Ground Water

[pgs_28]

Hi... I have about a 9 foot basement... 3 of it above ground level. My house is 9 years old. I have a sump pump that seems to be constantly filling up. Usually every 1/2 hour .. obviously quicker when it rains. The I have ensured the grade around the house is perfect. Where is this water coming from?

[Wgoodrich]

What you have is subsurface ground water. If you had paid for a soil scientist to have performed soil tests you probably would have been told you have a high seasonal high water table.

Are you on flat ground or is there a drop off of slope in your topo related area of you home dropping below the elevation of the basement floor. If so you should install a perimeter drain gravity feed separate from the inside sump pump in your basement.

If you have no slope but are on flat ground you should install a perimeter drain around the basement embedded in a 12" by 12" washed rock or crushed stone finger system. Just below the elevation of the basement floor within that 12" x 12" drainage bed you should install a 4" perferated drain hose ran to an outside cystern where a sump pump would then pump it either on top of the ground away from the house or subsurface to a remote area in your yard.

Perimeter drains should not be drained into the basement then pumped out to keep the subsurface water in teh earth out of the basement. The outside perimeter drain should be isolated from any inside sump pit.

A sump pit is not required in a masonry basement per the IRC rules. If you wish to install one in case of plumbing flooding etc. then that sump pit should have no holes poked to exterior elements.

Try reading the following link found on our main web site that may help you understand what the IRC requires and the intent of why it is required. Then come back in and we can discuss possible cures to your problem.

You may not know you have a problem but if you have a subsurface seasonal high water of say 12" under the surface and you have clay at the bottom of the basement elevation and sand or stone above that elevation you have a nice containment of water subsurface trapped by the clay with a fast horizontal perk just waiting for your sump pump to fail so you can come home and find about 6' of water in your basement. Better to address the situation before you have damage.

If you never have a sump pump failure which most likely sometime it will fail if running that often then you still have a high moisture problem with that water running through your basement area inviting what most have heard of as a serious health hazard called black mold.

REad the following link found on our main web site that should help you understand the Code requirements you should have had done when the house was built. Also if you ever plan to build a home again before you buy the land pay the approximate $300 for a soil report from a soil scientist that has performed a series of soil borings and having tested those boring getting a report of soil consistancy and seasonal high water table report. This is a must now days before you even buy land to ensure not only the type house you wish to build will work without flooding but also to ensure a septic system will also perk in that land if you have an on site waste disposal system.

http://www.homewiringandmore.com/building/footingdrainage/index.html

Hope this helps

Wg

[pgs_28]

What you have is subsurface ground water. If you had paid for a soil scientist to have performed soil tests you probably would have been told you have a high seasonal high water table.

Are you on flat ground or is there a drop off of slope in your topo related area of you home dropping below the elevation of the basement floor. If so you should install a perimeter drain gravity feed separate from the inside sump pump in your basement.

If you have no slope but are on flat ground you should install a perimeter drain around the basement embedded in a 12" by 12" washed rock or crushed stone finger system. Just below the elevation of the basement floor within that 12" x 12" drainage bed you should install a 4" perferated drain hose ran to an outside cystern where a sump pump would then pump it either on top of the ground away from the house or subsurface to a remote area in your yard.

Perimeter drains should not be drained into the basement then pumped out to keep the subsurface water in teh earth out of the basement. The outside perimeter drain should be isolated from any inside sump pit.

A sump pit is not required in a masonry basement per the IRC rules. If you wish to install one in case of plumbing flooding etc. then that sump pit should have no holes poked to exterior elements.

Try reading the following link found on our main web site that may help you understand what the IRC requires and the intent of why it is required. Then come back in and we can discuss possible cures to your problem.

You may not know you have a problem but if you have a subsurface seasonal high water of say 12" under the surface and you have clay at the bottom of the basement elevation and sand or stone above that elevation you have a nice containment of water subsurface trapped by the clay with a fast horizontal perk just waiting for your sump pump to fail so you can come home and find about 6' of water in your basement. Better to address the situation before you have damage.

If you never have a sump pump failure which most likely sometime it will fail if running that often then you still have a high moisture problem with that water running through your basement area inviting what most have heard of as a serious health hazard called black mold.

REad the following link found on our main web site that should help you understand the Code requirements you should have had done when the house was built. Also if you ever plan to build a home again before you buy the land pay the approximate $300 for a soil report from a soil scientist that has performed a series of soil borings and having tested those boring getting a report of soil consistancy and seasonal high water table report. This is a must now days before you even buy land to ensure not only the type house you wish to build will work without flooding but also to ensure a septic system will also perk in that land if you have an on site waste disposal system.

http://www.homewiringandmore.com/building/footingdrainage/index.html

Hope this helps

Wg

Wow that was a lot of information. I live in the city of Toronto and houses have been in this area since 1940. In the last 10 years these houses started to be replaced with much larger house about 2800 to 4500 sq feet. I have contacted my city's building department and all of the permits, diagrams etc are mysteriously disappeared or lost. Funny after 10 years. The lot is level with a slight grade from one side to the other... about 1 foot over 50 feet. The sump pump works pretty much the same regardless of the time of year. It does come on more often but that is only because of the extra water coming into the pit from my basement walkout drain... which I thought was the only reason the sump pump was put in. The rest of the water coming in is from around that pipe. It doesn't gush in, it's just a slight steady seepage down the side of the pit. I can see all the crushed stone. I once shut off the pumps and watched as this rose to it's maximum height and stop. It was about 12 inches from the TOP of the basement floor and covered about half the piping coming into the pit from the walkout basement. I couldn't help but wonder that if the pipe coming into the pit had been installed correctly with a seal such that NO water could enter the pit except from the pipe itself, what would this groundwater height do to my house? It seemed low enough that it would not leech into my basement. I can't help but think that I am fight a groundwater height that will never change. This seems odd. Oh and I presume the perimeter drain you speak of must be the one I have based on the building codes here in Toronto. I know for a fact, according to the building department, that there is a definite hook-up to the storm sewer. This is in addition to the obvious sanitary sewer hook up. Also the water flowing into the pit is cool and clean. Someone, with no professional background suggested that I have a creek running under my property.

I'd love to talk further on this issue but want to send you this information and get some additional thoughts from you.

Thanks
paul

[Wgoodrich]

Good chance is that if your landing on your outside steps have a drain pit that has a drain hose connected past your footer running to and connecting to the sump pit inside your house so will your perimeter drain if present.

If you have no perimeter drain and you have a subsurface high water table then you would have water seeping between your basement wall and your basement floor where the two meet.

You sump pump most likely is pumping subsurface water from the surrounding earth as well as any water draining into your stairwell. Most likely you have holes in your stairwell pit that the perimeter drain is also attached to and that is where the water is coming into both the stairwell pit and the sump pit from subsurface water.

Remember your storm water drains of your community has much water running even in normally dry weather. This too will, especially in a storm when that storm sewer is full, will backdrain into your basement. The only thing keeping that back flooding from the storm dain and the stairwell from flooding your basement is your sump pump is still running trying to pump against the back flooding pressure. Then when the storm drain goes back to normal levels within the pipe the sump pump continues to pump until the subsurface water dries up. Your subsurface water is not drying up thus causing your sump to work continously on a cycling basis. If you sump pump failed your back flooding would occur overflowing both your stair well and your basement if during wet conditions. All depends on the conditions at the time of sump pump failure. If you have a battery back up pump then that pump may keep up until the batteries die. Then it will flood if you don't discover it in time.

Look at the following pictures. Then think on it a bit. If you were to dig up your stairwall drain pit and install a sump pump there with an outlet line to your storm drain than if the sump pump failed the basement would repell the outside water for days due to the purging you are supposed to have on your outside basement walls. Then inside install a new sump pit inside the old sump pit sealing the outside water from the inside of your basement. This replaced sump pit having no holes to the outside. Then reinstall your inside sump pump to pump out any water from bursted water lines etc. that can flood the inside of the basement. This outlet then can just **** out the side of your house and let the 6" of fall in 10' away from your home land contour required by the IRC rules will direct the small amount of surface water pumped out by your inside sump pump away from your home on the surface picked up by your storm drain system as it filters and flows to the strom drain inlets. This then would isolate the outside subsurface water and storm drain system from flooding your basement through your sump pit.

Hope this helps

Wg

http://www.homewiringandmore.com/storage/forumanswerpics/drainagesloughwet.jpg




http://www.homewiringandmore.com/storage/forumanswerpics/drainagetofieldtilepumpedwet.jpg

[snoryder]

Hi, we just bought a new house out in Milton, we moved in last sept. I never knew our homes came with a sump pump. Anyways ours is always turning on. Our grading was not done yet so I haven't bothered complaining to the builder. When it rains it would turn on about every 6-7 minutes. I thought that was ok since the grading has not been done.
The grading is now done and the pump is turning on as we speak, even with the foot of snow on the grass its still collecting water. I extended the drainage from the side of the house with PVC pipe and thought this would help, cause I thought whatever was going out was going back into the pump.
What should I tell the builder, they told me before that it will work less once the grading goes in. Thats not true, I 've talked to my neighbours and they hardly hear their pump working. Is this something I can argue with the city or builder. Not sure what steps to take. Please advise.

Thanks

[Wgoodrich]

All depends on proper installation of the permeter drain and if this perimeter drain drains into the sump pump inside the basement. I dislike the idea of outside water drained inside then pumped outside to keep the water out of the basement. Seems redundant and also an invite to mold to me. If you have flat land and if your perimeter drain is installed correctly then you must pump that water entering that perimeter drain. This can be done without entering the basement by installing an 18" plastic pipe [called a cisterrn] outside then installing a float switch and a warning switch [in case of failure of that pump] then pump the water from subsurface to daylight or approved drain without running that water into the basement to the inside sump pump.

Go to the following link to see the proper installation of a basement perimeter drain. See if your drain around your basement is built in the manner required by Code. That is if you were there looking when that excavation around your basement footing was still open.


http://www.homewiringandmore.com/building/footingdrainage/index.html

Hope this helps

Wg

[Unregistered]

Ya I will check, and I had to throw out 2 sofas and boxes of clothes and stuff because of mold. I have to get after the builder, I should buy a de-humidifier but that still won't solve the pump from turning on. Its pretty loud and how much hydro does that thing suck up, maybe the builder(mattamy) should pay for some of my bills huh?

thanks

All depends on proper installation of the permeter drain and if this perimeter drain drains into the sump pump inside the basement. I dislike the idea of outside water drained inside then pumped outside to keep the water out of the basement. Seems redundant and also an invite to mold to me. If you have flat land and if your perimeter drain is installed correctly then you must pump that water entering that perimeter drain. This can be done without entering the basement by installing an 18" plastic pipe [called a cisterrn] outside then installing a float switch and a warning switch [in case of failure of that pump] then pump the water from subsurface to daylight or approved drain without running that water into the basement to the inside sump pump.

Go to the following link to see the proper installation of a basement perimeter drain. See if your drain around your basement is built in the manner required by Code. That is if you were there looking when that excavation around your basement footing was still open.


http://www.homewiringandmore.com/building/footingdrainage/index.html

Hope this helps

Wg