leaking old stone foundation
Since I get good advice on here, here's another one. My mother's house is from like 1910. It has the old stone foundation. The basement has leaked ever since she's had the house, so that's like over 40 years now. There are two sump pumps. One on either side of the basement but it still doesn't matter because it comes in every which way it feels like it. It's getting worse and finding more ways to get in. My brother tried patching up the worse spots and it just finds another way in. I have been trying to get someone professional to look at it to see what can be done but she refuses to let me do that. She doesn't care if I tell her the house is going to collapse or that one day the power is going to go out during days of rain and the basement will fill up, destroying the washer/dryer and the furnace. So threats won't work. LOL. She has this thing in her head that the only way it can be fixed is to spend 30 to 50 thousand dollars on a new foundation and jacking up the house etc. And maybe she's right but I think it's worth at least asking someone if there are other solutions. Has anyone else had experience with this and there was another solution besides spending your life's savings? And if I can convince her to at least get an opinion, I've been working on her for years, who would I call?
nutcracker Check the gutters. Get them replaced if they leak. If not, attach some flexible tubing to the end of her downspouts and run the water away and downhill. Worked for us.
Red GrangeCheck the land, hopefully evident which way it’s coming from. Last one I did was on three sides of house.
Two choices: surface and underground.
Surface hopefully you can berm and swale away from house. Or those lovely stone fields.
First approach I did was re-do side of house to be sure ground sloped away. I thought it fine, excavator said different so I bought bags of dirt and added 4 inches at foundation tapered down to ground by foundations planting edge and fixed 25% of wet basement, a giant 1/4 bedroom all dry.
Underground you can pipe and french drain away, more expensive.
Last one I did, after the above gound stuff, I got the county to allow hookup to their drain system. I essentially just dug trenches, two parallel across hill on back of house. Used plain ole perforated pipe, special gravel and cloth, and then brought the leader right to the street.
I could have french drained the house, but it had drains, it had a sump, so I figured let’s get rid of some water farther up the hill and my method was far cheaper than a french drain.
Took a councilman to allow connection to county drain. Cost 10 grand. Back yard went from swamp where I lost a shoe to dry backyard with kids playground.
House was 90% better, added a second sump pump and drain trench. Now ok.
So, above ground is first approach after gutters, below ground is expensive and you are guessing and might need even more.
Again, good luck. I used pro’s to design and other pro’s to implement the drain field. The above ground I did myself. That’s your first choice.
Babbit You didn't say where exactly this house is located, but some areas of Independence have undergrounds rivers. Once day, about 12 years ago, I had a foot of water in my basement and water pouring out of the ground. I had to have my entire yard dug up and trenches filled with stone leading the water away from my house several years ago. It worked. No more water in my basement, although my yard does have areas that still get very wet after heavy rains.
Lonesome Dove The trench thing can work, mine just added perforated piping to drain faster, and clothe to protect the piping from getting clogged. I even put a couple of ground-level access points in case I ever wanted to flush the pipes.
Mine was a hill rising from back of house so I went halfway up the yard/hill and dug two trenches, about 40 feet a part, parallel, that culminated in a leader at edge of lawn which then went to street. The upper trench was even a bit shorter because of the ground pitch. If you can't connect to street drain, where you terminate can be important. You can hope it all magically goes away before the end, but it not, you have a mess at the end. Sometimes a pit helps. Other times, you will force surface water at that point. It all just depends.
And getting permission to connect; frankly, I was just lucky. They started with no, brought councilman in, he questioned pipe size, I said, sure, I can go smaller, and he made it so. Weird, but it worked and pipe was too large anyway but "cousin" civil engineer laid it out, so, honestly, I was glad someone else told cousin he was wrong. :>)
Often folks just go with long trench and that's good enough, but perhaps that's why LD got a damp lawn and I have a rock solid playground area where once I lost my sneaker in the swamp.
Thing is, a trench is a lot cheaper than trying a french drain. Close to the house, next to foundation, especially a stone one, is more expensive. My stone foundation is 150 years old, quicklime, and I am not digging a trench next to it, too risky.
Take your time, watch the rain, hopefully it's surface water and you can swale/berm your way to dryness.
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