I have a 8 x 14 foot addition on my house that keeps flooding with rain water. The space is about 42″ high so it is not at the same level as the rest of the cellar and the floor is about 12″ thich concrete . The area outside the addition is a patio finished with pavers, so I really don’t want to rip all that up. Any Idea on how to move the water out of the space and into the sump pump?
Dave
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You need to provide more info about how the res of the foundation is relative to this problem addition, and how the stem, walss and drainage were installed for the addition, and the slope of the land around things.
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If we get a very heavy rain ie Hurricane Ivan, I do get water in the rest of the basement, which has a sort of french drain and a sump pump in it. The addition flood almost every rain. before it was back filled, tar was brushed on the block and allowed to dry. The back fill was the same dirt and rock that came out of the hole, probably to much rock. No drainage was installled around the foundation which is lower than a rock vein that ends several feet from the foundation. Although drainage pipes were installed on the rock vein. The slope of the ground around the house is moderately steep. Ten years ago we did quite a bit of grading to direct water away from the house and that did help quite a bit. Dig up around the Foundation?
If all they did was brush on some tar to porous block, then they did very littel to protect aainst water intrusion and nothing whatsoever to redirect the underground water, which sounds like it might be extra-normal due to slopes and the rock spring.
If I built any foundation without providing a drainage path (ie drain lines in stone/gravel at perimeter of the footing) I would EXPECT it to leak. Your drainage needs to be lower than the weepage from rock vein, and run to daylight at nearest lower point, city storm drains, or your sump situation IF it will handle any extra.
re-grading surface may help slightly, but won't begin to deal with that underground water from the rock vein.What area of the country are you in? I'm wondering why this new footing is not as deep as the original. Also, the idea of the footing/slab all in one might be sorta OK, but if the exterior of the footing is same as the slab depth, the lip out there is feeding water to the inside slab. Another point - if he disturbed existing, functioning drain tiles at the perimeter of the original house, you could be facing settlement issues there or re-directed water
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The floor of the crawl-space is 12" thick concrete? That's pretty unusual. Can you give more details on why?
And can you specify whether it's the concrete floor or the ceiling joist height of the crawl that is not level with the rest of the basement?
Dinosaur
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Water in basement
the floor is 12" thick because the contractor had to order a load of concrete so he figured that he would use it all up for the floor!!!!!!! Well it made sense to him.
the floor is 12" thick because the contractor had to order a load of concrete so he figured that he would use it all up for the floor!!!!!!! Well it made sense to him.
Actually, it sounds more like it made dollars for him. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one, LOL.) What it really sounds like is that someone was making out like a bandit at your expense, whether the contractor or the concrete supplier or both....
Don't know where you are because you didn't fill in your profile; but 8x14x1-foot thick is over 4 yards of concrete mix--that's fair amount of concrete: way beyond a minimum load around here. I need to order only one yard to make a minimum load; some companies charge a delivery fee for an order that small, but it's never as much as a yard of mix unless you're 40 miles from the plant....
Standard floor pour here is 3-4" concrete on top of 6-12" of ¾" washed gravel for drainage under the slab. Footings are generally 8x24.
Piffin's response touches most of the major points you need to address; I would also recommend you install a membrane on the outside of the block wall.
As for draining any water already in the crawlspace into your existing sump pump, you need to find the slope of your floor slab to see which corner it slopes to, then bust out that corner and install a 3" floor drain down to the sump. This should have been done before the floor was poured, but.... Better hope your contractor sloped the floor correctly....
I'll only add one more question: were any drains put through the downhill footings so that ground water which seeps in under the slab can run back out on the downhill side? If not, it will back up into your crawlspace every time. This is beginning to sound more and more like you will have some serious excavation and remedial work to do....Dinosaur
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It is the concrete basement floors that are not the same height. The addition abutts the laid up stone foundation of the approximately 100 year old house. A hole was knocked out of the stone foundation to gain access to the new.
As painfull as it might be I think that in the long run getting rid of the water before it gets to the crawlspace is what you need to do.
What about taking up a row or two of the pavers and installing a trench drain next to the foudnation.