Basement sump question

1824 Views 8 Replies 4 Participants Last post by jomama45, May 23, 2011

wileefox

Discussion Starter · May 21, 2011

Just went to check on our not quite finished new construction home. There is a sump and pump in it, and when I first checked, the water level in the sump was very low. Now, after three straight days of rain, I heard water running into the sump. As I investigated, I noticed a stub of black corrugated plastic pipe extending horizontally into the sump. That stub was the source of the water trickiling into the sump.

Is that pipe part of a drain tile system? Note that the builder has not yer sloped/graded the lot away from the foundation.

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iamrfixit

· #6 · May 22, 2011

Ron6519 said:
It woold make no sense(to me) to take water from the exterior, bring it inside the building to then pump it out again.
Ron

It could be an inside perimeter tile, or an outside footing tile, or both.

That exterior water has to go somewhere, or it would very quickly become interior water.

Unless the house is on a hill allowing the footing drain tile around the exterior perimeter to be routed downhill to daylight, or downhill (hopefully very downhill) to a storm sewer, then it is very likely that it is routed to the sump pit in the basement.

In the old days footing tiles were sometimes routed to the sanitary sewer but that is rarely ever allowed and should never be done even if it is.

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iamrfixit

· #8 · May 22, 2011

Sump pump discharge to the sanitary sewer is bad, but they used to put footing tiles directly into the sewer and that is even worse. When the sewer becomes overwhelmed with storm water there is no stopping a backup. Not only does the water around your foundation have nowhere to go when the sewer fills up, but the sewer can and will flow backwards into your basement through those drain tiles.

New houses are not done this way anymore, but occasionally some uneducated hack will try to do it out of laziness or simply being cheap, not wanting to deal with a sump and discharge line. They have no concern for the folks living at the bottom of the hill who have sewage shooting out their basement toilets and drains every time it rains. Crazy as it sounds at one time they even allowed rain gutters to discharge into the sewer.

Ii is not legal anywhere these days due to the high cost of sewage treatment; but there are millions of houses across the country that still have their tiles either directly or through sumps discharging to the sanitary sewer. Some municipalities had outdated systems that used a common pipe for storm and sanitary sewer. When the sewer was overwhelmed during heavy rains; sewage water was just discharged into lakes or rivers instead of being treated.

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