Help!! Basement drain water backup

[Chris Thomas]

I purchased a home about a year ago that has a basement drain, this drain is not connected to any other part of the plumbing(toilets, sinks ect..) these all exit the house at the top of the basement. Over the past year I have had some minor leaks through the walls, but nothing up through the drain.

This recent storm has caused water to come up through the drain and the basement is slowly filling with crystal clear water. There is no sump pump system, the drain is simply used to drain the dehumidifier water. I am located in Ohio, we didn't get anything major just a continual flow of rain.

This home is not in the city, so it has a septic system.

I have noticed some cracks in the basement floor that have water seeping up from them. Is there usually some type of tile field, that is meant to catch ground water, under the concrete slab(basement floor) and the ground that could be filled with water and the pressure caused the whole floor to crack.

Any help is appreciated

[cacher_chick]

Sorry to hear of your dilemma. There is no very straightforward answer, as every builder does things differently depending on the location in relation to groundwater. Many houses have foundation drains, either around the outside or the inside of the foundation footing. If the house is at a high elevation in relation to the surrounding area,(or the builder was working on the cheap) it might not be installed at all. Any foundation drain has to either be pumped via a sump pump or has to have a way to drain (downhill) to the outside.

Given a big rain, the ground can no longer soak up the water adequately and it starts coming up. If it is a regular occurrence the house should have a foundation drain and sump installed. If it only happens during a 50-year weather event, you could choose to just deal with it. Installing a rock bed sump pit and pump system without a foundation drain might help your problem, but there is no guarantee in that. Many homes can make big improvements by simply extending downspouts well out away from the house and making landscape improvements to ensure that all the surface water flows away from the home.

[ctreefer]

we bought a house 3 years ago with a basement that was built over ground with a high water table. It had the same drain you speak of and would back up during high levels of raining. We are fortunate in that we know where the water exits from the house. I was able to scope up the line from the exit point (storm drain in our driveway) and found a mass of roots in the line. Hired an excavator, removed all the old pipe that was in danger of root penetration and replaced with new 4" green pipe. We've also got a sump pump but it only goes on in severe rains when the ground is saturated. The volume of water exiting during those times exceeds the 4" diameter footing drain capacity which is scary.

Maybe you might be able to scope the line from inside the house if the drain cover is removable? Its also possible the drain you speak of is just leading to a gravel base and the footing drain is somewhere else.

good luck!