Well, we had wood panels on top of it.
While I was in the basement yesterday morning sweeping the remaining water towards the sump pump, my sewage pipe burst and we received 18 inches of sewage in our basement. The same thing happened with three of my neighbors as a back-up in the city’s main system put too much pressure on my sewage pipe and caused it to burst.
So after pumping out the sewage, having a plumber repair the sewer pipe, taking everything out of my basement, calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK to haul away the items in my basement, and paying ServPro to disinfect the basement and spread limestone…I’m looking for advice as to what to lay on top of my dirt floor (aside from concrete).
I’m not a handy homeowner, but I’ve gotten a little better over the past few years. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks.
Replies
why wouldn't you want concrete?
there's really nothing better to seal a dirt floor-properly done, its an easy floor to maintain
I was thinking of a quick fix (i.e. throwing down gravel or crushed stones). But I'm not sure if that's a good choice.
My first thought was concrete - definitely with a poly vapor barrier underneath it, and maybe even with the poly extending up the walls, at least part way.
Re the sewage backup - if you have a cleanout in the yard... A little plumber's trick is to leave the cap screwed on about 1/8 of a turn - just enough to barely hold it. That way, if it ever backs up again, the top will blow off out in the yard and instead of making a mess out of your basement, you will simply have some free fertilizer for your landscape.
My similarly dated house had a brick floor. This was a retrofit, not original.
It looked nice, but the bricks held moisture and kept the place too humid.
This is all foreign to me and I would like to understand... what do you mean that your sewage pipe "burst"? A pipe actually broke? I understand backing up, but not burst.
How does covering the floor deal with that problem? Was the pipe underneath the dirt floor? If it "burst" underneath a concrete floor wouldn't you have to tear up the concrete?
18 inches of sewage? Or water? If sewage I would think you'd have to evacuate. In either case major dehumidifcation is in order.
I don't mean to sound like an idiot, I just don't understand the situation. I agree that concrete is the flooring of choice.
I have a dirt floor in the basement and the sewage pipe burst (e.g. broke). It was a 100+-year-old pipe and it burst from underneath the surface of the dirt floor and filled up my basement with 18" of water-like texture that smelled like crap from the sewage pipe.
I called 911 and immediately had the fire department and DPW on the scene within minutes. They pumped everything out of my basement. I then hired a plumber to replace the section of the broken sewage pipe with PVC. I removed everything from the basement and threw it all out because of the damage. I then had limestone raked into the dirt floor to clean up the mess.
Now I'm left with a completely empty basement with a dirt floor and lots of limestone. I want to know the best thing to put on top of the dirt in the event that something awful like this happens again.
NOt that this has anything to do with this,but is the city going to reimburse you for thedamaged stuff?
Yes, they are. Well, the DPW deputy chief told me they would.
I called 911 because it was an emergency. I had a 3-month-old infant in the house with me. I was concerned about her safety.
By the way, I was directed to this Web site and forum by a friend who raved about it. He said I'd find some good advice. However, I didn't expect to be questioned if the events happening at my house actually happened. It did happen. I have a written report by DPW's water and sewage department claiming it was their fault and they will pay 100% of my claim. There was also an article in the local newspaper the following day.
Thanks for helping, brownbagg. Your understanding of my situation is uplifting.
We had a dirt floor in the basement when i was a kid, house now over 100 YO, mom still lives there.
After a couple of heavy rains, the sewers backed up as you describe.
Pop hauled sand and gravel from the local pit in his trailer, and 'we' (think I was 5 at the time) mixed the whole concrete floor by hand in a wheelbarrow, , carried it into the basement in coal buckets. Did about 10 sq feet at a time, got'er done in a couple of months. No need to even be handy, just willing to do hard work.
Basement drains are equiped with threaded couplings, so during heavy rains, a 2 ft standpipe is screwed in, keeps pressure low but keeps sewage out of basement.
Could we try just answering people's questions without turning it into the Inquisition? ("No one expects the Inquisition!" A little humor there (very little.)) Especially new people come in blithely expecting some good advice and instead get insulted.
I've been here a while and have learned that some people respond to questions negatively. If you don't have good advice, perhaps you should just read the post and then go down to the Tavern and insult some of the veteran Breaktimers down there who can dish it out as well as they take it. Maybe some of you figure this forum is too crowded and we don't need any more people here. I would guess that Taunton would disagree.
In this particular case, if 911 had a problem with the person calling them, I think they'd have let the person know, but that really isn't the question anyway.
Well, sorry to rant, but this really bothers me--happens way too often that we, perhaps unintentionally, drive people away. I thought this forum was intended to help people, not just allow us to stroke out all-knowing ego's. Okay, I'll get back in my cage now.
Don't be put off, Winky. It's a great site for ideas/suggestions, from people a whole lot smarter about these things then myself. Sometimes the discussions get a little off track.Our house is older (1920's) and has a concrete floor that was in poor shape. Some places it was only about an inch thick, and was broken up with dirt beneath. Was a pain to have to walk through it to use the laundry, store anything on the shelves, etc.. Ended up patching the holes, but if I had to do it again I would've just ripped the old stuff out and started over again.Concrete is probably the best and most common solution for your floor, but consider some things. If you do it yourself, do you have windows to the basement where concrete might be pumped in? Or a big enough opening where a small rental mixer might fit? Mixing it by hand is a pain, time-consuming, and perhaps not the way to learn the method. Also, will the extra 3" - 4" mean banging your head on the bottom of the joists above? Do you have plans for a small bathroom or laundry that would require floor drains? If you're not planning on doing anything with it, gravel might be enough. But if you really want to use the basement, do concrete and do it right (voice of experience . . . :))
Good suggestions. Thanks, guys. I think concrete is the way to go if I'm going to take care of the situation the right way. Appreciate the advice.
If you go with concrete, have a look at:
http://www.xypex.com
-- J.S.
Have you used the product?....I've never had much luck with "topping" products....also, don't see a distributor link on their site.....
I've tried the paint-on version on stucco, and it worked very well, even though they don't recommend it for that. For a new basement floor, the admix version would be the way to go. The only issue would be going back and patching cracks as they happen. But you'd have that with any kind of coating product.
-- J.S.
winky,
Did the plumber replace all the sewer pipe in your basement? If not, won't a concrete floor just compound the problem if another break occurs?
Good point. No, he only replaced a 2-foot long part.
Winky,I was going to ask what Don did, and suggest that all the subgrade horizontal lines get replaced before pouring any concrete. It is so easy to do now. If you do the digging, it'll cost less.Bill
I was going to ask what Don did, and suggest that all the subgrade horizontal lines get replaced before pouring any concrete. It is so easy to do now. If you do the digging, it'll cost less.
Yea, the more-pressing issue is "what should I do about my 100+ year old DWV lines". Your basement would likely not have flooded if these thing had not failed.
I'd also suggest replacing the interior DVW lines, with the new stuff extending to the outside. I had my old cast iron pulled out, and it was not too bad, even with having to jackhammer up the floor. You won't have to do that.
Once the pipes are in good shape, I'd at least put down a vapor barrior. That can be covered with a number of different things, the best being concrete.
Winky,Post 48 is meant for you.Bill
Paving bricks or blocks. Level out the floor with bar sand,tamp,lay pavers and fill in joints with sand.Very easy to do, looks good.
mike
Sorry to hear of your plight. The situation in NH is tragic.
Just imagine the extent of the water pressure on the public sewer system that would be great enough to cause your pipe to break.
If your goal is to make it less mucky, you could certainly get a layer of crushed stone. The better solution would be a concrete pour over a proper water barrier with a drainage system.
Even if the recent flooding is a '100 year' type of event, there is still benefit to preventing moisture migration from the soil into the structure.
Best of luck. Still raining...
Just curious - what coinditions could cause pressure to build up in sewer pipes to the point of breakage? Wouldn't toilets & sinks backup first? Also wouldn't plumbing vents relieve the pressure (of course a house as old as that may not have plumbing vents).
I'm not a plumber & I'm not disputing what happened, I'm just curious as to what could have caused a buildup like that - the only thing I can think of would be blockage on the house side of the pipe preventing pressure relief - however, he said several neighbors had pipes burst too, so that's not likely the case.
I'm not a plumber either, but I was thinking maybe they had a one-way valve that is supposed to prevent backups. If the back pressure was too great, it might break an old line--especially if it was corroded.
Several years ago our furnace stopped working. Repairman said the controller was fried--looked like too much voltage and he though the local power company had caused an electric surge--said it was like the fourth controller he'd replaced that week in people's furnaces. But he said there was no way to prove what caused it, so I couldn't get it paid for by the utility company.
In a really old CI system, having it back up so that the pipes are full of water up just a few feet higher than usual can be enough to blow out the old oakum and lead. An extra story worth of water may only be 4 or 5 PSI, but if that's applied to joints that normally are dry, they can fail. I had that happen on an apartment building when some bozo dropped a beer can down a roof vent. It went all the way to the basement, and flooded.
-- J.S.
Winky said it in the first post...135 year old house. To me (Very Old House Kate) that implies 135 year old cast iron sewage pipes...and they quietly corrode over time, look & act ok, & then something stressful, in more ways than one, happens. It has happened to me, too, the first time exactly a week after we moved into our first old house.
It's very regional. If you called 911 here and talked about a basement, they'd take it seriously. Nobody has basements, so they'd treat it as hallucinations. ;-)
-- J.S.
Amazingly, five different people have sent me e-mails today apologizing for YOUR actions, brownbagg. This isn't an issue about "not sugarcoating" in these forums, it's about not acting like an idiot.
I appreciate everyone's advice regarding my honest inquiry last night.
Edited 10/14/2005 6:22 pm ET by winky
Amazingly, five different people have sent me e-mails today apologizing for YOUR actions, brownbagg. This isn't an issue about "not sugarcoating" in these forums, it's about not acting like an idiot.
Regardless of how much you feel you may have been slighted by brownbagg's response to your question, I think that name calling is completely inappropriate. OK, so you didn't ACTUALLY call him an idiot, but you came real close. I, for one, don't like it.
-Don
Don, telling someone they're acting in an idiotic fashion is very different than calling someone an idiot.
I'm sorry you didn't like my post, but I don't appreciate someone questioning if I'm lying about a serious problem that actually occurred in my house and destroyed all of my family's photo albums, home movies, and other sentimental items. Furthermore, I don't need a lecture from someone about when or when not to call 911 when people in my state have died from the events over the past week or so.
Have you seen what's going on here in New Hampshire? We've had massive rains for nine straight days. People have died. Houses have floated down streams. It's pouring again right now as I type this.
Like I said earlier, a friend of mine referred me to this site because he said I'd get great advice and, for the most part, I have--and for that I'm appreciative.
In regards to my post where I supposedly came close to calling brownbagg an "idiot," well...I guess I'm just abiding by his rules of "no sugarcoating."
I'm curious as to what choices you will make on this situation. So please come back and post the results. You certainly have different options, with some pretty wide ranges in prices.
I personally would rate near the top of my list that suggestion about replacing the remaining old basement drain plumbing. Even cheap low quality PVC DWV is a heck of a lot better than risking another sewage problem with some rather old cast iron.
Although I had a concrete floor installed in my basement, I still have a smaller section of the house with a dirt floor. I no longer feel like incurring the costs to finish that and it's beyond my practical capabilities.
I, for one, don't like it.
Did you cc this to brownbagg as well?
I'm curious as to what choices you will make on this situation. So please come back and post the results. You certainly have different options, with some pretty wide ranges in prices.
I definitely will keep you posted.
Did you cc this to brownbagg as well?
No, I didn't. I only posted it in the thread. I wasn't really trying to offer moral support. I was only trying to comment on where I thought a very vague civility boundary had been crossed.
-Don
My point was that BB crossed that line that you so virtuously defended!
Edited 10/15/2005 5:21 pm ET by DougU
For me this was an unusual request as it involves a number of things that are foreign to me, it is a bigger request than the topic "suggestions for my basement's dirt floor", it also involves a plumbing situation. As far as people believing you or not, I had a clogged sewer several winters ago and the city told me it was impossible for it to freeze where it empties into the street pipe, but it did. I opened it up by flushing salt down the drain until it opened to a trickle and then completely. Sorry to hear of your plight. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, forest fires, pandemic flu.... we need a break!
Everyone prepares for a disaster in their own way.
"flood.jpg"
Just the essentials...
As JohnSprung noted, response to this type of event differs by region. Here in the Salt Lake area, there would be much the same respose as winky received including reimbursment from the city since the backpressure was the city's fault. Winky was fortunate in that the pipe broke and flooded the basement rather than the effluent backing up into the living spaces.
We were just in a house built around 1870 in Eastern Ontario and they had laid down patio stones. 24"x24" or so sized. It looked great! My guess is that the only prep work would be to rake out the dirt floor level and then of course the grunt work of carrying them down the stairs!
Cheers
Winky,
Back to our originally scheduled program...
The first thing you should think about is how you want to use the space and how long you plan to live there. That (along with your time, energy and budget) should give you the context to make an informed decision.
You have received a range of good suggestions, with a wide range of costs. Concrete is the long-term, "best" solution, especially if you will want to expand the use of the basement as your family grows. Depending on how much headroom you have you may want to excavate a bit becaues the concrete will eat up at least 4".
If you just need someplace for storage and have pleanty of space for your growing family then a vapor barrier and gravel could be a great solution. Pavers fall in to the same category - if you just get the cheap ones. Good pavers can easily cost as much as concrete, and done right (gravel base, thin layer of leveling sand, pavers) will be a 7" to 8" thick floor.
And of course, as others have said definately replace the entire sewer pipe run.
Good luck!
Wayne
Why would I spend all this time online starting this thread and checking in regularly? [/rhetorical question]
Better yet, brownbagg, why are YOU spending your time posting in this thread if you think it's bogus?
You're obviously not offering any advice or suggestions, so why don't you try sniffing out a liar in another thread and stay out of this one.
I still don't get what your problem is, you start off giving a newbie a hard time, and you can't take the fact that it is possible that some of us actually call 911 for flooding and sewage problems.
Around here(NE PA)we call 911 to get the FD out to pump our basements after serious rains. For some it may seem a little strange, but for these people who happen to suffer from the strange weather lately its a great relief to know that someone cares.
In many communities around these parts people pay their locality a "sewer" fee. That fee would cover your seweer connection and its maintanence. Up until two years ago, my mothers town would come snake the drain line from your house to the street for free, now the pay roto rooter. How did she call them? The office phone by day, 911 if a night emergency.
Different strokes, diffrent folks, get used to it...