No wrote:
"William Brown" wrote in message
...

I am going to try to deal with some leaks in my basement.

This is a very old house, with tiles used for the foundation. In the
back, there is what appears to have been an original foundation wall, but
the house extends beyond this by eight feet. "outside" the original
foundation wall there is a three foot area at the level of the basement
floor, then a ledge about 18 inches high, extending to what is now the
outside foundation wall. The floor and ledge are cemented, and the leaks
come through the 18 inch wall on the inside of the ledge. There are
perimeter drains outside the outside wall, but apparently they aren't deep
enough to get all the water, so I get leaks.

My plan, such as it is, is to trench through the top of the ledge, to a
depth below the bottom of the original outside wall, then put in a drain
leading to a sump, and remove the water from there. I will then recement
the ledge. Hooking the drain to the outside drains would be very
difficult, so I will go with a sump.

I've read that drains have to be maintained, but I haven't read of just
what that maintenance is. I expect that the drain would fill with silt
over time, and would have to be routed. Since my drain will be under
cement, would it be sufficient to put a riser on the end farthest from the
sump, with a cap, so I could remove the cap and rout the drain easily. Is
there anything beyond routing that would have to be done to keep the drain
working?

Thanks for any advice. I've been reading this newsgroup for a number of
years, and got the idea of a circulating loop in my hot water supply line
here some years ago. We finally redid the far bathroom and put in the
loop; the contractor had no idea what it was for, but it has worked
extremely well in getting us instant hot water.
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I think you will find a consensus here that the first thing you should do
for basement water infiltration is to look at grading around the perimeter.
Make sure you have good positive slope away from foundation and that gutters
and downspouts direct water away as well. Any system that deals with water
on the inside is a waste of money IMO. Even worse are systems that pipe in
water from outside to inside so it can be pumped outside again are even
dumber.

The best, after positive drainage and grading is a daylight system. Many
lots will not accommodate this. See
http://www.askthebuilder.com/175_Dry...ch_Drain.shtml

At my house I have a dry well and a daylight drain. If the drywell gets
saturated then it overflows down hill. I have never had a drop of water in
basement. All my gutters feed the drywell as well as an interior sump pump
(Never kicked on, ever)

Sorry this didn't answer your maintenance question but you asked for 'any
advice'

Just my 2c.

Good luck

Thanks for the information. This is an old house in a suburb build
before people had cars, so there is little space between homes, and
almost all of it is now covered with driveway, so there isn't a lot of
space for grading. My gutters drain into a storm sewer system, so the
water I'm dealing with doesn't come from the drains, but rather from
standing water in the yard, which apparently infiltrates due to the very
clayey soil. My first thought was to put the drain outside, but that
would mean ripping out a porch, an irrigation system, and the storm
sewer system (actually I planned to replace part of the storm sewer
system with perforated to catch this water, but that system also carries
water from the driveway drain and the garage gutters, so it isn't clear
whether a drain there would remove water or add it.

I think a major contributor is the apparent addition on the back of the
house (possibly original from looking at the joists in the basement),
where the outside wall (and probably the storm sewer) is not as deep as
the inside wall, so water that seeps under the outside wall hits the
wall of the ledge, rather than passing under the floor. If that is the
problem, I have to somehow intercept this water to relieve the pressure
on the wall of the ledge.

If I had space, I would just have the storm sewers redone, but because
of the crowded situation, that would be very expensive and inconvenient.

Incidentally, I have had a number of people come out and look at this,
and no two have given the same answer as to how to fix it. They run the
gamut from just digging around the foundation and adding waterproofing,
to placing a drain system under the basement floor all around the
perimeter. Maybe I'll just win the lottery, jack up the house, and have
a new basement installed.


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