I’m building our new home right now, and we recently had some heavy rain in our area. Worse than we’ve had in years. The home is framed up with roof on, and we are currently working on electrical/HVAC. The flat concrete work has not been done in the basement yet, so still just gravel/stone down there on the floor.
Well, with all this rain, the land around the home has quite a bit of pooled water around that is not draining or being absorbed into the soil quickly. And there is several inches of standing water now in the basement. I am guessing it has pooled up from the ground, being that the area is so wet.
The seasonal high water table in our area and on this property is less than 24 inches in most spots, so we raised the building area of the house and only dug down about 4 feet for the basement walls / foundation.
We’ll have a drain tile with a pump and backup pump, as well as a generator connected to these in case of a power outage. We’ve also put in a water proofing membrane on the foundation walls below grade. I’m wondering if there are any additional precautions you would recommend taking to alleviate water intrusion issues. Seeing the amount of water that has soaked back through the ground has me concerned. Thanks for any help / input.
Replies
Big gutters with long leaders directing water away from the house
With a basement sunk 4' and a water table of 2' if your basement is waterproof, then your house is basically a boat. A 1000 sq ft basement will have about 125,000 lbs up lift. Unless your pumps can reduce the water table, which seems unlikely, your basement will flood or your house will try to float. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.
We do have neighbors to the East and West of us with basements. I'm going to have to check with them to see what kind of water intrusion they get. There wasn't standing water at 2ft. But the clay was noticeably wetter at that depth.
I'm trying to figure out what I can do to alleviate this and properly channel the water away from the house and underneath/around the foundation. Any pump systems or additional precautions you guys would employ here?