Flooded basement in Park Slope
We just (three months ago) had our basement waterproofed. It was formerly damp and dank, and water came up from the floor and in from the front and back every time it rained. The contractor dug the basement deeper, put in a waterproof barrier, and poured new concrete (or cement, not sure of the difference)….
We just (three months ago) had our basement waterproofed. It was formerly damp and dank, and water came up from the floor and in from the front and back every time it rained. The contractor dug the basement deeper, put in a waterproof barrier, and poured new concrete (or cement, not sure of the difference). A waterproofing coating was applied to the walls. It stayed dry until this past weekend, when it flooded to about 2″ deep, as bad or worse than before the “waterproofing”.
My contractor now says that this is just inevitable in a heavy rain because the city’s “clay pipes” cannot handle a big rainstorm and the excess water has nowhere to go but into the basements. So, he says, there is nothing he could have done differently, and we should just expect the basement to flood when there’s a big storm.
Is this true? Did every basement in Park Slope really flood yesterday? Is there really nothing that can be done to keep the basement dry?
We had similar issues and did get rid of much of the problem by getting the tree root situation taken care of. The rest we fixed by re-grading the garden area in front of the house and getting the narrow concrete area between our house and the neighboring condo repoured to get rid of some old, deep low spots where water would sit next to the foundation. In the 10 days of heavy Oct. rain last year, we had a perfectly dry basement. It did take a few steps for us to figure out all the points of water entry and eliminate them one by one. So keep at it and good luck.
Looking at yr original post…not sure you really solved the problem of the water heading your way from what the contractor did. You slowed down the penetration of it in to your home and that’s probably good enough for most rainstorms, but not this one. So perhaps you should try doing some work that focusses on why the water is heading towards your home as well? You could make sure the dirt (or concrete or whatever) is properly graded away from your house. Check the hatch is totally sealed, check the gutters for blockage and that they are properly sized and functioning, check where they discharge in to (sewage line hopefully.) If all of this checks out then you can take other measures: put in a drainage system outside of your house near the rear of the house (or wherever the water is coming in) simplest would be to build an underground culvert somehow (preferated PVC piping buried with small rocks leading the water away from the house or else a french drain and so on. Water if it’s heading your way will eventually get to you. I do not believe that you can keep water away unless you send it somewhere else. But stopping a drainage problem can be solved with trial and error. We did it at a number of houses we have owned over the years. Don’t hire an expert at this stuff until you read some simple chapters of a book on landscaping that talk about this stuff. It’s amazing how much the, “experts,” don’t really know.
Original poster here: Thanks for the suggestions. The water was coming in through the steps leading up to the front hatch. So it seems that we solved the old problem of water coming through the floor and walls and created a new one (the steps are new). I have a garden out front, directly in front of the hatch, and I’m wondering if maybe the rainwater was draining right through the dirt and then through the steps. The contractor says he will put a waterproof coating on the steps but given the quantity of water that was coming through, I’m not sure it will be effective. It’s very upsetting to have spent so much money and still have a wet basement!
10:52, that is a good point about the sewer cap. We had that happen a couple of times in big storms.
It is a simple matter to determine whether the water is backing up through the sewer lines VS coming through the floor or walls. Add to your check list rear down spouts yours and your neighbors. Next time it rains sit down in your basement and watch what happens. No sump pump? That would have been the first thing i would have installed. Our basement always gets water EXCEPT yesterday….go figure!
Oh, yes, anon 11:01 is right…I’m anon 10:52…add the tree roots to your checklist. You’ll need Roto-rooter for that. We had it done two months ago. Our sewer lines were clean, but tree roots were clogging the portion where our line meets the city line in the street.
sounds like a load of crap to me…unless every basement in PS is flooded because of the city’s clay pipes, why would it backup only in yours? I would install a sump pump asap…We had horrible flooding in our basement last year and found out that roots had invaded the drain pipes to the city’s sewer lines. After they were cleared out, no more flooding…
You should try first to determine where the water is coming from…perhaps from the cellar hatches if they’re not water-tight or covered; perhaps through the party wall if your next-door neighbor’s cellar floor is higher than yours; perhaps the cap on your main sewer line is loose. We had that happen in an unusually severe rain storm a few years ago. The rain was coming down so fast and furious that it popped the cap on our sewer line, and water was gushing out of it leaving us with several inches of rainwater on the cellar floor. Only after you figure out where the water’s coming from can you try to determine what the next steps should be towards a remedy.