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Erehwon wrote:
> 35 year old house has a basement with relatively minor seepage problems that
> I would like to stop. Generally just get a small amount of water running from
> walls to floor drain after a heavy rain but have had, on perhaps 3-4
> occasions over the past 10 years, up to several inches when the sump pump
> just couldn't keep up. Inside walls have had a water proofing material
> applied (almost like a mixture of cement and paint) but last prolonged
> period of heavy rain caused some of that to start popping off.
I'm no expert, but I can tell you what I was told when we had an
expert come in to look at our basement seepage, realizing that our
situation may be totally different than yours.
In our situation, we are at the bottom of a hill, 100 year old house,
property has been professionally graded, basement has a french drain
all along the walls, and a sump pump at the lowest spot. We still get
water seeping through the back wall in the "wet" part of our basement.
It seeps through the cracks and runs down into the french drain, which
then connects to the sump pump.
We were told never to apply sealer on the inside of the walls. We were
told sealing off the cracks could cause the pressure of the water to
build up on the outside of the wall, and could potentially cause the
whole foundation to cave in. We were told to consider the seepage a
"good" thing because it takes off some of the pressure.
We recently had a 75-year rain over a period of days, and the result
was a LOT of seepage, overwhelming the sump pump inside the basement.
Understandable, given this was a 75-year event! But we ended up
installing a second sump pump outside the back foundation wall. That
helped immensely to control the seepage to manageable levels during
these heavy rains. And now when it rains normally, we are getting much
less seepage.
jen
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Re: Basement "Seepage" Solution
