There are many smart people here and I respect the wealth of experience from all over, so hopefully some ideas come from this thread. After having my basement waterproofed with a new line out to the street to drain the water we realized that we had a problem in the winter. The water drains to the gutter at the side of the street and then down to the storm drain. It doesn’t flow really well down the gutter to the storm drain but I can’t do much about that. It does eventually get there but pools in areas.
So, when it gets really cold the water in the gutter freezes and eventually backs up and threatens the opening at the street where our sump pump drains to. If it freezes there our pump won’t be able to continue pumping and our basement could start to flood.
Any ideas on how to heat the gutter or keep the water flowing so that it doesn’t freeze, or just heat the end where it drains enough to keep that small area from freezing? I currently go out there and break up ice to keep it free but it gets old. It may be the only real answer.
Here are ideas that I’ve considered:
Heat the water inside my house with something like a pond heater. I really don’t see how that would help once exposed to the cold outside at the gutter since it doesn’t flow quickly to the storm drain.
Elevate the sump pump drain opening at the street. While I can’t move the opening itself as it’s been ran under a sidewalk and concrete was poured around it at the curb so that it is flush, I did try extending the end of it with some tubing. However, any elevation prevents the water from flowing out. It doesn’t come out of the sump pump and down the lengthy pipe with enough momentum to carry it up even a slight angle.
It has been suggested that I use heat tape out there. That would require installation of an electrical outlet outside on that end of the house. Then we’d have to run the wire and pipe out to the curb and street gutter. It was recommended that we actually cut into the gutter and stuff the heat tape in there to heat the entire gutter to keep it from freezing. That seems pricey and I’m not sure how the city would react to me making any changes to their concrete gutter.
Maybe some of you smarter than me or more inventive, or some in colder climates might have a suggestion. I hope that I’ve explained this well enough. Maybe there’s an angle that I haven’t looked at this from entirely. The good thing is that when it is super cold chances are there isn’t that much water to run because it’s all frozen, but it happens and if nothing else I have to keep it clear in case rain follows closely or precedes the cold.
Before I suggest anything, could you describe the outflow pipes? I mean, does the pipe come out of the pump, go up an inside wall in your basement, through the wall to the outside (hopefully a few feet above ground level?), then turn downward and head into the ground and then out to the street? If not this, what is different?
You’ve pretty much got it. The pipe comes up out of the pump, up the wall, out through the wall to a few feet underground (not exposed at all to the elements), and then it makes a turn and runs across the back of the house and through the side yard, under the sidewalk, and then has been cut into the curb so that the outlet is flush with the curb at the bottom of the street gutter. Nothing in the outflow pipe is exposed outside except for the actual hole where the water comes out. That’s great for preventing freezing in the pipe. It is just an issue when the water sits in the gutter and freezes and more water comes out and freezes and eventually backs up to the literal hole in the curb where the water comes out.
Perhaps you could make a tee off, whilst the pipe is still in your yard, that is arranged such that water will only flow through this tee when the normal gutter outlet is blocked. think of it as a ‘pressure relief line’ but it is passive, not active.
I can’t quite picture the scenario you’ve described in my head as i live in a tropical area and such things as freezing water (other than in my drink) are quite alien.
But i do a similar thing when I install soakwells for draining water from rain - provide an outlet in the pipe system that deposits water in a favorable location elsewhere when the main drain location is blocked / over capacity. in normal flow events this outlet won’t experience any flow.
@Richox - That seems like a doable idea. There might be some drawback that I don’t see, but I’ll think about how I could work that in.
The comment about your life in a tropical area was unnecessary and envy inducing. Lol, I’m sure that living in a tropical area has its own drawbacks, but by February I hate winter and think about moving every year, and our winter isn’t even really that bad compared with many areas.
Richox’s idea is better than what I was thinking, but does sound like a lot of work if it’s too far underground. Maybe install some kind of plug in the line in your basement just before the pipe goes through the wall? You could funnel or hose boiling water down the line and it might clear out ice blockage? Without you having to go outside.
Regardless, it sounds like Public Services needs to be called to improve the drainage system, i.e., gutter to the storm drain.
@burpo - The pipe isn’t too far underground in places. Like out by the gutter itself there simply isn’t much depth to the land there. I don’t think it would be too hard to get to. The concern would be how to create a secondary outlet so that the water could escape AND keep moving without freezing at that outlet as well, but it does give me more options to think about.
We actually just had our street in front of the house (we live on a corner) redone to improve drainage, along with one side of the whole neighborhood. They stopped right at the street on the side of us where I have the issues, lol. Of course. Like I said, the water does flow, but it does pool and sit unless there’s a steady stream of water for some time to keep pushing it along. They do probably need to fix it, but since they just did one half of the neighborhood and winter is coming, I’m not sure that the rest will be due for a while. It may be worth a try, but honestly I’m one of the few houses with basements here and I’m probably the only person with a reason to raise the issue around us.
Can you give an idea where you live, or how deep the frost line is? Any solution to the problem will very likely be different depending on how deep the ground freezes.
I wonder if you could just tee off in the yard to a french drain, kind of like a miniature septic field. This might work if the amount of water isn’t too great.
I live on the Indiana and Kentucky border (USA). I believe the frost line is maybe 3 feet? Ultimately the freezing issue is only happening where the water is exposed to daylight because the gutter at the street backs up though.
I’ve thought about the mini french drain too, but we do get a tremendous amount of water. The sump pump runs long after the rain is done. You don’t have to dig far here to hit water from what I’ve been told. At times my pump may run every 20 seconds or more during heavy rains. In the winter we don’t get so much rain, but I remember last year we had some freezing temperatures and everything outside was frozen solid right up to the opening of my drain at daylight and then we got a couple inches of rain the next day. I had to go out and make sure that I could get the ice broken up enough to let it pump out.
Here is my understanding, as I did ask about this very thing. The city doesn’t want storm water going into the sewers and backing them up. We have storm sewers in the streets for storm water runoff. It is against code to tap into the sanitary sewer. Plus, doing so does give one the unfortunate possibility of having raw sewage back up into their basement if something were to go wrong.
We originally had a sump pump in a small pit down there that went somewhere, nobody really knows or could tell where it drained to. They thought maybe a dry pit somewhere buried in the yard. Regardless, during heavy rains one year it apparently got full or plugged up in the line and the back pressure made the pump unable to pump and we started flooding. The solution was costly, as we had issues in one corner of the basement with flooding anyway. New pump, new pit, new crock, new drain lines, and I also had a water powered backup pump installed as well. Oh, and we had the foundation broken up around the perimeter inside and perforated pipe installed to relieve pressure on our walls. It was all good until that first winter when we realized that the water was freezing and backing up out at the street, something we hadn’t anticipated.
It isn’t the end of the world if I do have to go out and break it up, but it gets old after a few days of it. It can be hard to stay on top of. If I could find a way to eliminate that need it would be nice.
I love that thing from basement systems, but I don’t have exposed pipe as mine comes out underneath the ground right out the basement wall. I also emailed someone about those and it seems like it was a proprietary thing that only their installers did. I may be wrong on that last part. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to rig something similar though.
I had no idea about the RV antifreeze. That’s an interesting idea depending on how much one would need to use.
I live just south of you and we have a similar problem though not as severe as you. As I understand, your sump pump exit can be below the water level of a backed up street drain which then freezes and plugs your line. Why not install an alternate pump exit that just dumps into your yard? it could even be an outdoor faucet and a length of garden hose that you route to a well drained spot. I’m not a plumber but I think this would definitely have to be a home project.
The water coming from the ground into your basement will be at 40-50° and has enough heat content to keep the line open if it drains downhill after reaching a high point coming out of your house. You’ll know when freezing weather is coming and you could switch to the “faucet outlet” from your pump as needed.
You have to do some grunt work. This is my pic and was a setup I had. When not frozen, all flows fine. Outlet dumps into pipe below. If pipe out to street/gutter is frozen, water just ejects into the graded, frozen ground and will run away from house.
I’m having a hard time picturing this, so maybe my question is dumb, but what about a drain pipe heater? Basically just an electric line placed in the outlet that heats it above freezing.
Lol, I’m sure that living in a tropical area has its own drawbacks, but by February I hate winter and think about moving every year, and our winter isn’t even really that bad compared with many areas.
