water drainage / landscaping

[urbs]

Hello,
We moved into a Cape Cod style home last year, it is about 55-60 years old. During a heavy 4 inches rain storm we got some seepage in the basement. The seepage looks like it came from the front part of the house. When I looked out side the drain spouts were clean but they went directly into the ground sewer and to who know where. I’ve recently rerouted the drain spouts to run away from the foundation and drain away from the house about 5 feet. I was wounding what l kind of landscaping I can use in front of the house to help with keeping water away from the foundation. I have heard bushes retain water and keep the soil moist so if it rains again the ground is already wet. Would anyone know what kind of bushes or plants I can put in front of the house to make it look nice and not have to worry too much about any seepage?
Thanks
Jack

[Wgoodrich]

You house is supposed to have what is called a perimeter drain that surrounds the foundation of the home then drains to an approved drain or to daylight. A house with the era your house was built most likely did not have this perimeter drain as required for the last 20 years or so. Not an easy thing to fix this permeter drain on your existing house but highly advise the perimeter drain on any new home being built.

Second rule that can be aggrivating your wet basement is that the finished grade around the house is supposed to have a minimum of 6" fall in 10 away from home. This 6" fall minimum is designed to direct the water to flow away from your home before it has a chance to sink in along the basement wall.

Also your downspouts are supposed to be with a horizontal outlet facing away from your home again to force the water to flow away from the house.

If you put your downspouts directly into a storm drain and if that storm drain is too small to handle the heavy rain periods then you will be overflowing the point of connection to the storm drain or if the downspouts are sealed to the storm drain then the gutters themselves will fill and overflow again down your walls along the basement wall below dirt thus getting your wet basement.

Flowers and bushes will not help much.

You probably need to address the above building rules and try to get the water to disapate away from the basement wall before that water can seep down along the wall into the basement.

Then you also should dig a few post style holes about 3' deep close to the house. Leave them open overnight. This will tell you how high the ground saturation water level is. Cover the holes and leave them for a while then wait 24 hours after each rain and check the ground water level. This will tell you if installing a perimeter drain a bit away from the house about 30" deep then drain to either daylight or approved drain using perferrated drain line. This should help in your ground saturation water level if it is appearing in those post holes.

Hope this helps

Wg