"Jennifer" wrote in message
...


Sheldon wrote:

But the amount of water you describe is far less than I pee each
month, a 1 liter urinalful each day, even if 4 months worth all in one
fell swoop, can't possibly be any kind of flooding problem

I'm sure that there are a multitude of other remedies that require no
more than a little sweat labor and no money. Naturally when you call
a contractor for a fix they will make a mountain out of a molehill.

Sheldon...

You're looking at this as though rain is averaged over the year. It
doesn't rain a tablespoon every week, it either rains or it doesn't.

But when it rains... it rains! It doesn't happen often but when it
does, as it did last week, a good two inches of water puddles at my
foundation.


Jennifer, we have the same problem - ****-poor drainage.

The short term solution was to go buy some lengths of ugly black
plastic irrigation pipe. During the winter we put it on the downspouts and
make the water exit on the lawn, far away from the house. I can live
with some ugliness in the yard to have a dry basement and I don't give
a damn what the neighbors think.

For the long term you have to put in a sump pump, in a well. Put
holes in the bottom of the well so the well will drain slowly into the
soil. Make sure you screen the drains going into the sump pump
so that a bunch of soil doesen't go into the well when it rains. Put
the pump on some bricks in the well so that as the dirt level rises
in the well during the season it does not plug the pump intake. And
put in an overflow so that if the power goes out and the well
floods, the water overflows somewhere away from the foundation,
even if it's only a few feet away. Also, make doubly damn sure
that the float on the pump that actuates it cannot come off and
make the pump turn on and run while dry. That happened to our
first pump, fortunately under warranty. For the second one I
drilled holes in the plastic friction adjustment shaft and put in cotter
pins so the float is fixed in place.

The downside is you will have to clean it out once a year since soil
will get into it. But if the driveway is lower than the street you will
have no choice but to use a pump unless you can duct the water into
the sewer (illegal in most jurisdictions nowadays). Water does not
run uphill.

Ted