Rain, Rain, Go Away
Anticipation of the Nor’easter which began yesterday morning gave us uneasy flashbacks to the biblical floods of October 2005. A month after moving into our newly renovated house, we learned the hard way that the original waste line (which was made of out clay pipe back in the day) had basically disintegrated. When the pounding…
Anticipation of the Nor’easter which began yesterday morning gave us uneasy flashbacks to the biblical floods of October 2005. A month after moving into our newly renovated house, we learned the hard way that the original waste line (which was made of out clay pipe back in the day) had basically disintegrated. When the pounding rains came that fall, the rain collected on the roof, ran down the drain pipe (which fed into the waste line, we learned) and smacked into the pile of earth that our century-old pipe had become. With no place else to go, the water surged up to the first point of release–the tenant’s tub and toilet. We ended up having two episodes of major flooding in the apartment. Amazingly, there was only a couple of thousand dollars of damage and the parquet floors emerged unwarped. Still, to say it was a traumatic experience would be an understatement.
So we felt some sympathy for the poor Park Sloper whose clogged drain pipe (above) caused his basement to flood. There have also been some three posts (count ’em one, two, three) on the Forum so far; if you have any experience in these matters, please take a moment to lend your advice. We’d also be interested in hearing other stories of rain damage from the last 24 hours. Watcha got?
The Great Flood of Aught Seven [Flickr]
Yup, thanks Aquaman. That was very helpful.
Aquaman, brilliant post. The details you provided are extremely helpful. Thanks.
Oh man, reading this makes me feel so much better. I’m from Miami, we don’t even have basements, let alone boilers and sump pits and houses that sit on piles of rubble as their foundation. We had water gushing out of the FLOOR where the stairs from inside the house met the basement floor. For some reason, the sump pit seems to be in a HIGH part of the basement. The people who lived here before were part retards and part animals, so everything in this house is half-assed and screwed up and trash-filled and neglected. Anyway, I have friends living in the finished part of the basement, a two bedroom in good shape. We fixed some initial plumbing problems (the old owners used to empty their cat’s litter box into the SINK) and thought we were okay, but this rain filled both bedrooms with 4-6 inches of water. Thankfully once the rain stopped, it drained and dried quickly. I called my friends (who were amazingly not home) and said they might have to move out…but now I’m not so sure. We have a basement fix-it company coming next week to check it all out. We also had the water in the tub and toilet problem in the basement, so maybe we have a collapsed clay pipe, too.
Just glad to read all this and realize it’s not likely a problem we will have to face constantly.
Amazingly, we had our 130 year old sewer pipe replaced last Thursday. It had a long crack along it. I had been cursing the rain on Thursday because it delayed replacing the pipe and water pressure started to force rain water through the crack.
We feel absolutely blessed on the timing now, when the storm hit our brand new steel pipe has kept the basement dry!
Just a few important products to get familiar with:
-hydraulic cement: to patch cracks in masonry.Stops leaks and will work while the leak is in progress.
-masonry/brick sealant: sold in tubes for use with a hand held caulking gun, this stuff seals the base of your home along the foundation.
-Flashing cement: sold in 1 or 5 gallon buckets, used to spread over gaps or cracks in roofs, particularly around chimeneys and skylights, use liberally.
-Thoroseal: a paint like sealant used to cover over large areas of brick and masonry to waterproof from driving rains.Commonly used along the back walls of brownstones and along the open brick-lined air shafts of large buildings.
-Silicone sealant: used to caulk around your windows externally to prevent those pesky leaks that can run through the window frame and down the wall inside.
-Sump pit: a cube shaped hole in your basement, preferrably at the lowest point, where water runs to and can be ejected into a basement waste line by a sump pump. Can be done by the homeowner with a small jack hammer and some plumbing and basic masonry experience. A plumber will charge about three thousand.
-Rubberoid: a neat rubber based roofing material that is rolled over and heat sealed to the underlying roof. No better way to sleep well at night when you have a flat roof and a monsoon on the way.
From experience. Good luck.
Our neighbor’s gutter (we live in a attached row house) was clogged and started dumping GALLONS of water into our yard right at the foundation line. Next thing we know, water is pouring down the steps our boiler room. Some water always comes through the hatch doors when it rains heavily, but never like this. Upon close inspection we realize it was pouring through a crack in the brick wall by stair leading to the hatch doors. My questions, which is similar to one of the above poster’s:
Does this mean we have a serious foundation problem that needs to be fixed? An how much/how hard is that to do roughly?
Also, how do you waterproof those metal hatch doors?
At first, just a little trickling in from the cellar door. Then I heard a burbling from the kitchen sink so I ran downstairs to find the laundry sink POURING water into the cellar. Back-up from the city? Or some drainage issue of our own? We fortunately have a shut-off valve on there, so I could stop it, but the presence of the valve does make me wonder how often this will occurr….
Ditto on 11:39. July 2005 I think I fixed my water problems. I had masonry over brick in the back of the building, but the top of the building did not have masonry completely covering the brick, so whenever it rained heavily, water found its way into the brick where the original pointing had worn away. Essentially there were little tunnels between the bricks which then allowed water to seep into the house, wetting walls and floors.
Horrible. I had that fixed by cementing over the bricks on the roof and waterproofing the back of the house.
I eliminated the backyard hatch to the basement.
I had the gutters replaced and covered with mesh.
I had the drains cleaned out.
I had a sump pump installed in the basement too.
However, yesterday debris covered the backyard drain for long enough for water to pool by the back door and make a nice big puddle on the wood floor in my kitchen. Thank God I was around.
Now to check my parents little beach house in Staten Island. The last Nor’Easter in ’92 caused a complete collapse of half the houses in their little beach community. Things could be worse for us Brownstoners….
“Times like this and stories like this, I am glad I rent..”
yeah, that makes a ton of sense. so instead of calling today to have the problem fixed you can wait 2 weeks for your landlord to call you back and then another 2 till someone actually comes out to repair the hole in your roof.
stupid comment.