# Rain water draining into sump pit



## ERIK2173 (Oct 19, 2005)

I had a thread in the Plumbing section anout a pipe draining into my sump pit, I was trying to figure out where it was coming from. I figured out that it was a drain pipe from around the foundation, or at least that the best explanation I could come up with.

http://http://www.diychatroom.com/showthread.php?t=2407

So now my question is this:

If there is a pipe from the around the foundation of my house draining into my sump pit, is it normal for there to be a decent amount of water draining from it. It is not a huge amount of water, but it is enough that is causes my sump pump to kick on a few times a day. I do not see any water in the basement, so if it is draining the foundation it is doing it's job well, since we've had six days of rain here.


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## redline (Mar 5, 2006)

ERIK2173 said:


> So now my question is this:
> 
> If there is a pipe from the around the foundation of my house draining into my sump pit, is it normal for there to be a decent amount of water draining from it. It is not a huge amount of water, but it is enough that is causes my sump pump to kick on a few times a day. I do not see any water in the basement, so if it is draining the foundation it is doing it's job well, since we've had six days of rain here.


An average house roof will discharge about 2,500 gallons of water when a rain storm drops an inch of rain.

Do your downspouts drain right near the house?

If so, then try and get the downspout discharge as far away from the house as possible. You may want to run a drain line to the street if there are storm drains there.

Do you get water from the pipe in the sump pit if is has not rained in a few days?

Six days of rain will saturate the ground near your house and the water is draining threw the pipe.


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## ERIK2173 (Oct 19, 2005)

The downspouts in the front of my house drain into platic tubing that moves the water away from the house. The tubing is is covered after the first foot, so maybe I need to check and see that it hasn't cracked.
In the back of the house it appears the downspout drains irectly into the sewer, but I am goint to doube check that.

If it hasn't rained in a few days I still get a little bit of water every once in a while, just drips really.
I'm waiting for som dry times to see if it continues once the ground has dried up.


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## redline (Mar 5, 2006)

You could put some food coloring in the front downspouts and see if it appears in the sump pit.

Then wait a few days until it is clear and then put a different food color in the back down spouts and see if that color shows up in the sump pit.


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## ERIK2173 (Oct 19, 2005)

I tried just running the hose down the back down spout, it didn't cause any more flow into the sump pit, I'm going to try the same thing with the front down spout but even when we were getting alot of rain it was a slow constant amount of water....


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## redline (Mar 5, 2006)

Have you had a longer stretch of weather without rain?
Did you still get water from this pipe into the sump pit?


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## ERIK2173 (Oct 19, 2005)

we had rain for the last 8 or 9 days in a row....
so no time without rain


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## redline (Mar 5, 2006)

Any progress??


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## awayne (Jun 4, 2006)

It could be coming back through your sump pump pipe??? If you have a crushed pipe for your downspouts and the sump pump is hooked into thoses same pipes, then it will backflow into something... that something being your sump pump.


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## stevarino52 (Jul 14, 2007)

ERIK2173 said:


> I had a thread in the Plumbing section anout a pipe draining into my sump pit, I was trying to figure out where it was coming from. I figured out that it was a drain pipe from around the foundation, or at least that the best explanation I could come up with.
> 
> http://http://www.diychatroom.com/showthread.php?t=2407
> 
> ...




Sounds like it is working fine and doing the job of what it is made to do. If your french drain around your foundation was not tied into a storm drain,it was installed for this reason or as an added measure to keep water out of your basement. Working just fine.


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## Ron6519 (Mar 28, 2007)

As just stated, this is a classic french drain doing it's job.
Ron


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## tjkahn (Jul 20, 2007)

redline said:


> Have you had a longer stretch of weather without rain?
> Did you still get water from this pipe into the sump pit?


I'm joing this a little late - but I do have a situation where I get water in my sump pit from my drain tile, even when there is no rain. Not a lot - but the pump will be activated every so often and there will be a trickle of water into the pit.

What does that imply?


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## concretemasonry (Oct 10, 2006)

Your drain tile may be down close to a water table and picking up some minor moisture from the water table. No big deal and it shows your system is working.

Sometimes, surface moisture from lawn watering can get collected by the utility trench or by the access ramp dug when constructing the basement. The soil filling these ares is more porous than the natural soil, so the trench/ramp becomes a funnel for lawn watering and other minor water sources.


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## tjkahn (Jul 20, 2007)

*Allow me to expand....*



concretemasonry said:


> Your drain tile may be down close to a water table and picking up some minor moisture from the water table. No big deal and it shows your system is working.
> 
> Sometimes, surface moisture from lawn watering can get collected by the utility trench or by the access ramp dug when constructing the basement. The soil filling these ares is more porous than the natural soil, so the trench/ramp becomes a funnel for lawn watering and other minor water sources.


Thank you for the response. Here is my full strory - in addition to having water trickle in very slowly when there is no rain...

I recently put an addition on my house (finished a year ago). We built a full basement under the addition, and dug about 3' deeper than the existing basement. The foundation company laid 4" corrugated black pipe around the new foundation, terminating in a sump pit in the corner of the new basement closest to the old basement.

As a side note, the "old" and higher basement got seepage due to hydrostatic pressure during EVERY heavy rain - something the prior homeowner failed to mention. We installed interior drain tile (PVC this time) and a second sump pit - it has cured all of our problems in the upper part of the basement.

Now, on the new lower basement, I'm not having problems per se, but I'm amazed at the amount of water that gets pumped out. Last night in Chicago, we had HEAVY rains - probably got 2" in an hour. My lower pump was cycling almost constantly, and when I went near the pit, it sounded like someone had a hose emptying into it. After the rain subsided, the pump still cycled pretty frequently (I counted about every one to two minutes). This morning, with no rain, the firehose sound was obviously gone, but there was a slow, steady flow of water that I could hear running into the pit. And of course every so often the pump would cycle it out. Now, I have noticed in the past, that even when there is no rain for days, my pump will occaisionally pump water out of the pit, and I can sometime hear a very slight trickle of water into the pit, again even when it is dry outside.

*This evening, the pit was somewhat quiet - just a very slow drip (the surface of my lawn is still damp from last night's rain), and over a 3-hour period, I counted the pump cycling 3 times at 48-50 minute intervals.*

Some other facts - 

- Both of my pumps empty into the sewer - my suburb allows that (in fact they prefer it when your house is close to your neighbors, as mine is).

- Both pumps are Zoeller. My upper pump has a battery backup with an AGS battery installed by the company that did my interior drain tile. As of now, my lower basement does not have a battery back up, but I plan on installing one because even though the area is currently unfinished, I do not want water coming out of the pit. Someone suggested to me that I use a backup pump activated by water pressure.

My questions - 

1) Should I be concerned about the speed and volume of water that was coming into my pit during last night's storm?

2) Should I be concerned that this morning there was still a steady flow of water into the pit?

3) Should I be concerned that even when it hasn't rained for days, my pump still cycles water out? Or, as concretemasonry suggests, it may just be minor moisture from a water table and thus not a threat? 

4) I assume that the soil around my addition is still much looser than virgin earth, it's been less than two years since the hole was back-filled, and just over a year since the topsoil added to bring the yard back to grade. Is the pourosity of the area just something I have to live with, or is there something I can do about it? My lawn is still maturing and thickening - I plan on overseeding again in the fall - will that help?

or...

5) Should I just shut up and be happy that even during last night's storm, I didn't get a drop of water in the basement?

and finally...

6) Is the frequent cycling of my main pump going to reduce it's life - and am I at risk of that pump dying?

Thank you in advance for your help. I know this is a lot - I'm completely clueless on this stuff - I just know I hate wet basements.


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## RippySkippy (Feb 9, 2007)

tjkahn said:


> 1) ...speed and volume of water that was coming into my pit during last night's storm?


No, water moves through the ground all the time and depending on the soil type, at different rates.



tjkahn said:


> 2) ...that this morning there was still a steady flow of water into the pit?


No, the water is going to leave at it's own rate...you can't hurry it up or slow it down.



tjkahn said:


> 3) ...that even when it hasn't rained for days, my pump still cycles water out? Or, as concretemasonry suggests, it may just be minor moisture from a water table and thus not a threat?


No, the water table there must be pretty high...you can change it but I doubt you're interested in placing another perimeter tile around the house 20-30 feet out in the water table.



tjkahn said:


> 4) ...My lawn is still maturing and thickening - I plan on overseeding again in the fall - will that help?


No, your lawn while the roots reach to the water table, your lawn will not appreciably affect it.



tjkahn said:


> 5) Should I just shut up and be happy that even during last night's storm, I didn't get a drop of water in the basement?


Yes



tjkahn said:


> 6) Is the frequent cycling of my main pump going to reduce it's life - and am I at risk of that pump dying?


If you think it might go out...get replacement on hand.


Right at a year ago, I dug a basement hole and before they were finished there was about an inch of water covering the floor. One could walk the perimeter and many places along the way you could actually see the water percolating out of the soil. It looked much like a very small fish tank recirculator, but it was crystal clear. If you take one of these running non-stop 24/7 that's a fair amount of water...multiply that by hundreds and you have an enormous amount of water.

Given that it looked like this was going to be a very wet area, we trenched below footing depth to daylight with a 4" PVC tile. And from the day it went in to now...it has NEVER stopped. It takes about 2-3 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket at it's normal flow. At 3 minutes that would be 100 gallons an hour, 2400 gallons a day, 72,000 gallons a month, and 864,000 gallons a year.  Of course the flow is significantly more in the spring. :boat:

This is an self built ICF house, so we had the hole exposed for quite a while, and in the profile of the soil, the face of the hole would be dry down to about 2 feet, from there down to the footing, maybe another 6 feet, the face of the hole never dried out....we're talking the middle of a mid-west summer here...think HOT, windy, and humid. 

We used form-a-drain for the footing drain, a perimeter tile around that, and a series of tiles under the basement floor. We put a sump pit in....but to this day it has not had a pump....and the level has never changed. I'm thinking seriously about putting a pump in and using it for irrigation for landscape plants. A small pressure pump and pressure thank and I'd be set!

What I'm trying to illustrate is that there's a huge amount of water in the soil naturally. We people come along, dig a hole, disturb the ground structure, creating an artificial fracture in the soil profile. We all know water takes the path of least resistance. Given that, water will try to go to the lowest it can, anywhere it has to. if it can't go down, the water moves horizontally through the soil until it either exits to the surface, or reaches a ditch/stream etc, or reaches the artificial fracture we have given it. The next things that happens depends on how well the builder anticipated moisture...all too often not well.

Water in the soil isn't your enemy...but you have to use common sense when trying to deal with it. Keep surface water at bay by using down spouts, and grading away from your foundation.

Best of luck to ya!


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## concretemasonry (Oct 10, 2006)

1. No

2. No.

3. No.

4. No.

5. YES.

6. Does not sound too frequent. If you want to sleep better get a pump with a battery powered back up or just a normal back-up pump to put on the shelf.


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## rwwood (Jul 20, 2007)

I do basement waterproofing for a living and just finished pouring a floor in a dirt-floored basement that was a mud hole when we started. In the middle of a month and a half long drought, there was still water coming up through the floor, obviously from underground springs. The basement is now clean and dry because we didn't try to keep the water out, but channeled it into a drainage system that led to the sump pump. You said you had a battery backup, so I wouldn't worry about the amount of water coming in. Your only concern should be whether or not there's a lot of silt in the water. If there is, the drain tile will eventually cease to be able to function properly. For that reason, we always install a clean-out for any underfloor system we put in. Other than that, the pump is doing it's job just like the roof does it, only you don't here the roof kick on every time it's working.


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## tjkahn (Jul 20, 2007)

rwwood said:


> I do basement waterproofing for a living and just finished pouring a floor in a dirt-floored basement that was a mud hole when we started. In the middle of a month and a half long drought, there was still water coming up through the floor, obviously from underground springs. The basement is now clean and dry because we didn't try to keep the water out, but channeled it into a drainage system that led to the sump pump. You said you had a battery backup, so I wouldn't worry about the amount of water coming in. Your only concern should be whether or not there's a lot of silt in the water. If there is, the drain tile will eventually cease to be able to function properly. For that reason, we always install a clean-out for any underfloor system we put in. Other than that, the pump is doing it's job just like the roof does it, only you don't here the roof kick on every time it's working.


I have a battery back up on the upper basement - that is new interior drain tile that I added to the house. My lower basement, under my addition, does not yet have a battery back-up - but I will get one soon. The drain tile for the addition is exterior to the foundation. I'm going to hold off on finishing that area for a few years - I really have no choice because I went way over budget in just about every other area - and this will give me a chance to see if I need to take any other waterproofing measures before I finish the space.

One question for you regarding clean-outs - when I had the interior drain tile put in on the upper part of the basement, the company did a great job and I've got 3 clean-outs, and the drain tile is PVC. For $75 a year, they come and flush the whole system out, and warranty it for as long as I live here. No-brainer for me.

However, when my addition was built, I really knew nothing about drain tile and sump pits, and they just laid black corrugated pipe in the gravel, and covered everyting up. Had I known better, I would have insisted on PVC and clean-outs. So, as it stands, the only access I have to the exterior drain tile around the addition is through a drain in the window well - that would cover about 80% of the perimeter, but would leave the first 15 feet or so unservicable.

Do I have any options to keep the pipe clean without excavating down to the footing and putting in a clean-out? Would the window well drain serve as an adequate clean out?

Thanks to everyone for their help. I'm sleeping a little better - even more so when I get a battery backup.


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## rwwood (Jul 20, 2007)

You may be able to flush the system via the window well drain. Essentially you would run a hose in the drain and turn it on. You can get a special fitting that goes on the end of the hose that inflates due to the water pressure to seal the drain pipe so the water gets forced down the drain rather than coming out the cleanout.

In reality, I prefer perforated corrugated ADS over PVC, but when we use that rather than one of the other systems we install, it goes inside the basement. The reason is that, if water comes from below the footer or in the middle of the basement floor from an underground source, the drain that's laid around the outside of the foundation won't help. (Where does that pipe go? Normally it would have to pitch downhill to a storm drain or other discharge.)

As to what else you can do, if you find water coming in at the joint between the wall and the floor, there are a couple of systems that use a special adhesive to fasten a vinyl baseboard to the floor that then acts as a conduit to conduct the water to the sump pump.

The key is to understand if you have subsurface water that is getting in, nothing you can do will keep it out, but you can channel it where you want it, and then pump it back out. 85% of the houses with basements in America will eventually have water in their basements, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with the house or that the basement cannot be used for living space. It just means that you need an effective way of managing the water that gets in.

HTH,
rww


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## tjkahn (Jul 20, 2007)

rwwood said:


> You may be able to flush the system via the window well drain. Essentially you would run a hose in the drain and turn it on. You can get a special fitting that goes on the end of the hose that inflates due to the water pressure to seal the drain pipe so the water gets forced down the drain rather than coming out the cleanout.


I think I'll have the company that installed my drain tile in the upper basement service both systems every year. Couldn't hurt.



rwwood said:


> In reality, I prefer perforated corrugated ADS over PVC, but when we use that rather than one of the other systems we install, it goes inside the basement. The reason is that, if water comes from below the footer or in the middle of the basement floor from an underground source, the drain that's laid around the outside of the foundation won't help. (Where does that pipe go? Normally it would have to pitch downhill to a storm drain or other discharge.)


I'm not sure if you were asking me a question - my corrugated pipe goes right to my sump pit in the corner of the basement, then gets pumped overhead and into the sewer line. Fortunately, my village allows that.



rwwood said:


> As to what else you can do, if you find water coming in at the joint between the wall and the floor, there are a couple of systems that use a special adhesive to fasten a vinyl baseboard to the floor that then acts as a conduit to conduct the water to the sump pump.


Fortunately, the lower basement has been dry - the sump has worked well (knock on wood) and I haven't gotten any seepage around the footings. It's funny though - I like the system I have on the upper (old) basement better, and that was a retrofit. Goes to show that waterproofing professionals like yourself know how to waterproof. The lower basement is brand new construction, and my foundation guys just laid the pipe around the foundation. Not that they did anything wrong - but if I was building again, I would bring in a waterproofing company to work with the foundation guys. The vinyl baseboard you mention sounds similar to what I had installed with my drain tile in the upper basement - when they dug the trench around the interior preimeter, they put a plastic channel against the wall that goes down into the gravel - so in the event there is any seepage into the wall, the water will find its way down into the drain tile.



rwwood said:


> The key is to understand if you have subsurface water that is getting in, nothing you can do will keep it out, but you can channel it where you want it, and then pump it back out. 85% of the houses with basements in America will eventually have water in their basements, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with the house or that the basement cannot be used for living space. It just means that you need an effective way of managing the water that gets in.


I learned when my upper basement was getting water with every steady rain, that it's not keeping water away from your house - it's keeping it from getting where it can do damage. I'm completely comfortable with the system in my upper basement, which is finished living space. I think when I finish the new section, what little I know about waterproofing has given me a couple of ideas. Since as you mention I don't have any interior system in the new basement to keep water from below the footer or in the middle of the basement floor from getting in (while that hasn't been a problem, better safe than sorry), I would put an interior system in with a sump in the corner at the back of the house - I could either connect this to the sewer with the other pump, or run a pipe out under my deck 10 feet away from the foundation. I would also put a floor drain in - I plan on raising the floor on the side of the basement the pits would be on. Eventually I'd like to make this room a home theater, so I could put a large floor drain under the riser I would build for the back of the room. The floor drain would run into the second sump pit. This way, if my first pump from the exterior system ever overflowed, the water would run into the drain, into the second pit, and out to wherever I pumped it. Ideally, the second pump would never be used - there is some likelihood that my one pump, exterior system will work 100%, but it should provide peace of mind.

Does that sound like a decent plan?

In the meantime, while the room is just a concrete slab for a few years, I can monitor to see if any issues arise.



rwwood said:


> HTH,
> rww


Of course it did. Thanks!!:thumbsup:


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