Really? Zero benefits? How about easy-to-access mechanical systems, plus tons of storage for out-of-season and rarely used stuff. (On the other hand, you might end up with a situation like my parents, who have way too much stuff down there. They’re not hoarders by any means, but they could stand to get rid of a lot of it.)
That may be the right way to do it, but it sounds really expensive.
I’ve been checking into this over the last few days, and I think I may have an obstacle to the “keep all the water outside” approach of digging all around the house. On the back of the house is a concrete patio/porch added on to the house. It extends about 15 feet out from the house.
This is, unfortunately, also on the uphill part of the terrain, and therefore the side that gets the most water ingress. I can’t imagine that they would be able to get to the outside of the cinder block walls on this side of the house.
Looks like I may be looking at one of the solutions that involve handling/channeling the water immediately on the inside of the walls.
The goal is to get the basement to where it doesn’t flood. I don’t think I would ever have need of converting that area into living space. It’s just me and the dogs, so I think 4 bedrooms will likely be enough. If I need more than that, then I have turned into some kind of hoarder, and I’ll count on you guys for an intervention.
The more i think about this, I’m getting more enthused with the idea of moving there sooner rather than later. There I will have space to grow some vegetables, work on projects, etc. There I will also be recovering all the hours I spend sitting in Atlanta traffic.
to waterproof the outside of the basement walls or to add drainage along the wall you would need to cut and remove a width of patio wide enough to dig a trench along side the wall.
also a patio on the uphill side can increase the problem. all the water on it could be taken right to the house if the patio doesn’t slope away.
Yeah, I’ve watched quite a few of the Holmes on Homes episodes.
Ideally, a foundation at the level of the basement floor around the foundation concrete footing is encircled along the outside by a weeping tile. This drain piping was originally clay pipe with open joints, nowadays a perforated plastic hose. It went al the way around the house, and then hooked into the drain or a sump well.
If sump, then a sump hose pumps the water well away from the house. If draining be sure the water will not back up and come out the house drain.
The trench for the weeping tile is filed with gravel, to allow water to seep into the weeping tile. It is recommended the rest of the trench up to the surface be filled with some gravel to allow drainage all the way down, especially basement window wells. Dirt and landscaping should slope away from the house for a few feet, and eavestrough drain spouts take water well away from the house.
In the Holmes show, when fixing basement leaks, they dig the trench all the way around. Then, they put in the weeping tile, next they coat the exterior wall with a tar product, push a woven membrane onto it and tar over that. then they cover the whole with a waterproof membrane - so even if the wall cracks, the whole stays watertight. Nowadays an additional protection is a hard dimpled rubber sheeting that in hammer-nailed to the wall from ground level all the way down. The dimpling keeps the sheet a fraction of an inch away from the wall so water can flow freely down to the weeping tile.
The whole purpose is to get the water to flow down and away rather than the basement basically sitting in a pool of water. You want to steer as much water as you can away from the house with landscaping and drain spout direction.
As for concrete patio - if it encourages water to flow to the house, it probably needs to be fixed. If you have lots of time and are energetic, rent a jackhammer and a saw and cut the patio maybe 2 or 3 feet from the house, jackhammer it up to complete the trenching around the house. When done, replace that with landscape brick and maybe put a step up near the house to stop flow. Maybe trench around the patio to direct water away from the house.
If your house has drain(s) they go to a sewer line or sump or something that goes from the house to the road. You may be able to tap into that line if you can find it when installing weeping tile. (at this point, get professional help) If not, an external sump is always a possibility, as is running a drain hose in a trench to open ground, if there is a downhill beside the house so you can drain below foundation level.
Good luck.
Simple drainage ditches (sometimes called swales) or ditches filled with gravel and then covered might be sufficient to keep the water away from the walls. They don’t have to be right up against the house. This was once common for houses built on hillsides. It depends on whether the problem is surface run-off as in the two houses I mentioned, or a problem with groundwater levels. In both my homes the problem was surface run-off, the first required nothing but a slight backslope in the 10 feet next to the house on the uphill side so the water could run off. In my current house we needed a much larger depression dug out off to the side so the run-off had somewhere to go. We still have a sump pump because the ground water can rise unexpectly.
Depends on the condition of the existing drains. Weeping tile in Canada. If a plumber scopes them and they look good then maybe it’s not worth digging. Try diverting the water so that it doesn’t run towards the house. Some landscaping might be enough and much cheaper.
It they have to excavate to install new weeping tile, then it makes sense to do the waterproofing on the wall while it’s exposed. I think some contractors just apply the tar waterproofing and not all the other layers. I don’t know how effective that is, but it would be cheaper.
Holmes always does it the most expensive way. Which is great if the homeowner has the money. Sometimes people just can’t afford the Cadillac approach in construction.
The easiest and cheapest quick fix is to extend any downspouts a few feet out into the yard. A lot of downspouts dump the water right next to the foundation and that can cause leaky basements. Extending the downspouts is always Mike’s first suggestion.
if you are on a slope the downspouts on the high side should go into a hose (they have them with ends to fit the spouts) and come around to the sides and away from the house.
IMHO living in a house with a wet basement is a miserable existence. It’s like you can never trust your house not to flood or worse yet, not trust your foundation not to come crumbling down. You can’t use the area, you have mold and it’s just generally an uneasy feeling.
Having my basement water issueS dealt with has been the thing I’ve put the most money in to since I got this house 9 years ago. I would not do any of it on my own and I would not do any of it “on the cheap” and I would definitely get an expert or 3 to come up with comprehensive plans.
It doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing worth doing at all if you’re not going to do it right. A little bit of water and a little bit of time can take down a whole cinder block wall.
I finally have my foundation under control and painted the walls but after all this time I still have problems with sump pumps dying (and their backups dying too yay!) so I’ll never finish the area with carpet, wood and drywall. But I do have a dry (usually) space and am not sitting on top a room full of mold, or a foundation full of cracks.
Good discussion here. Thanks.
I’ll add a few more information points
When Dad built the house in 1940, all downspouts were designed to go into underground drainage systems. The two downspouts on the back of the house go into terracotta/clay pipes and go underground, eventually coming out about 30 yards away from the house at lower elevation. The two downspouts go underground, again into terracotta/clay pipes and drain to a different exit point down slope from the house. The basement drains also connect to this same system. BTW the bathtub and the sinks in the home connect to the same drains.
About every other spring, I have the drains augered out by a roto-rooter like company to keep them flowing. There are a couple of trees that keep sticking their roots into the joints in the pipes.
The house is located in a rural area, so the discharge of gray water from tubs and sinks is allowed under county ordinances.
Because the difference in price between a basement that can be used for storage and a crawlspace that can’t is only about $3,000 because you have to dig so far down anyway as wguy123 said, so very few people bother with crawlspaces at least around here. That and the fact that pipes freeze under crawl spaces, like the one under the addition on my great grandmother’s house frequently did.