Mark Kosmowski
Member
- Messages
- 1,456
- Location
- Central (upstate) NY
Since a really bad flood season a couple years back (during which, in two different floods, my friend's company and the competition across the river each lost a crane in Binghamton, NY) our basement has been taking on a bit of water in the heavy rains. By a bit I mean at worst there is 1/4" accumulation due to unevenness in the floor before the water makes it to the washing maching drain hole. We live on the top of a hill and do not have a sump pump.
Since I'm going to be laid off soon I figure I should take advantage of the time to attempt to remedy this situation. There seems to be a crack in the foundation which is where the water comes from. I think (but do not know - the floor was painted when we bought the house) that the large hydrostatic pressure of the aforementioned wet season caused something to break leading to water uptake.
I have two plans to deal with this. First, I want to direct water away from the level area at the upper corner of the house. This will be done by either adding gutter to go along the side of the house to drop on a slope, digging a bit of a trench from where the existing gutter work drops the water to the slope and/or using concrete to make a surface channel from the current gutter fall to the slope.
The other idea is to take my crappy circular saw (a $20 wal-mart special), put in a masonry blade and cut some channels running from where the water seems to come from to where the drain hole is. I would likely just make the channels as wide as the "blade" kerf and then apply a little bit of thick concrete on top to seal them up and repaint the floor. Once I got close to the drain hole I could use a masonry bit and hammer-drill so as not to saw into the hole. This would be a shameless excuse to buy a hammer-drill and masonry bits. This reminds me, I need to order more P100 filter cartridges for my half-face respirator.
I had thought about trying to reseal the crack, but am concerned that another hydrostatic pressure event would occur and either re-break my patch or make a new crack. The channels would (hopefully) prevent the water from accumulating while giving the hydrostatic pressure a place to go without breaking anything else.
Do my ideas have merit or am I not properly thinking about things?
Since I'm going to be laid off soon I figure I should take advantage of the time to attempt to remedy this situation. There seems to be a crack in the foundation which is where the water comes from. I think (but do not know - the floor was painted when we bought the house) that the large hydrostatic pressure of the aforementioned wet season caused something to break leading to water uptake.
I have two plans to deal with this. First, I want to direct water away from the level area at the upper corner of the house. This will be done by either adding gutter to go along the side of the house to drop on a slope, digging a bit of a trench from where the existing gutter work drops the water to the slope and/or using concrete to make a surface channel from the current gutter fall to the slope.
The other idea is to take my crappy circular saw (a $20 wal-mart special), put in a masonry blade and cut some channels running from where the water seems to come from to where the drain hole is. I would likely just make the channels as wide as the "blade" kerf and then apply a little bit of thick concrete on top to seal them up and repaint the floor. Once I got close to the drain hole I could use a masonry bit and hammer-drill so as not to saw into the hole. This would be a shameless excuse to buy a hammer-drill and masonry bits. This reminds me, I need to order more P100 filter cartridges for my half-face respirator.
I had thought about trying to reseal the crack, but am concerned that another hydrostatic pressure event would occur and either re-break my patch or make a new crack. The channels would (hopefully) prevent the water from accumulating while giving the hydrostatic pressure a place to go without breaking anything else.
Do my ideas have merit or am I not properly thinking about things?