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Posted by Bernie E. on July 12, 2005, 4:52 pm
> So, our house is about 6 weeks old now (new construction - we closed
> at the of May), and we're having some rather severe problems in our
> basement.
>
> While it has been raining seemingly every day now for the past month
> here in Atlanta, we've been to the basements of other houses still
> under construction in the same subdivision and none of them have
> the problem we're having, so it's just our house.
>
> And the problem is, we're seeing water on the basement floor. It's
> worst after a heavy rain, of course, but regardless we get wet floors.
> It's mostly just at the base of two of the walls, and in one corner
> the water actually pools up, though mostly its just dampness on the
> floor along the walls. The floor at the middle of the basement is
> dry as a bone - it's just where the wall meets the floor, coming out
> maybe 2 or 3 inches from the wall.
>
> There's no dampness on the walls, mind you, JUST the floors.
>
> There are no visible cracks anywhere in the floor.
>
> I have a weather gauge down there that showed the humidity at 80%
> at one point. The builder came and put a dehumidifier in the
> basement, but after a week of running 24/7, the humidity is down
> to just 72%.
>
> About a week ago we saw (yellow) mold growing on stuff we had
> stashed down there, so we've spent the past week trying to clean
> up what we could and tossing the rest.
>
> The foundation has the black stuff (tar?) on the outside, and like
> I said, it's not coming in via the walls anyways. The windows and
> door are sealed correctly, so that's not the source of the problem,
> and anyways the areas most affected are those furthest away from
> the windows and door.
>
> The grading on the house appears ok, although I don't have
> instruments to measure it - I'm just eyeballing it.
>
> The downspouts were just the standard ones that didn't have any
> extensions on them, but after we complained the first time the
> builder added some piping to the downspouts so they emptied out
> about four feet from the foundation. It appears that did little
> to nothing about this problem.
>
> The builder also ran a snake through the foundation drain (which
> yes, it is exposed to the surface at both ends) and there was
> nothing clogging the drain.
>
> We've checked all around on the second floor ceilings for leaks
> and there's nothing visible. Nothing visible in the attic either,
> so there's no *obvious* leakage coming in from the top of the
> house.
>
> The builder doesn't have any more ideas (at least not that he's
> sharing with us), and we certainly don't know what else could
> be the problem, unless there just so happens to be a spring under
> our foundation (I know one guy to whom that actually happened!).
>
> While it's tempting to just throw down a sealant on the basement
> floor and forget about it, that only keeps the water from getting
> to the top of the basement slab, it doesn't stop it from
> permeating the entire rest of the slab just short of the surface.
>
I had the exact same problem in my house. The water would be in a pool in a
low area right in the middle of the floor with No signs of where it came
from......
I was not home enough to catch it happen. I looked at everything such as
over head water pipes or drains that could be leaking. I thought it was
coming up thru the floor and the builder swore it was imposable to come up
thru the cement floor due to the way it was done.
Finally I was home during a good down poor and found the water entering from
around the sewer line where it went thru the foundation wall which was
covered with insulation. It would run down the wall and to the low spot in
the middle of the floor and the trail would evaporate leaving no signs what
so ever of where it came from.
I bought this product called Great Stuff and used a straw to get it in as
deep as I could and seal the pipe entrance. Well this stopped the leak from
that pipe and moved it down to the next pipe which was the incoming water
line so I sealed that in the same manner.
I have never seen any water since and that was about 8 years ago. May or
may not be your problem but though I would pass it on.
Bernie
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