[jessb86]

we have had some heavy rains here lately and we had a flood of about a foot in the basement. we have lived in this house for 2 years now and there has seemed to be some dampness but never has flooded. what can i do to correct the problem. the house was built in the early 1900's. the flooding came from the old floor drain. the drain has a metal flashing like cap it seems. it is about a 4in plate with a smaller hole in the middle that is a 2in opening inside the 4in plate if that makes sense. so my opening for the drain in 2in just to be clear. this is flush too. so nothing coming out of the floor.

i have wanted to try to put a stand pipe there but there is nothing for the pipe to connect to.

but my real problem is that i can not plug the drain because i need this drain for mu furnace, that is where this drains too. i also have a dehumidifier that drains there as well. so i still need to have something that will drain out but not let water come in. that is where my problem is. even a stand pipe would not let that happen.

the opening is not threaded either so it is also hard for me to but a check valve in there as well. i am at a lose.

i would like to get away from digging a hole in the concrete to put a sub pump down there. the basement is not finished so i dont care so much about the basement just other that my furnace and hot water heater is down there.

please help.

 

[Daniel Holzman]

Since you had a foot of water in your basement, that indicates that the groundwater was a foot higher than the elevation of the basement. Plugging the floor drain will do no good, the water will simply come up through cracks in the basement slab. If by some miracle there are no cracks in the slab, the entire slab is likely to break due to the water pressure.

This is an unfortunate problem that is not easy to solve. The best solution is a perimeter drain (there are many threads on this forum related to perimeter drains, sometimes called French drains), just do a search and see all the comments. Perimeter drains can be outside the slab footprint (an external drain) or inside the walls (an interior drain). In all cases, the water needs to flow to a lower elevation, which could be a storm drain if your town allows that kind of connection, or a stream or possibly a low spot on your lot. You are going to need to do an accurate elevation survey of your property to figure out where you can drain to, and remember water flows based on the relative elevation of the water, not the ground, so a low spot may not work if it fills with water during a flood event.

Start by doing a survey, then talk to the town about the storm drain. Installing a perimeter drain can be hard work, and you may want to consider having a contract do the work.

 

[BigD9]

I had a house once where the floor drain was connected to the basement wall drain. This wall drain was supposed to flow out to a valley or low spot. Problem was someone filled in the valley and then every time it rained water backed up, flooded the wall drain and them came up the floor drain. Solution was to dig down to the French drain that was filled over and extend it to another low area.

I also brought in some dirt and raised the grade around the foundation so rain water would not seep down the wall and get into the wall drain.

Good luck and I hope you find the cause of your problem.

 

[jessb86]

thanks daniel. what a mess!