Home Flooding

[kingsnake]

I have flooding in my house from this morning's rain storm. It's about an inch in our low-lying living room. There is no direct outside access, like a door, so not sure how it got there except maybe through the wall, or permeating up through the floor due to saturation / pressure.

It's actually the second time it has happened, as we were out of town for my step-mother's funeral two weeks ago, only to come back and find the carpet was soaked. (It's since been discarded). By the time we discovered it, the floor was merely damp.

Now that it has happened twice in two weeks, I am very concerned. We are actually on a hill side, not in a low-lying area.

What can we do to prevent this?

I am off to get a shop vac to suck up the water, but not sure what good that will do until the water stops getting leaking into the living room.

Any help / ideas appreciated ...

[imike]

On the high side of the home, dig down... run the trench all the way across the house... next to the foundation. put perf pipe (4-6") along the bottom of the trench...then connect the perf pipe to solid piping and run that out and down away from the home... and then backfill with gravel... more gravel the better... top off with soil if necessary.

water moving underground will follow the path of least resistance... it will enter the perf (turn the holes to the down or side) and flow off...

good luck!

[chumley]

Mike's advice sounds about right to me. The same thing happened to my aunt in Norway when they built their house near the bottom of a hill. It was a big construction project ... but you've got to get underground and build a drainage route for that water to move around your house, rather than coming up into that low room.

I'd make sure to get an engineer out there and hire somebody to do the work who will put a guarantee on it. Unfortunately, it may be several years before you have the kind of saturation you've got this year, so you might not really be able to put a new drainage system to test. Which isn't really a bad thing.

[big_load]

Good luck! Water in the house is always disheartening.

[neilends]

Are you covered by insurance? If you are, they might contribute to a remedy to prevent this from happening again.

[Sredfield]

@Rockadoodledude
Any advice for getting an ocotillo to grow in the the yard?

[SpiderLegs]

Could be worse, had to drive by the dairy farms on Broadway Road attempting to get my girlfriend to work. Quite a few of the farmhouses had runoff from the cow pastures lapping at their front door.

[kingsnake]

Thanx everyone.

Will look into the perf pipe. Makes sense. I figured there must be a crack somewhere in the foundation. It would not have to be big, but that combinaed with saturated ground and water presure would force it through. Neighbor also suggested sealing the side of the foundation. I'll see how much it costs. Doubtless expensive for either, let alone both, but if I have the funds do both. I prefer to go for overkill, in anything, simply to prevent future problems ...

[The_Eagle]

@kingsnake
If you prefer overkill, there's always stilts.

[sneakySASQUATCH]

@The Eagle
That's how they do it in the hairy green toe of the US also known as Louisiana.

[azbackpackr]

Hawaii, too, even though there isn't much flooding there. It helps keep the bugs out of the house, and cuts down on the dampness. Hawaii is full of termites, cockroaches, centipedes and scorpions. When I built my cabin on the Big Island I put it up on four-foot posts.

[AZLumberjack]

Any help / ideas appreciated ...

Get flood insurance

[AZLumberjack]

farmhouses had runoff from the cow pastures lapping at their front door.

Eweeee, not good :yuck:

[SpiderLegs]

farmhouses had runoff from the cow pastures lapping at their front door.

Eweeee, not good :yuck:

As I drove through the water it looked pretty disgusting. The dairy farms around my house are the large industrial farms with probably 500+ cows in their feed lot. Saw one guy standing in the middle of the water frantically trying to dig a diversion channel.