position sticking out from under the wall, but in these new pics I can't see the footing. Is it just below the water? or is this a different wall?

As far as an elbow for the floor drain, you can just cut a self made tee in, tape it temporarily and the concrete will hold everything together, the grates usually drop into the pipe.

We had about 3"s of rain on top of snow, on top of frozen ground, that's really the perfect storm for water leaks, not only in basements but those conditions wreck havoc on low slope (flat) roofs that are not in perfect condition, even those that do not normally leak in heavy rains. that slush really holds the water and keeps it from draining off as designed.

 

[ToadHill]

Scott: when all is finished make sure you use a redundant sump system with 2 pumps, one Bat operated. It's a pain to go to all this trouble and then have the power go out and have the basement flood again.

 

[MikePA]

Scott: when all is finished make sure you use a redundant sump system with 2 pumps, one Bat operated.

Perhaps the newer models are better, but the one we had a few years ago was worthless. It ran off a marine 12v battery and we found the pump wasn't all that powerful and the battery didn't last through most of our power outages.

 

[scott_vt]

Something is different about these pics, the 1st pic in your post #41 clearly shows the footing in a typical position sticking out from under the wall, but in these new pics I can't see the footing. Is it just below the water? or is this a different wall?

Afternoon Guys,
All I could do today was remove the big chunks of concrete, because the water is just about at the floor level ! But I did get things cleaned up downstairs to a degree, lots of trips out those Bilco doors !

John, thats the same wall its just that all the concrete is wet and you really couldnt clearly see that the water level is just below the top of the footer ! Anyway we are making some progress, its just slow heavy work that I can only do a few hours of it at a time !

John whats the proper term or name for that fabric that I should line the trench with ?

BTW thanks to all who have posted helpful suggestions !

 

[WayneB]

Scotty my heart and thoughts go out to you. Nothing worse than fighting water in the cellar. We have an old house attached to a new house. When we first bought the place the old guy had left an area in the old cellar that he did not put cement floor down. Me thinking how stupid he was went ahead and mixed up cement and finished off the floor. That spring the cellar filled up with about two feet of water what a mess.

If you were closer I would go help you haul stone / cement chips out with you.

Good luck sir.

 

[scott_vt]

Scotty my heart and thoughts go out to you.

If you were closer I would go help you haul stone / cement chips out with you.

Good luck sir.

Evenin Wayne,
Thanks for that kind offer, but I wouldnt wish this type of work on anybody ! Now I see why contractors like John get so much money to do this type of work !

 

[JB4310]

Scotty,
Now that you've assured me that the footing is still there and I look closely I can see it. as far as the filter fabric goes, just look for any light weight non woven filter fabric similar to what landscapers use in flower or stone beds to keep the weeds out, comes in rolls, we cut strips about a foot wide and line the bottom and dirt side of the trench on certain jobs. put it under the first layer of stone that you put down under the pipe.

We are not big proponents of using filter fabric on every job, unless certain conditions are present that we feel the fabric would be more a help than a hindrance, this position does contradict present conventional thinking by engineers, architects and other specifiers and I have had arguments with local building officials (even at my own house) over it's necessity. We have seen on many occasions where a newly installed system has failed due to overzealous use of a filtering medium.
Just briefly, the reason for our position is that the filter fabric can become blocked, doing what it's supposed to be doing, trapping the silt suspended in the moving water, thus preventing the ground water (all or any percentage of it) from making it in to the pipe, leaving a nice clean pipe but a failed system, forcing water back up to the surface of the floor. I tell people it's easy to clear a blockage from inside the pipe but if the outside of the pipe is blocked then the problem area will have to be dug up and redone. We work on houses with an average age of 50 years old, it's common and expectable to find those old clay tile type footing drains that we are working off of, to be up to 75% full of sediment and still be working sufficiently with that top 25% of the pipe open.

By lining only the bottom of the trench, even if the fabric became impermeable the water would push around it and still find the pipe. the same rule applies to using the black corrugated, (slotted) pipe over the white PVC with the holes on the bottom, once that white pipe is 1/3 full of muck it stops accepting water, the black pipe can be 90% full and still work, as the slots go all around it. The white pipe is really designed to "leach" water out of it from a septic system, the top of the pipe is solid to stop soil from getting in.

 

[scott_vt]

Scotty,

By lining only the bottom of the trench, even if the fabric became impermeable the water would push around it and still find the pipe. the same rule applies to using the black corrugated, (slotted) pipe over the white PVC with the holes on the bottom, once that white pipe is 1/3 full of muck it stops accepting water, the black pipe can be 90% full and still work, as the slots go all around it. The white pipe is really designed to "leach" water out of it from a septic system, the top of the pipe is solid to stop soil from getting in.

Afternoon John,
I had bought the white pipe before I had a chance to read about your suggestion on the black corrugated pipe ! Anyway today I went out and bought the proper pipe and I can allways use the white pipe for diverting water away from the house when I get to that point.

I have a day off today so I also bought the concrete drain tile, I bought a 14" by 18" along with a Flotec sump pump rated at 3750 gals per hour, more importantly 2200 gal per hour with a 10' head. Of course they didnt tell me that I needed an inline check valve, so we got to make an extra trip ! I also bought 10' of 1 1/2" pvc pipe and a 90 deg elbow. Im actually making some progress on this project today !

John, I have pulled alot of nice round bank run stones out of the trench, can I use these around my drain tile ??? Seems a shame to waste them ! I installed the drain tile, about 19" deep making the top of the tile about an inch below the top of the footer. Does that sound about right, it was a bear wrestling that thing into my excavated hole that i thought was going to be plenty big enough !

Here are some pictures of my nightmare !

 

[Egon]

Looks like you are almost there!!

Lots of character building.

 

[scott_vt]

Looks like you are almost there!!

Lots of character building.

Evenin Egon,
Thanks I needed some smileys !!!

 

[RobS]

Huge job Scotty, but as I see some of your woodworking equipment in the photos it will be time/effort well spent. Keep going, you're getting very close!

 

[JB4310]

Scotty,
I see you are pumping already, that means the system is working, you can use big stone no problem (up to 2-3") it leaves larger voids which is better, put the bigger stone at the bottom of the trench, you want to keep your pipe up high in the trench to leave the area below it for the fine sand and silt to settle, the top of the pipe should not be lower than the top of the footing, even a little higher is OK, you don't need much stone over the top of the pipe, an inch or two is fine. Be sure not to place the pipe up against the side of the footing, leave at least a couple of inches of stone in between.
John,

 

[JB4310]

Scotty,
After rereading your post I think I misunderstood what you were asking. Now I believe your referring to the sump liner and if it would be ok to fill around that with the large stones, the answer to that is yes. but I see a couple of things that could make hard work for you, We use an 18" dia perforated plastic sump liner, it's basically the same as the 4"ADS corrugated pipe just much larger, we cut 20-24" lengths using a hand saw then cut the pipe opening using a 5" hole saw. we set the top of the liner flush with the surface of the floor and fill around it with the rubble.

You said, and I can see by the picture that you have some kind of a concrete tube or pipe?? not sure how you plan on utilizing that, but it will not be easy to do what I think you need to do, since you already have that heavy liner you can use it, but you should try to configure it like I mentioned, bring the top up to the floor and the hard part, popping a hole in the side to allow the pipe to enter.

You may have your own idea that will work, but man I can imagine it must be a bear handling that thing. I've seen and repaired jobs where they just bring the footing pipe close to a solid liner like that (some of them real clay tile pipe 2' in dia and 3" thick wall!) and let it drain down and into the liner thru the stone fill around and under the liner, it could work like that for many years, but eventually the pipes will have to be extended thru the sides of the pit to drain properly.