New to living in the States. Recently we’ve had a lot of thunderstorms and rain. I went down to the basement today to fetch my laundry and the floor (carpeted) is soaking. Nothing has leaked. I can only assume it’s rain water coming up through the floor??
How can I stop this?
Edit: thanks everyone for all the replies! I will call a professional out tomorrow and have them look for/check the sump pump along with all your other suggestions. Until then, towels and fans it is! Thanks again 🩵
Comments
Carpet in the basement is (and I grew up in a home where half the basement was carpeted) a really dumb design flaw, I agree.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeowners/comments/i4aek3/basement_carpet_got_wet_is_it_done_for/
Depending on your specifics, there’s likely nothing you can do until the water levels go down.
It’s possible it came through the floor, but more than likely you have a crack in the walls of your foundation and it is coming through there. How do you fix it? Hire someone to either repair, put in a french drain, etc.
Do you have sump pump? If so, make sure it is running (they can die, or have the breaker trip). If not, you may need to install one (hopefully you have a sump pit already). If you’re in the area with flooding, this may be unusual, but you need to dry that carpet out with a wetvac and some fans or it is going to reek and get disgusting.
OK- quick. Do you have a full basement? It wont come through the floor but could be a cove joint failing. Cove joint is where the side of the walls meet the bottom and sometimes they just fail.
This could be something you correct from the outside or the inside.
You need to go to a hardware store and go get a hose (if you dont have one) and a jitterbug pump. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Wayne-1-6-HP-WaterBUG-Submersible-Utility-Pump-with-Multi-Flo-Technology-WWB/207072430
Our cove joint failed buy only because we accidentally blocked a lawn drainage pipe and the lawn wasn’t draining.
Do you have gutters for your roof with water draining away?
Bob Vila to the rescue: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/water-seeping-through-basement-floor/
In our case we’d had some outside work done that changed how the landscape so that water coming down the hill behind us headed toward the house. In a heavy storm it would pile up against the outside basement wall and seep in. We regraded the land, giving the water more of an incentive to flow around the house. So far it’s worked (knock on wood).
Former home builder and land developer here. Can you describe it more? Also, how old is the house and does it have a floor drain?
What state are you in? We hardly have any basements in my state because of this. Some of the dirt in the US is terrible for basements
When my house did that, it was coming in through the windows because the moron previous owner lined the window well floor with plastic keeping it from soaking into the ground.Â
Make sure that isn’t happening.Â
It’s possible the float in your sump pump is stuck. That happened to my husband and me.
I saw a basement in Oklahoma one time. And the water was all the way up to the door that was the entrance into that basement. I recently had to deal with flooding in my apartments, not the same reason of course but I feel your pain with wet soggy socks. Super gross for sure.
Separate from figuring out what happened: either contact a mitigation company or at least go to Home Depot or somewhere and rent a couple of the industrial carpet drying fans ASAP. You don’t want mold to set in.
Could be a window well that’s flooding into the room. That’s usually a big vector for water, especially in the ground is already soaked.