Streams in the Basement

I know that rain is necessary to bring life back to flowers, grass, and trees, but the past few weeks we have been getting slammed with heavy showers.  Our house was built in 1924, and our basement is quasi-finished – awesome wood paneling and linoleum throughout most of it (the basement stairway and a half-bath have nice finishes).  During our inspection, our inspector told us to expect water in the basement during heavy rains.  The prior homeowners were adamant that no water had come into the basement since they had some work done on the downspouts, and even before that, very rarely was there water in the basement.  The house is old, there is no sump pump, and we were not too worried about water.  It would be a while before we could afford to waterproof and finish it anyway.  In addition, during the time that we were looking at the house and going through the inspection process, we were getting quite a bit of rain and saw no evidence of water.

It was quite some time before we ever saw water in the basement, and it was just a little trickle from one corner directly to the drain.  Good old 1920s’ engineering.  One day after it had been raining for quite a few days, there was water coming from the same corner, but also from the center front of the house.  The water seemed also seemed to be coming up from the foundation (or so I thought).  I pulled back one of the panels from the center support wall and realized it was just water flowing from the other room into the drain.  I tend to overreact sometimes.  That, however, was the most significant event that occurred over last summer and fall.

We had quite a bit of snow fall this year, and it all melted fairly rapidly about a month ago, completely saturating the ground.  We had a few light rains here and there, but last week we got a torrential down-pour.  It was even thundering.  I don’t recall too many thunderstorms in February.  The rain was coming down so hard, I went to bed fearing what I would find in the basement the next morning.  The sound of the rain woke me up often during the night, and I contemplated going down to see what was happening.  I’m glad I didn’t because I probably wouldn’t have been able to get back to sleep.

I went down the next morning and was shocked to find standing water about three feet wide surrounding one of the drains.  I had looked out in the driveway on my way into the basement and it appeared to be flooded about the normal amount (there is something wrong with the drain out there, too).  Apparently something had happened during the night, though, to cause the drain to back up.  I made my way through the basement and not only was the floor damp, all the utility rugs were soaked, and there were streaks of mud everywhere.  That made me a little uncomfortable.  I’m not sure where the mud is coming from.  My first thought – the foundation is washing away!

By the time I got home in the afternoon, the water around the drain had subsided, but as I did more exploring I realized that one of the other rooms that typically never gets water had become pretty saturated.  My only guess is that the water from the drain backed up that far at some point during the night.  When I was out of town over the weekend, it rained Friday and Saturday.  More streams running through the basement, leaving mud in their wake.  I hope this doesn’t become a regular event.  Hopefully the ground will have a chance to dry out some between rains and be able to handle the water.  At least we still have streams, and not ponds or lakes.  I’ll be thankful for that for the time being.