Dry until basement was finished

ColDave

I had an unfinished, THIN concrete basement that I put three coats of Drylok on the floor and walls before I had a contractor finish my basement. After the Drylok I had no real water issues. When they did the studs, the punched through the concrete with the "explosive nails" (?). Now anytime there is a soaking rain there is seepage where the framing is in the lower part of my basement. I thought about installing a sump pump or two (with battery backup) to aide in removing water, building up the outside wall with topsoil, checking to make sure down spouts are moving water away from the house, etc. Any other recommendations? Is the dual sump pump idea a good idea? ANY suggestions would be great...

FYI: During hurricane Irene last week I wet/dry vacuumed up 168 gallons of water from my floor.

Thanks

JazMan

You've got issues to repair and modify. The "explosive nails" had nothing to do with it.

Jaz

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ColDave

Can you elaborate?? Also, why did I not have any seepage until the basement was finished. The seepage comes from under the studs. I have access to behind all of the walls and there is no water behind the walls. It starts under the studs. If it wasn't the nails, what was it??

AllanJ

You were unlucky enough to get a storm of a magnitude not expected more than once every 100 years. Then the water table rose high enough to flood your basement.

Water may have come up from the holes through which the explosive driven nails went. If water had not come up through there it would have come up through cracks elsewhere or maybe even right through the concrete floor which is porous. It is almost impossible to keep a basement totally sealed all the way around. Instead it is customary to install a French drain around the perimeter and use a sump pump.

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ColDave

So I should install a French drain inside the walls (inside the basement) or outside the walls (outside facing perimeter of the house), and then one or two sump pumps in the basement?

Thank you for your response.

Done That

I resolved a similar high water table issue using two sump pumps, one AC and one a secondary/battery back-up. Cracked the floor and installed a sump pit with a bunch of holes drilled into it to catch the rising water, backfilled with plenty of clean coarse gravel.

FYI I already had both inside and outside perimeter drain tiles but they could not handle the load when we had two different massive deluges.

I did not tie the new pit into the existing inside drain tile. Have been water free for over 8 years now. I did also extend all downspouts etc but have peace of mind being able to kind of monitor the water level in the pit. Good luck.

Daniel Holzman

I assume the "explosive nails" were Pasload or similar. They did not punch through the concrete, unless you had a REALLY narrow concrete wall, extraordinarily long nails, and the largest charge possible. Most likely the nails penetrated less than an inch into the concrete. I agree with previous posts, the nails likely had nothing to do with your problem.

As to solving a high water table problem, you need to make a careful evaluation of the cause of the problem. There are numerous posts on this forum over the last three years discussing causes and solutions to high groundwater issues, I suggest you do a search and begin reading. Retrofit solutions tend to be expensive and invasive, so should be done only after careful, thorough analysis of your specific situation, which may require installation of one or more groundwater monitoring devices (well, piezometer, test pit) so you can see how high the water table really gets, what kind of soil you have, and what system (if any) you already have in place to control groundwater.