My MIL passed last month. Her husband (FIL) was a great carpenter and builder. He built their home on 10 acres in Michigan by converting a 3 car garage. All was good until now, when we are selling it.

The basement has a constant leak and accumulates a couple of inches of water a day. The sump pumps most out but he never sloped the floor so there is always a water issue. Anyway, I put in a new Zoeller pump, and my sister in law hired some plumbers to clean out and replace some pipes at $1700. No help. What would suggestions be for the next step. We have a buyer already to go, but the deal may fall through because the loan may not be approved due to the water. They sold the house and property for $160k, which I thought was a good price. Any ideas? Do we hire a company that specializes in foundation work. Any of you want to tackle it?

I think (given you've already redone the pump and plumbing) you have three remaining issues:

1) fixing the slope of the basement floor so all the water gets to the sump area,
2) keeping the water from getting in, in the first place, and
3) making the buyer and their lender comfortable with fixes to the above, to keep the deal

I think there are companies that take care of both of the first two issues. But to make the buyer comfortable, I'd suggest that you let the buyer's team select their own preferred contractors to get bids from, so it's their folks doing the work.

My guess is, that you'll wind up looking at the bids and (assuming you agree to resolve the issues and keep the deal) you'd then need to decide whether to put money aside in escrow from the sales proceeds and let the buyer take care of it after the sale, or delaying the sale till the work is done.

I went with this company, expensive but has worked well for over a year now. Transferable warranty to new owners.

https://www.drymich.com/servic...sement-waterproofing

Can you cut a channel through the concrete floor and install a slotted drain pipe that empties into the sump? Then cover the cut with fresh concrete? Very effective strategy for an un-finished basement. This tactic releaves typical water pressure coming up from under the floor. Not from the basement walls. That is a different issue.

I did this DIY in my last house and it worked perfectly. This was already done in my current house and it works like a charm. Bone-dry basement and the sump pump is busy when we have heavy rain. Like right now.

Is the water coming from the basement foundation walls, or up from the concrete floor? If coming from the floor, my commments above should apply. You might ask ARC. He knows his stuff.

We used the slotted drain pipe method described above and resolved our issue. Ex[persive, but effective.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
We used the slotted drain pipe method described above and resolved our issue. Ex[persive, but effective.

"They" charge a lot to do this, but it is fairly easy to DIY, if you like projects.

Just need to rent a concrete saw and have some hired muscle to dig and carry out the dirt. Can be done in about 2 days time, assuming you already have a sump pit/pump to attach the pipe to. If you need to start from nothing and install a sump, that will take longer. But, you can do that. Just add a day.

If you DIY, be sure to close off the basement area with plastic tarp, and wear a quality mask when you cut the concrete. The dust will get everywhere from the cut. It is a dirty job, but pretty simple DIY if you are up for saving a lot of money. There is a lot of material on the internet on this strategy, if you decide to DIY. There is more to it than what I have described, so be sure to read up on it. You should save about 80% of the cost of hiring it done.

Where is the water entering the basement?

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Where is the water entering the basement?

As I asked.

the best method is ALWAYS to stop the water from coming in, rather than dealing with it once it is already in.

you'll have to decide if it is worth it monetarily, but my suggestion is to dig out the foundation wall, find the breach, waterproof it, then backfill and compact the soil and slope it away from the structure.

I think the water comes up from the floor. I don’t see any stains on the walls. The ladies are strongly thinking about hiring a company now, like drymich. I am out of state for a while and nobody else in the families is a DIY kind of guy, so they will get it done. Thank you for the suggestions, tips, and education.

You’ll love this. The daughters just told me that their dad drilled 3 holes in the floor. Then he plugged them. So the SIL pulled out the plugs and water rushed up. Wow. I guess the old guy knew his woodworking skills, but not the ins and outs of hydraulics. It makes me think of the three stooges when they drilled holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water out.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
I think the water comes up from the floor. I don’t see any stains on the walls. The ladies are strongly thinking about hiring a company now, like drymich.

If the place is in their service area, also talk to these guys: StayDry

When I found a crack in our basement wall behind the old paneling in what is to become the Man Cave, and it was obvious it had been leaking at some point, I talked to both Foundation Systems of Michigan (DryMich) and StayDry. Unlike FSM, StayDry was very forthcoming over the phone about the techologies they use. FSM wouldn't give me a clue, instead insisting I set up an appointment for an estimate.

I really didn't like FSM's whole approach. It came across as high-pressure and very used-car-salesman-ish.

We hired StayDry.

I found, from the StayDry guys that came to do the job, the reason FSM was unwilling to discuss their crack-filling technology is they don't do crack-filling. Instead they relay primarily on drywells inside the wall. Like YellowJacket, I think keeping it out better than dealing with it after it's inside.

StayDry filled the cracks with an expanding polyurethane that filled them from top-to-bottom, inside-to-out, then, in our case, stabilized the cracks with a series of epoxied-in staples.

They gave us a transferable lifetime warranty.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
You’ll love this. The daughters just told me that their dad drilled 3 holes in the floor. Then he plugged them. So the SIL pulled out the plugs and water rushed up.

Yikes!

Is it possible good old dad built the basement over a natural aquifer, in drainage from an area with one nearby, or in an area with a very high water table, and maybe didn't put the appropriate drain system around the footings?

Are there a couple large pipes leading into the sump well?

One of the homes I looked at when I was shopping was smack in the middle of where a higher swampy area drained into a lower one. I only found out because, when I went to look at the place, a neighbour came by and informed me of it. Told me they'd had trouble building the basement, that one wall had actually caved in at one point, and that the sump well ran nearly constantly. I walked away from that one.

We have a neighbour that didn't walk away. Their home is located near an aquifer and right next to a long French drain the farmer who used to own all this around here had put in. They have two sump wells, and they run nearly constantly.

You can get a free USGS soil survey for the area from the county. (Or at least you used to be able to.) And you can get topo maps so you can see what you're dealing with. (Though neither will reveal the existence of aquifers or underground drainage.)

That house has always had water issues the gals tell me. The old man said he thought he built in quicksand

Yes there are perforated pipes going to the sump. The pump in The crock shoots the water outside. But it doesn’t keep up even running constantly. Thank you for your good advice. I see this problem may be a whole bunch bigger than I thought.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
Yes there are perforated pipes going to the sump. The pump in The crock shoots the water outside. But it doesn’t keep up even running constantly.

OH boy

You didn't mention that in your OP. That changes everything.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
Thank you for your good advice. I see this problem may be a whole bunch bigger than I thought.

You're welcome. Yeah: Looks that way.

Hopefully arcwelder will step in, as I'm sure he has much more expertise than I in such matters. But it sounds to me like you need to get somebody in there to figure out just what's going on. My guess is that, unless there's somebody locally that knows the property and can tell you, "Well, yeah, <this> is what he built this upon," you're going to have to hire somebody that can do a study to figure it out.

It sounds just like I previously suggested: He built it atop or immediately adjacent to a shallow aquifer, in a shallow (underground?) drainage area, or in wetlands.

After you find out what it is with what you're dealing, then comes what has to be done about it.

The sump pump outlet: It isn't dumping the water right outside the walls, I hope? Not that I'm sure it would make much difference, from what you're telling us, but doing that is just putting the water back where it came from. It needs to be moved away from the building. Preferably to somewhere where it'll continue to flow away. (I.e.: Down slope.)

ETA:

I don't want to freak you out or come-across all doom and gloom, so I'd like to add remediation could be as simple as some diversion landscaping and perhaps some French drains.

I know of a home in my mother's old neighbourhood that had terrible flooding issues in their crawl space at certain times of the year. We're talking water so high it would get into the HVAC ducts under the house. That's all it took in their case.

quote:

So the SIL pulled out the plugs and water rushed up.

I'll take a guess that's the water is just trying to escape anyway it can. You may want to investigate installing drainage tile (the black plastic corrugated kind) around the immediate outside of the basement walls below the floor level giving the water an easier method of escape. To a french drain to avoid the constant running of a sump pump.

Please note I'm no expert other than dealing with my own indoor swimming pool. Good luck.

Is it possible to cut out the floor where the water leaks and install a pump there?

Cut out a 2ft square section of concrete. Dig down 2ft and install a perforated plastic tub leaving 4 inches of space for bluestone. Dump bluestone around the tub. Then pour concrete leavinga 3/4 gap along the foundation.
Install 2 sump pumps one higher than the other and pipe them out.

If the water is coming up from the floor there are few options IMO. My dad bought a house for renting when I was a teen. Every spring the basement would get a foot of water and it would bubble up in the cracks. Guess who got to pump the water out and clean up every spring. Had many people look at the house. It was determined that they built it over an underground spring that would rise significantly in the spring. No patching of the floor would work as the water would eventually blow through it. Final solution was to raise the house 4 feet, rebuild the foundation under it, fill the basement with gravel and pour a new floor. Never had a problem after that

You may have what they call a wet weather spring. If the house is setting downhill, the uphill water soaks down into the earth until it hits the crusty layer which keeps the water from soaking further into the ground. So it followers the crusty layer until it gets to the house site where I assume the foundation was dug out for the basement which didn't break the crusty layer.

If this is the case, you could dig a trench across the front of the house until you break the crusty layer. This will allow the water to soak further into the ground instead of continuing its path to the underside of the basement. If too much water flows down, you may have to put in a French drain in the trench.