Help With The Creeping Seep
October 7, 2013 7:57 PM   Subscribe

Hi all. I'm a relatively new homeowner in Brooklyn, NY. A creeping seep is attempting to devour our basement. It started two weeks ago, and seeps whether wet or dry. The plumbing has already been investigated. What to do next?

We live in a single-family house attached on both sides. Our furnace room, a 5' x 5' room with the hot water heater and furnace in the basement, has always taken in water during a hard rain, though I have been able to mitigate this to some extent by changing the roof gutter to pour further away from the foundation. About two weeks ago this room began to slowly fill up with a slow seep of water. The floor of the room is about 1.5" lower than the rest of the basement, so it is able to hold a pretty good amount of water before overflowing to the rest of the basement. We had a plumber in who replaced a number of corroded valves in the potable/hot water heater part of the system, but they did not stop the seep. The seep occurs whether it is raining or dry, even if there are 5 dry days in a row. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the water is entering, but it is always damp under the foundation wall which is connected to the neighbor's house. The back of the furnace room, where the backyard is, appears dry.

My two part question: 1: what could be causing this that I don't know about cause I'm all like, oh yeah, owning a house is like totally easy, dude, and 2: how bad is this if it goes on for a while, assuming we vacuum up the water every day and keep it from pooling.

Other possibly relevant info: the backyard is a concrete slab that abuts the back of the house. There is a hose connection there, but I don't think it's leaking.

Thanks!
posted by drapatz to Home & Garden (4 answers total)
 
Have you talked to your neighbor on that side? It sounds like either it's coming from there or going there - you should definitely do that first.

My parents' house floods when the street drain backs up -the plumbing is fucked and it forces water up through a floor drain in the laundry room. If you have a drain like that, it might be worth checking into.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:00 PM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


You probably want to have a basement specialist or two come in and give you estimates for mitigation, assuming you and they agree on the cause. Ideally stopping the infiltration from outside is best, but isn't always possible and you have two sides you don't control at all here. So you may just end up deciding to install a drainage/sump pump system. These are usually done by piercing the basement slab and putting in a sort of gutter all the way around that drains downward toward a depressed sump pump, which then deals with the problem by pumping it out to a suitable location based on your local codes.
posted by dhartung at 3:31 AM on October 8, 2013


Best answer: Definitely talk to your neighbors. If they are having the same problem, it may be due to backup from the main sewer line that runs down your street, which the city is responsible for. Some of the sewer lines in Brooklyn are >100 years old and very frail. Also, the city is constantly doing sewer repairs here and there, and that can also set off problems if the work isn't done right.

If you think it is the main sewer line, try calling 311 or the DEP, or better yet, contacting your City Council member together with your neighbors.
posted by ROTFL at 4:26 AM on October 8, 2013


Response by poster: More data: When I run the shower on the 1st floor and run downstairs, I can see the water seeping in from under the foundation. This points to it possibly being a main sewer backup problem, though the water coming in is definitely not sewagey...
posted by drapatz at 5:05 PM on October 9, 2013


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