Flooded

When M has told me in the past that her basement flooded, I believed her but I had no mental picture in my head. Where I'm from, there are really only two kinds of flooding: man made/accidental and flash floods. Neither of which seemed to correspond with what she was telling me; man-made can usually be drained off to a safe place once it is identified and flash floods tend to come like a freight train and then disappear just as fast.

 

Wednesday night her basement flooded. We didn't know until lunchtime Thursday when I decided to go down and light a small fire to take the chill off. We knew it had been raining fairly steadily for a few days, but we had been down in the basement and hadn't seen any issues, so thought we were in the clear. As I stepped off the last step of the stairs, however, it was readily apparent we were not. The first step, about as far away from the areas that flood as can be, squished from the wetness the rug had absorbed.

 

We quickly grabbed appropriate shoes and started looking. Nearly every square inch of her basement floor was covered in an 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch layer of water. Her wood piles were getting soaked from below, the few items not in plastic bins were getting thoroughly drenched, and the water had nowhere to go.

 

M's basement is the same size as her top floor; about 1200 square feet. She has installed walls to make a large main area with the fireplace, wood piles, and a spot for reading and chairs. There is a hallway in the center of the basement and off of it are are good-sized storage room, a nice bedroom, and a bathroom. The bathroom and storage room are not finished, but the bedroom has some furniture in it.

 

My friend Matt (former math teacher and my general math guru) tells me, with an average of 3/16 of an inch over the entire floor (1200 sq ft), that we had about 140 gallons (530 litres) of liquid down there! To put that into perspective, the average tank capacity of the largest home water heaters is between 40 and 50 gallons. So this was about three times that amount! Those really large aquariums you see in movies that are the same length as a three-cushion couch are roughly 140-150 gallons.

 

In the storage room is an access to the sewer to which her wash basin is attached. In the bathroom are two other access holes in her foundation to get at other pipes. One is for the tub access to drain, and no one seems to know what the other is for. Anyway, it is from these holes that the flooding occurs. As they are open to the ground below her house, if the water table rises high enough it can just seep right up those holes and into the basement. She also gets a little flooding from her back door, but some landscaping has lessened/negated that aspect.

 

M knew just what to do with one hole, opening up the sewer valve and letting the water there drain into the sewer. I tried to broom some of the water toward another drain hole near her water heater, but had limited success.

 

M called her father, who came over with his tools and finished installing the sump pump. This is a device that you install in your floor that the water from the water table or flooding is supposed to find and drain into. When it does, a float raises and the pump turns on, draining the excess water into the sewer. One problem, though-- once he had the sump pump fully installed and working, it didn't start draining! Even the sewer access hole that was two feet away from the sump pump hole remained filled with water, indicating that the water was not draining out and not seeking the sump pump.

 

We kept the fire burning until we went to bed, and M turned R2, her dehumidifier that looks strangely like R2-D2, on high to deal with the excess liquid. Last night as we were about to head out for a meeting with her priest we heard the sump pump kick on automatically for the first time. So we know it works and we know the water is finally seeking it.

 

Today, the three holes are mostly drained and the majority of the water on the basement floor is gone. However, the remaining water really shows how many areas are not level in her basement. I lit another fire to help with the water evaporation and R2 is still going full blast. I took a broom and spread out the water in those pools to help thin it out and get it evaporating faster.

 

I haven't heard the sump pump go off all day today, but the water level has also dropped significantly. Hopefully we are beyond the worst of it and won't have any further issues. However, I am concerned that the sump pump wasn't working all that great last night (we only heard it activate the one time) and that flooding still may be an issue in the future. Of course, the pump will help for sure, but it may not be the only solution to this situation.

 

One solution that her father recommended is having someone come in and re-do the flooring so that it is purposely not level. Have them slope it so that the entire floor is subtly draining toward the drain by the water heater and the sump pump (which we could leave with an access or drain hole). Also, finishing the downstairs bathroom and hydro-cementing over the two holes there would also greatly reduce the ability of the water to enter in the first place. Water being water, it will always seek the easiest path. If we remove the three easy paths, it may drain more into the sump pump and her issues may be gone.

 

Coming from the desert, it is an odd experience to see this kind of flooding. Had I been thinking, I would have taken pictures and posted them with this entry. As it is, you can imagine our surprise when we saw the vast amount of water inundating her basement.