My Basement Flooded and I Installed a Sump Pump.
(Fullsize versions are available for each pic just by clicking on the pic.) My Flooded Basement 
How deep is it? Here's a 5 cell Mag Charger for scale at the threshhold. 
We normally have a very high water table here in town; half of the town is a backup reservoir for the City of Boston. The sump hole usually has an inch or two of water in it, but it varies from being dry to having 5 or 6 inches. It is about 12 inches deep. I'm pretty sure the water came up from the sump hole. Well, now there's a sump pump in it, set to run only when the water nears the top... I don't want to try to pump out the entire reservoir! 
My Sump Hole with my Sump Pump installed. Things are juuuust starting to dry: 
I had set up the pump by fashioning some PVC piping in a temporary fashion to get the water out. The pump moves about 2,000 gallons of water per hour and it took about an hour and a half or two hours to get about 6 inches of the water out. The rest got pumped out in about a half hour just before setting up the pump the next day. The only bright side to this, other than I now am prepared for the next flood 17 years from now, is that I hadn't put my new portable dehumidifier in the basement yet. The old one died and I had purchased a new one to replace it but hadn't got around to putting it down there. woo hoo!
The dehumidifier is running now and the whole basement is dry. Dehumidifier running the day after. Note old dead dehumidifier in the background!  |
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Wow  That was quite an operation! I hope you didn't have anything stored down there to be damaged! |
There is something kinda cool about saying "Yeah, I have a sump pump in my basement." I want one now. Only I don't have a basement  Glad nothing to bad happened with all that water in your house. |
| Gee Ron, I've always wanted an indoor pool, I guess this isn't the way to go about it.
Glad you are high and dry again. Hope you dehumidifer keeps the mold away. It may be another 17 years or next month, you just never know......good to be ready. |
Was there not already a sump pump down there? I feel like such a girl, but I thought they always came with a basement. Or did the first one just fail (which happened to us once when we first moved in here  )? |
ButtersStotch wrote: Was there not already a sump pump down there? I feel like such a girl, but I thought they always came with a basement. Or did the first one just fail (which happened to us once when we first moved in here
)?I was thinking the same thing. LOL. I just assumed a sump pump in the basement was like a knob on a door. Standard. Guess not!  |
| OMG Ron!!!
I hope you didn't lose anything! Okay well maybe you lost your mind, or temper but hope nothing else of value. 
Marianne |
| at least it wasnt overrun sewer water...ick...wow, that cant be considered a basement..lol..those ceilings are way too low..... |
| I was wondering if anyone would notice that! It's very observant of you. Unless of course the water was just very high! LOLOL
Yeah, the 1st owner/last owner/builder of this house was kinda weird and really stubborn. His name was also Ron, believe it or not. 
This house is one of the very oldest in town -- at least some of the beams are. Ron was a contractor, and he rebuilt the house in the late 80's from the ground up, reusing some structural beams and he sort of did it one wall at a time. His house was next door, and his other next door neighbor, his Brother-in-Law, repeatedly suggested that Ron add a few feet of basement ceiling height. But Ron was stubborn and didn't want to deal with that issue with the Town Building Department, so he stayed with the 5 foot high ceilings when he rebuilt. Go figure. I guesstimate it at $30,000 to raise the building to increase the ceiling height. Can't go deeper due to that aforementioned high water table. |
| WOW you are so handy, did you do it yourself?
Send the excess unwanted water down here please  
Would make a good indoor pool, beforehand, till the handy sump pump was installed, just need to add jets & bubbles for that spa feeling.  |
| LOL - the comments about the houses coming with sump pumps. I guess with new homes and mostly finished basements, it would be the norm.
I had a flooded basement 3 times in my life. 1st was the Victorian house I lived in while in college with 7 girls. We had a family party (night out at our favorite bar) before Christmas break. Of course all had to pee immediately upon arriving home. 3 bathrooms - one on each level. Roomie Shawna and I went for the basement - plain and less of a line! and found 4 inches of water. Cold, crystal clear water. Further searching found a waterfall coming through the limestone walls. After a call to the landlord, sent his teenage son, "yes dad, there really is water pouring like a waterfall" - we found out the city had a broken water main and it was pouring into our basement... Not good in a MN winter!
2nd was a rental house, and when they reroofed they didn't put the gutters and downspouts back on........ 3rd was our current farm and thought living on top of a hill it would be impossible. Never say never. Ended up buying a new motor for the furnace after that one. 
Like the new and old dehumidifiers |
got sheep wrote: Like the new and old dehumidifiers The new one is so "rounded and sleek and 'moderin,' huh?" said the salesman.
IT'S GOING IN A BASEMENT |
Ron wrote: got sheep wrote: Like the new and old dehumidifiers The new one is so "rounded and sleek and 'moderin,' huh?" said the salesman. IT'S GOING IN A BASEMENT But, there are basements, and there are cellars... |
got sheep wrote: But, there are basements, and there are cellars... I've always used the two interchangeably. When I hear "root cellar" I think of a dirt place with a wooden door leading out onto a field (Hey, I watched movies). Of course "finished basement" is a living space and "crawl space" is somewhere you never want to be. Technically, I *think* my basement is a "crawl space" but since it is nicely poured concrete I think that term connotes a much worse thing than it is. So I think of both basements and cellars as enclosed spaces below grade; is there a difference in your neck of the woods? |
| basement cellar both mean the same to me , and as for sump pumps I have never lived in a house with one, altho I know many who do |
| Hats off (literally) to you Ron, for doing all that work in a space with only five feet of ceiling. I hope you didn't lose anything of value, and that your back is ok. |
Ron wrote: got sheep wrote: But, there are basements, and there are cellars... I've always used the two interchangeably. When I hear "root cellar" I think of a dirt place with a wooden door leading out onto a field (Hey, I watched movies). Of course "finished basement" is a living space and "crawl space" is somewhere you never want to be. Technically, I *think* my basement is a "crawl space" but since it is nicely poured concrete I think that term connotes a much worse thing than it is. So I think of both basements and cellars as enclosed spaces below grade; is there a difference in your neck of the woods? To me, a basement is habitable - whether it's finished or not. A cellar is not habitable, used for storage or other dark, spidery-ness.
I definitely have a cellar. It is stacked limestone and dirt. Entrance is by a wooden trap door (sorry Ron it comes out into my lawn, not the hayfield). It does have full height ceilings. Well, at least for me....not sure about a taller person. All that's down there is the furnace. There could be more, but d/t the pain in the butt of having to open the trap door, it isn't. Enough to get down there monthly in the winter to change the furnace filter. Have to time it with snow and ice - not always easy! |
| Wow Ron. I am impressed with your handiwork.
Ron wrote: The only bright side to this, other than I now am prepared for the next flood 17 years from now, is that I hadn't put my new portable dehumidifier in the basement yet.
I just hope you are not like my dad now ...... We have had so many 3+ days power outages here over the last few years with storms that my dad had a backup generator installed. He seemed almost disappointed the last time my power went out and his didn't thus not being able to use the generator. |
| Was relaying story of your indoor pool to our driver Friday and he had stories of his how having lived in NE and MidWest. One house, an L shape had a sump pump on the one side, but the other part, the "L" as he referred to was built atop a spring! No pump. His pump came on every 15 minutes 24/7. He was seriously considering heating part of his house from the water that became warm after going thru the pump.
Another house, not his but a relatives, flooded so often from nearby river and high water table, they built an addition several feet above the "high water line" so when the main house flooded they could move to the addition while they repaired the old. Cellar to me isn't open to the house from inside, but rather from an outside set of doors, rather like a root cellar mentioned before. Basement is a liveable space if necessary. Crawl space......I agree above, where nobody wants to be!! We have many homes here with the furnace in the crawl space.......I'd never change filters!!! |
SheepieMommy wrote: I just hope you are not like my dad now ...... We have had so many 3+ days power outages here over the last few years with storms that my dad had a backup generator installed. He seemed almost disappointed the last time my power went out and his didn't thus not being able to use the generator. |
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