Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Whoever said they enjoyed living near the water must not have a basement
Our basement is under water as I type. My wonderful hubby is down there trying to deal with the situation because our sump pump cannot go fast enough. THANK GOD he heard it switch on last night when the rain started and went down and just saw a little bit of water and decided to pick up every single thing off the floor because he thought the sump pump over flowed. However, we woke up this morning to water gushing in through a crack in the foundation that was NOT there before yesterday (at least not on the inside of the house). Ugg. I just needed to vent about that.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

I hate house problems.

We recently had a flood as well, except our hot water heater decided to empty itself into my basement, all over my new carpet!

Good luck with that. I hope you get it all fixed soon!

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

ughhh, i'm very familiar with this issue unfortunately! Since our basement is our only source of storage we went ahead and got it waterproofed but spent a lot of $$$ to do it. I don't think it is necessarily that the sump pump can't keep up...moreso that the pressure from the water in the ground against the foundation becomes too great.

Hang in there

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Seriously, I'm going to cry. The ground water is seeping in through the floor now. And we're going to get more rain. I just don't know what to do short of filling the damn basement in and calling it a friggin day I'm so upset, I cannot even think straight.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

is this the first time since you moved in that you had water? Did they detect this issue in your inspection? Do you keep stuff down there? How big is it?

The route we took was that we had them drill weep holes into the perimeter walls to relieve the pressure and then dug out the perimeter of the basement floors as sort of a trap, with pipes leading to the sump pump. Haven't had an issue since.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Is it something as simple as water not draining away from the house? I had a significant flooding problem until I put gutter extensions on the downspouts, and had the gutters empty out 10 feet from the house. When they drained right by the house, it would flood.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Well, I think part of the problem is that the gutters need to drain further from the house, however, I cannot understand why in the middle of the basement floor, water is seriously seeping in through the floor where the paint is peeling back. They obviously did a shoddy job of "waterproofing" at one time, and now it's flooding. When we had the inspection, he said that the bottom of the walls were a little bit too damp for his liking (he has some meter thingy), but that he wasn't surprised and that removing the bushes right outside the house would probably take care of a lot of the excess moisture. We did that. My friend's father is coming to look at it. He works in the field of gradation and water something or other. I can't even remember the name.
I did think about doing the trenches around the edges of the basement, but that wouldn't alleviate the water seeping in through the floor. I think we honestly need to regrade the floor on a slide slope towards the sump pump. I'm not as upset as I could be only because we don't have anything on the floors in the basement. Then I'd be upset. Ugg.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Hang in there! I hope everything goes well!

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

i think it is good that you're looking into regrading first because that could alleviate some of the water issues from the sides. The fact that it comes from the bottom also though might be trickier to fix. You're lucky to have a professional to give you an honest assessment. I do sometimes think that we were taken for a little bit of a ride when we got it done but my only consolation is that it is fixed now.

In terms of the shoddy job waterproofing, that "paint" that they put on the walls and floor isn't really designed to combat a water issue where you're seeping ground water unfortunately. There isn't "waterproofing" out there that would block the seepage from the wall and floors.

When we purchased our house it was investment property that the guy bought, gutted, redid everything and flipped to us. Right before he had someone come in and "waterproof" the basement so that when we saw it it looked perfect. The inspector warned us that the tables were low in the area and that he would imagine that there may have been damage prior but had no evidence since it was all covered up. Within the first few months we had a rude awakening with a few bad storms.

Oh, and then we were notified that we were actually in a flood zone which wasn't picked up in the original title searchwhen we closed. Great fun. So now we have to purchase a flood insurance policy every year for like 2 grand. And what kills me is if I knew we were in a flood zone or that the water was an issue we would never have purchased the house. But that was 2 years ago, I've made my peace with it now but I still get PO'd about it!

Good luck ... keep us posted.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

I am so sorry!!!! Any better today??

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

Thanks, everyone. It's not any better today, but the good news is, it's not any worse either. We're not in a flood zone, which I find especially odd, however we are looking around at different flood insurance policies because I have a feeling we'll soon be considered a flood zone.
I'm upset still because it was just overwhelming to go down there and see all that water, but at the same time, we store everything off the floor, so I'm not concerned about anything getting damaged. Everyone on my block that has a basement has their sump pumps going the last few days. I think we just have to accept the fact that this is what our basement is like. We'll take precautionary measures to hopefully lessen the amount of water, but I know we'll never completely rid the house of the problem. Now that we know what's going on, I feel a little, tiny bit better.

Re: Can I smash my head against the wall now?

I am so sorry this is happening to you. My parents basement always floods when there is rain. They have just learned to deal with it. Everything is up off the floor on ciderblocks. Just yesterday with all that rain they had about 3-4 inches and the sump pump was going all night!!