With the 10″ rain of yesterday an area of my basement leaked for the first time in 34 years. It appears that the perimeter drain is silted full. What to do?
“Dig it up!” is not do-able as 34 feet of the drain that appears stopped=up runs under a crawlspace attached to the full basement area. The drain has a daylight exit, but there are three elbows and 18 feet of pipe to where it turns under the crawlspace wall run.
Is there a way to clean out this silted perimeter drain?
Suggestions, considerations & help will be deeply appreciated.
…………..Iron Helix
PS…I tried the attach two scanned drawing, but clicking on the attach button did nothing!
Replies
Did you check to see if water was exiting the daylight drain?
Perhaps the drain simply became overwhelmed by the volume of ground water and is not plugged up.
Is there a cleanout anywhere? Access from grade?
Solar & Super-Insulated Healthy Homes
The daylight exit is only dribbling, while inside we were sucking up 5 gallon every 7-10 minutes for 6 hours.
No cleanout, deadend end is under the crawlspace.
..........Iron Helix
If you have clean-outs or maybe just the daylight end of the drain, you might be able to use a combination of a garden hose and/or snake in hopes of washing out the silt.
What kind of drain pipe is it? i.e. black flex plastic, pvc, clay, etc.?
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
PVC pipe with holes down.
Tried to feed the garden hose, but could only get past the 1st two 90's and then the hose was too limber to make the double bend and go forward.
Luka....I'll try the hose with the snake.
We finally hydraulic cemented a brass hose fitting into the flowing crack at floor level and then ran a garden hose out the basement door. Still running faster than the daylight opening this AM. Hose quit after lunch today when the rains subsidded.
Now to try some of the BT suggestions...................iron Helix
<<Tried to feed the garden hose, but could only get past the 1st two 90's and then the hose was too limber to make the double bend and go forward.>>If the hose is too limber try getting one of those very small brass nozzles made for cleaning driveways. they're about 2" long and have a 1/4" round open nozzle that is not adjustable. It will pressurize the hose and give it stiffness while improving the turbulence. Good luck with this. M------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I tried ShelterNerd's suggestion...went to Wal-Mart bought a thin cheap hose with smooth pressed on ferrels (not cast brass hex fittings)and a cone shaped stream nozzle with shut off.
At home I removed the shut-off knob and valve ball, epoxied the sidewall hole shut and let it set. I marked the hose into 4 ft increments and measured exact ditances between pipe elbows.
Turned on the water and easily navigated the opening elbow and the 6 feet of pipe to the next elbow. I had to do a little swist and flip in the hose to get around #2 elbow and then went another 2 feet to a dead stop.
The water flow was muddy, but I could never move any further. the feel of the impact at the impass was hard as if it were rock or concrete. I washed out two concret mushrooms that appear to have broken off from the bottom of the pipe weep holes.
Makes me think that the foundation guys (1972)sloped some concrete into the overdig and onto the perimeter drain and never bothered to clean it off/out of the pipe!
That section of the pipe is on the exterior of the house with about 4 foot of fill. It's shovel time......two landscape bushes and a central AC unit to work around and lots of soft soil from the big rain of last week.
More after the diggin'...........Mike
if you're willing to spend a few bucks, call one of the drain cleaning guys with the TV cameras. they can go in and look at the problem.
bobl Volo, non valeo
Baloney detecter WFR
"But when you're a kibbutzer and have no responsibility to decide the facts and apply the law, you can reach any conclusion you want because it doesn't matter." SHG
I had the same situation here. Reached a point and hit a dead end. Put a camera in the pipe and couldn't see past a certain point because there was standing water in the pipe and the camera couldn't see through the water. Dug it up and found that a tree root had collapsed the pipe. Easy fix after all that. Had to completely disassemble a ground level deck to get to it though.
"More after the diggin'...........Mike"
This is the smartest comment yet. If'n you do have silted up drains, you got no choice but to dig 'em and redo them. Anything else is a bandaid.
Still waiting to see two or three days without more rain. Got another inch last evening as heavy storms passed through.
Also I have a roof leak to deal with before digging ....eventually I'll shovel out 4 foot of backfill where I think the clog is located. The area is not machinery accessable due to plants, terrain, and AC unit and service lines.
..............Iron Helix
Wednesday I dug the 3'X3'X4.5' deep hole...took about three hours.
Pvc perforated 4" perimeter drain was installed on top of the footing ledge. I cut the top out of an 18"area and found the pipe to be half full of silt, which I flushed out with the garden hose and the suggested hose end.
When done the water stayed in the pipe to a depth of about 1-1/2". With a mirror and flashlight I could see to the corner elbow...all clear except for the water.
I went to the exit elbow at the retaining wall and peeked down it with the mirror and could see concrete mushrooms at several pipe weep holes and an upward bow in the pipe. Apparently the perimeter pipe was cast into the base of the concrete retaining wall which sets to the outside of the basement exit wall.
It would seem that the force of the concrete pour deformed the pipe thus causing the silt trap. It took 35+ years to leak.....maybe the rinse out will get me another 35+. And then I won't care!!!
I did install a 1/2" CPVCx 5' tall stand pipe and nozzle into the perimeter drain. Next time I'll hook the hose to the standpipe and blow the silt around the corner again without having to dig.
Kinda wish they had run the perimeter drain at the base of the footing...would have given me 4 more inches of freeboard before the water came between the wall and floor.
Backfilled and tamped in 4" lifts....took about 2 hours, yesterday.
Rain today and tonight-----we'll see.
Thanks for all the suggestions.......................Iron Helix
Hydraulic tunneling.
Start at the daylight end of the drain.
Stick a garden hose in. No attachments on the end. Turn the hose on.
Silt should be washed out. Push the hose in further, more silt gets washed out. Push it in further, etc.
If you can't get the hose pushed through the entire drain line, try attaching it to something like a roto-rooter and pushing it through. (Not spinning, of course.)
Life doesn't often leave a very easy trail to follow.
Consider professional jetting - you likely don't have the necessary water pressure for jetting, unless you use a pressure washer.
Jeff