Basement flooded...

We are relatively new homeowners and totally clueless. Woke up this morning and basement is flooded - not like pools of water but the carpet is saturated along a couple of the walls. What do we do? How do you figure out what caused it? Is this something that we will need to have someone come in to fix?

Sorry for the dopey questions... TIA.

ETA: FWIW, we live about as far from water as you can possibly get... like smack in the middle between the north and south shore. So it's not like we're in a coastal area.

Message edited 8/14/2011 9:29:50 AM.

Re: Basement flooded...

call your insurance company. They should send a crew with dryers. If its ruined they may replace the rug.

Re: Basement flooded...

Oh no, sorry! There has been an insane amount of rain, I am sure this is happening a lot.

One of our basement walls is damp and my husband is currently freakng out...thinking there is a leak or something. There isnt any water though on the ground.

Sorry I'm no help.

Re: Basement flooded...

i don't live far from you and our basement is really wet too, but we know what it's from. in our case our foundation needs to be drylocked but our house is really old. i would call your insurance company bc they will probably cover whatever it is you need to do (and they would probably know what to do too).

Re: Basement flooded...

thanks all!

Re: Basement flooded...

Mine gets bad when there is heavy rain but we believe it is because our gutters overflow and water collects/seeps in in one corner of the basement. We changed the downspout on one corner of the house and now that corner of the basement no longer gets damp.

However our basement is not finished so we don't really do anything about it at this point. I just posted looking for gutter recommendations though because this is crazy today!

Re: Basement flooded...

Re: Basement flooded...

Many reasons. Leak somewhere, high water tables for the area creating problems with basements, overflowing gutters, etc..

I think the solution is finding where the water comes from and eventually do french drains.

Re: Basement flooded...

That sucks, a friend of mine just posted about the same thing on fb. He's in Bethpage.

I would call your insurance company, like someone mentioned.

Re: Basement flooded...

I hate to break it to you, but insurance does not cover this. We went through this in April. Completely flooded basement, had to rip out all the carpeting and the insurance company told us that they do not cover rain damage to a basement. They cover rain damage that enters the house before it hits the ground. For example, rain damage to the roof or through windows above ground. Once the rain hits the ground and enters the house it is not covered.

We discovered that our water issue was caused by bad pitch in the side and backyard. We had a landscaper come in and regrade the entire yard. We also had a dry well installed in the backyard. Our 2 downspouts at the back of the house drain into the drywell as well as both of the window wells in the back of the house.

We had a waterproofing company come in and quote us $6500 for a french drain, but then after doing some research we discovered that french drains make more sense when you live in an area with high water tables.

See if you can determine where the water is coming from. Check the grading of your yard, your gutters, your downspouts, and the window wells. Also ask your neighbors if any of them have water issues with their basements.

Good luck!

Re: Basement flooded...

We flood frequently because we live by the water.

We have an unfinished basement.

It's one of those things that we just need to $uck up and deal with right now.

We clean it up ourselves with the shop vac and a lot of buckets up and down the basement steps.


We will probably eventually get this taken care of professionally, if it is felt that it will be worthwhile.

Re: Basement flooded...

well when we went outside it seems obvous what the problem is... there is no gutter along the entire side of the garage and there was essentially lake along that side of the house. idk why there is no gutter there but we never noticed.... needless to say we will have to have that addressed asap!!!

Re: Basement flooded...

Re: Basement flooded...

I think it is pretty common around here - our old houses used to sometimes flood too. I think since most of the houses in town are older it isn't unusual.

I had water in my basement as well - we can't figure out where it is coming from. We checked our gutter leaders and they are clear so we aren't sure. My parents had water in their basement as well (they live in town as well).

Did you have flooding around the side that the water is coming in? Crack in the foundation? Basement window? Have you checked your gutters? Do they flow away from your home that was an issue at our old house - if they do make sure that they are not clogged too.

You want to get that carpet dry as soon as possible to avoid mold. Do you have a dehumidifier? We wanted to put carpet down in our playroom but I want to make sure we don't get any more floods 1st. We haven't had one in a year so I thought we were good but I guess not.

Re: Basement flooded...

I feel your pain. We woke up this morning to a flood in our garage. We don't have a basement, and use our garage for storage, and there were literally PUDDLES of water soaking through our stuff.

We figured out that it was a gutter problem - a gutter in the back of the house was both clogged and aimed poorly, and the water got in through a crack in our siding. A stupid, $200 gutter problem we could have fixed, and now we're looking at thousands of dollars of damage and headaches.

We're both "City Kids" in our first home. I guess this is how you learn.

Re: Basement flooded...

My mom's basement is starting to get water too. This only happens in these really big rain storms. She learned last time there is an underground stream that runs right under her house and when it rains like this it floods and the water seeps up through her foundation. Hopefully we don't get too much more water and it doesn't get too deep, but she has her shop vac and pump ready just in case.

If you don't have a pump you might want to run out to a hardware store and try to get one before everyone around you starts flooding and the stores sell out. They aren't very expensive and you hook your garden hose up to it to get the water out of the basement through one of your windows or doors. Try to get the end of the hose as close to the street as possible so the water goes down the storm drains and doesn't go back into your house.

Message edited 8/14/2011 3:31:49 PM.

Re: Basement flooded...

We live no where near the water and last year we had about a foot of water in our basement. I had 2 contractors (one a home builder) and 2 waterproofing places come and no one could tell where the leak was coming from. Our gutters are spotless, there is no water pooling around our house, ground is level and no cracks. We had a french drain put in and right now my basement is dry.

Our home inspector never picked up on the leak (nor did we) even though there were signs.

Re: Basement flooded...

We are flooding now too, but I am used to it by now.

Our inspector didn't pick up on it either, but the fact that the washer, drier and boiler are all up on high concrete slabs is a dead giveaway to us now.

Whenever there is a major rainstorm like today we know we are going to get something down there.

It $ucks too for days after as the rain water is settling underground, it is still coming into the basement.

Re: Basement flooded...

Our hot water heater and boiler are on a slab too! Also, he put holes in the floor so water would drain.

Re: Basement flooded...

thanks again everyone. we figured out also that our shop vac is wet/dry so we've been using that to clean the carpet, as well as running the dehumidifier.

Re: Basement flooded...

In our case, it was a high water table so we installed a French drain. Today we are dry, so it seems to be working.

It is a pain when your basement ia finished. We wound up tearing up the carpet and removing the molding and drywall along some walls. And we tried most other solutions people mentioned before the French drain.

First, I would look at gutters, do they need to be replaced or cleaned, and do you have the water going far away from your house? This is the least expensive fix.

Good luck!

Re: Basement flooded...

does your basement carpet have padding under it... if so make sure you keep wet vac'ing it everyday.... DH's room was in the basement at home and they thought they got all the water... months later they learned they did not.

we got alot of water in our nice newly finished basement too Sooo happy we decided to do tile and had a wet vac to borrow... we also caught before it damage too much. lost a carpet tho....

we were told this morning to cover the ground next to the foundation it where is coming in with a tarp.... we keep watching it and it been dry since we did that now... dehumidifier, fans, all on too. the tarp is stopping the water from contuing to saturate that area so not as much can get to the foundation

Good luck...we feel your pain too.

my sister is by you and they got some water too. this is extreme rain.....

Re: Basement flooded...

We had a flood in our basement last year and we wound up pulling up the rug and replacing the padding underneath and then tacked the rug back down. The padding is very hard to dry so we were told it was better to replace it.

Re: Basement flooded...

We had a basement flood last year and found out the gutters were clogged. It seemed to help a great deal

Re: Basement flooded...

glad to hear you figured out the problem, that is a pretty easy fix too.

my other suggestion for the carpet is to use a carpet cleaner and set it to extraction and extract the water out of the carpet. it will get it even drier than the shop vac. we did this for the few times our basement flooded and put fans down there. i've heard if you dry out the carpet within a day, it will be fine. ours was wet several times so we decided to replace it, just in case.