# Water Backing up Though hole in basement



## dynamis (Jul 25, 2008)

Best way to describe it is a 4in hole that looks like it the main drainage out of the house descovered after we ripped up the foor and found it..it was covered but i broke the cover off since seemed like the seal was broken anyways . When the water from the sink drains great but with heavy rain falls its backin up into my basement were it goes everywhere 

Any Ideas or Solutions or just call Rotor Rooter


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Dynamis:

You need to get the main drain line from your house to the city sewer cleared by a plumber. It'll cost you $75 to $150.

Here's how the drainage piping in a house typically is installed:

There is a big pipe that goes from just below your basement floor to just above your roof shingles called the "vent stack". All the drains in the house empty into the lower part of that stack and all the vent pipes in the house connect to the upper part of that stack below the roof to avoid having more roof penetrations than are necessary.

Once under the basement floor, that vent stack then turns almost horizontal and follows a shallow downward slope to the city sewer under the middle of the street your house is on. Typically, solids from your kitchen sink will accumulate in this near horizontal section closer to your house than to the sewer. Let's call that gradually downward sloping section of drain pipe the "Main Drain Line" from your house.

Buried around the bottom of your basement walls will be a set of drain pipes called the "weeping tiles". These weeping tiles allow excess ground water to drain away from your foundation, thereby eliminating the pressure causing water to flow through your basement walls. The water collected in the weeping tiles will either:

A) Flow to a sump pit in your basement floor, where it's pumped out somewhere by a sump pump, or

B) Flow to a "catch basin" in your basement floor. The catch basin simply looks like a drain hole in the floor. At the bottom of that drain hole will be a p-trap. Water flowing through that p-trap will then flow through a pipe which connects to your main drain line.

Now, what happens if the line from the catch basin connects to the main drain line upstream of where the main drain line is clogged with solids from your kitchen sink?

If there's a heavy rain, then water flows through the weeping tiles to the catch basin, and from there down the drain pipe to the main drain line. And if the main drain line is clogged, the water ends up backing up the catch basin onto your basement floor.

If your main drain line was clear, it wouldn't back up onto your basement floor cuz the main drain line could carry that water away as fast as it seeped into your weeping tiles.

As the main drain line becomes more and more clogged, you'll start to see your catch basin backing up when the clothes washer spins, or when you drain the bath tub, or even when you flush a toilet.

If you ever see toilet paper floating in that hole in your basement floor, that's a sure sign that your main drain line is clogging up.


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## mstplumber (May 3, 2008)

Two questions.

1-Are you on sewer or do you have a septic tank?

2- When the water backs up, is it sewage or just clean (or muddy) water?

The situation Nestor describes may be possible on an older home, but most homes built in the last 20-30 years don't have the foundation drain connected to the sanitary drainage system. Since the problem only happens when it rains, you really need to identify the pipe in question. Can you post a photo?


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## JasonT (Jun 15, 2009)

mstplumber said:


> Two questions.
> 
> 1-Are you on sewer or do you have a septic tank?
> 
> ...



Hello, I just read this because I'm having a similar problem. I'm on a septic tank, there is a little crack with a five inch "pothole" about five feet from my sump. A few days ago I noticed water pooled in the hole. I soaked it up, it doesn't smell like sewer water, but has a slight ammonia smell. I'm sure it's not dog pee, though at first I wasn't sure.
I haven't pinpointed why or when the water comes up but I'm pretty sure it's not when it rains.

Could you give me an idea on how I should go about fixing it?


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