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basement water mystery
There are over 12,000 hits on basement water in alt.home.repair. But I
couldn't find anything that quite matched up with what I'm facing. We've had water appear in the basement guest room twice now. Once one year ago, once last week. And I seem to have ruled out all possible sources...so I must be overlooking something. When the water appeared a year ago, it was so strange that we figured one of our teens must have tried to empty the dehumidifier and spilled it, though they swore they hadn't. But now the same thing has happened and the dehumidifier isn't in that room. FACTS: 1) The house is a raised bungalow, so the basement floor is only about five feet below ground level. The guest room is in the corner of the house opposite the main basement drain. It's also far away from the city water line and any other water lines that we know of. 2) The water appeared centred about 4 feet from either wall, so wasn't in a corner nor smack in the middle of the room. One of the aforementioned walls is exterior, southeast side, the other is interior and load-bearing. 3) On the other side of the interior wall is an unfinished work room where we can check ceiling joists and see bare concrete block. Bone dry in there. 4) After a couple of days (we found the water on Tuesday) the water had spread in a circular pattern. We had a fan and the dehumidifier in there by then. 5) Upon lifting the carpet and pad today, I was able to determine that the apparent origin of the water is the local high point in the floor. My carpenter's level says so, and pouring a bit of water on the floor underneath shows that it all flows away from that point. Water poured nearby will not flow up to that point. 6) The old floor is 40+-year-old asbestos tile, bonded down like nobody's business. 7) No sign of water from the ceiling. The dining room is above the guest room. 8) Our basement flooded (as did many people's) after torrential rains in May 2000. I put in new drywall and made sure to have vapour barriers, sealed joints between walls and floor, and venting of the air space behind the drywall to fight condensation build-up behind the walls, just in case. So I can easily check behind the walls. Dry, dry, dry. 9) During the 2000 floods, our main problem was a crack in the concrete in another area of the basement where a wall had been taken out, probably by the original owners in the 60's. Hydrostatic pressure was pushing water through the crack like a tiny geyser. We had the crack repaired. We also had the downspouts rerouted to run out to the lawn, at least 12 feet from the foundation, instead of into the weeping tile system, which is 47 years old. 10) We're in the midst of the hottest and dryest summer on record here. My theories a A) Our kids are malicious liars. B) The water came through the foundation walls, flowed uphill, dried itself off the walls and the carpet through which it came, then flowed back out from its rallying point. C) We have hydrostatics troubling us again despite near-drought conditions. I am perplexed. What am I overlooking? What fundamental thing do I just not understand? Thanks for ANY ideas! |
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