I've got a leak in my basement coming from under the drywall. Behind the
drywall is a poured concrete wall. In the 4 years I've lived here I have
never had any problems like this. The house was built in 2001. This leak
started about the time I started to run the sprinkler system a couple of
weeks ago so assumed it was related to that, but now I've gotten some water
in the basement after a short heavy rain yesterday. So, now I'm thinking
that it might have something to do with a failure in the drainage tile
system, but I don't know.



Drawing of basement layout (sorry for the crude drawing):
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Squisher/leak.jpg



Basement wall before the carpeting got wet:
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Squisher/basement1.JPG



I adjusted the sprinkler heads so that they weren't spraying at all and dug
up around them to expose 8" of funny tube, then cycled the sprinkler system,
and made sure there weren't any leaks down below. I've now got them
spraying nicely away from the house and zero leaks.



I also pulled back all the sod along that wall and filled with top soil
where it needed to assure that there was a slope away from the house and
packed the topsoil nice and tight to the wall.



After doing all this work and still getting a little water after a sprinkler
cycle I really thought it was a problem of the lowest sprinkler head (back
by the doorwall) was draining all the water in the system after a cycle, but
now after that 15 minute rain storm yesterday and all the water that came
in, I'm not so sure given the fact that the too numerous to count all day
rain storms I've endured over the last four years went by without any
problems. I'm not in a high water table. My sump pump only cycles during
heavy rains.



I'm going to pull off some drywall to see if any insulation got wet and
address any issues there, but I need a solution for the leak. Given the
fact that so many "dry basement" companies are just pushing their system,
what contractor should I call out first and is there anything I can do
myself?



If it is a drainage tile problem, what is the best thing to do?



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