flooring options for wet basement?

[luv2liv]

when it rains heavily (about 3x a year), water seeps in from the alley above. so 1 side of the basement wall would be soaking wet with water trickling down onto the floor. the basement floor is bare concrete now. i would love to have tiles so it's easier to walk on and cleaner on my feet. or even better...wood flooring so it's warmer to walk on in the winter.
what are my options instead of just concrete?
thanks!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

They make this:
http://www.dricore.com/en/homeowner.aspx
But you really need to get the water problem fixed. Grade away from the wall, dig down the outside and seal with tar or line with a plastic barrier, seal the inside with drylok or pool paint, whatever it takes.

 

[Blain]

But you really need to get the water problem fixed.
Grade away from the wall, dig down the outside and seal with tar or line with a plastic barrier, seal the inside with drylok or pool paint, whatever it takes.

Agree 100%. Water can be disastrous for a building over a long period of time.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep fix the water issue before you do anything. Once you fix it, wait a few years to make sure it's really fixed, before doing anything in the basement. Even with drycore you don't really want constant water flowing under there, or getting on top of it.

It's a big expensive job, but it kinda has to be done, having water getting in is a bad thing. When you factor in all the equipment you'd have to rent, having to know where to bring old fill, where to get new, etc it's worth it to just let a pro handle it. Get a few estimates. I had to redo my foundation seal and weepers and it cost 17k or so. They used a spray on product called Rub-R-Wall. That was a guy with an excavator, and a guy with a dump truck and other misc workers working around the clock for about a week.

 

[luv2liv]

when it rains too much, there's a huge puddle of water outside in the alley way because the water is not draining into the pipe fast enough.
so it looks like using tar is the cheapest way? just spread tar onto the ground and wall outside? is this the same tar for roofing? http://www.homedepot.com/b/Building...ended/Ntt-tar?Ntx=mode+matchpartialmax&NCNI-5
then use pool paint for the wall inside the basement right?
digging up all the pavement outside just to put rub-r-wall, put concrete back in doesnt sound cheap.

 

[DrPizza]

If there's a drain for that water in the alley, that's likely to be your problem. Also, some gutters on the house would eliminate 50% of the water in that alley.

 

[Blain]

when it rains too much, there's a huge puddle of water outside in the alley way because the water is not draining into the pipe fast enough.
so it looks like using tar is the cheapest way? just spread tar onto the ground and wall outside?

then use pool paint for the wall inside the basement right?
digging up all the pavement outside just to put rub-r-wall, put concrete back in doesnt sound cheap.

I love This Guy's attitude!

 

[Exterous]

They make this:
http://www.dricore.com/en/homeowner.aspx
But you really need to get the water problem fixed. Grade away from the wall, dig down the outside and seal with tar or line with a plastic barrier, seal the inside with drylok or pool paint, whatever it takes.

The problem with Dricore is what happens if the wood gets wet at all. It expands\warps and is a great breeding ground for mold. While I did use it in my last basement with good results I would be a bit more concerned for a wetter basement

I am considering Tyroc for my new project. No swelling\mold concnerns and its thinner for what looks to be about the same price

http://www.tyrocinc.com/

 

[Subyman]

Get a pro to look at it. Don't try to study this yourself from websites. Every job like this is very specific your situation (grading, materials, water quantity, local codes, foundation type, etc). Pros usually do not charge for a consultation. Do not try to simply do a tar patch and then spend thousands putting in a floor. That will lead to a bad situation in a few years.

 

[luv2liv]

Get a pro to look at it. Don't try to study this yourself from websites. Every job like this is very specific your situation (grading, materials, water quantity, local codes, foundation type, etc). Pros usually do not charge for a consultation. Do not try to simply do a tar patch and then spend thousands putting in a floor. That will lead to a bad situation in a few years.

i did get a pro to look at the drain. Roto Rooter came in with a snake cam. they claim the pipe is cracked somewhere in the basement. that's why it's not draining properly out to the city's pipe. they showed it all cracked up on the monitor. so to fix my cracked pipe, they would have to dig the pavement on the sidewalk in front of my house, replace the pipe, lay concrete back and all for the low low price of $10,000. This is in South Philly, btw.

 

[herm0016]

i did get a pro to look at the drain. Roto Rooter came in with a snake cam. they claim the pipe is cracked somewhere in the basement. that's why it's not draining properly out to the city's pipe. they showed it all cracked up on the monitor. so to fix my cracked pipe, they would have to dig the pavement on the sidewalk in front of my house, replace the pipe, lay concrete back and all for the low low price of $10,000. This is in South Philly, btw.

your sewer pipe?

This does not have anything to do with storm water getting in your basement.
spreading tar on the ground is not going to do anything. you need to get this fixed for real, before your house ends up in a sinkhole or the foundation wall collapses because of the water pressure.

You should get your sewer pipe replaced regardless, it can create other subsidence issues and backups in the future.

the storm drain in the ally is the cities and they will have to fix it if it is not working correctly. call the city and complain about the drain, and try to get someone out to look at it when it does rain. You can correct the grading, install gutters and downspouts to help the problem also.

 

[Humpy]

Come up with the $25K to get it fixed or it's time to think about moving and selling the problem to someone else.

 

[luv2liv]

alright, thanks everyone for your input!
this is an eye opener for me

 

[Spacehead]

when it rains too much, there's a huge puddle of water outside in the alley way because the water is not draining into the pipe fast enough.

Rain water not draining from a city maintained alley & the water seeps into your basement. Sound like the city need to look at that

i did get a pro to look at the drain. Roto Rooter came in with a snake cam. they claim the pipe is cracked somewhere in the basement. that's why it's not draining properly out to the city's pipe. they showed it all cracked up on the monitor. so to fix my cracked pipe, they would have to dig the pavement on the sidewalk in front of my house, replace the pipe, lay concrete back and all for the low low price of $10,000. This is in South Philly, btw.

What "pipe" does Roto Rooter claim is cracked? Sewer? Rain water drain from your roof?
If it's a cracked pipe "in your basement" there's still a problem with pooling water in the alley... which ends up in your basement.
Are there floor drains in you basement?

 

[luv2liv]

i think i should draw it out to clarify some confusion. here's the draw with the screenshot from google earth

anything within the green line is my house.
puddle of water is the white area, back of the house. orange is the area where water seeps into the basement. puddle only forms when theres a huge storm.
red is the 8inch drain hole that goes into the blue pipe.
blue is the pipe that's under the backyard, goes into the house. isnt it the same pipe for my toilets, shower stalls, and sinks?? reading online, i get the impression that there's 2 main pipes. 1 for just rain water and another for raw sewage waste like toilet/shower....

2 years ago the RotoRooter guy shows me where the crack is, X on the map. still nothing has backed up in the house. so im inclined to think the guy did a switcheroo on me whereby he pulled another footage of busted pipe when i wasnt looking.

 

[Spacehead]

I live out in the country so i may be wrong here but i think most/all cities don't want rain runoff going into the sewer pipes & then into the sewer treatment plant.
So i would guess that drain(red dot) just goes to a rain runoff pipe(blue) & then goes wherever the city wants it to drain.

You need to find out if that drain & pipe are your or the cities responsibility to maintain.
If everything connects to your sewer pipe that might be on you to fix. You need to find that out too.

Is where to water pools concrete, asphalt, something else? If nothing else see if you can get someone to look to see if there's a fix to at least get the water to pool away from your house; get that surface to slope away from your house.

 

[CA19100]

Wood's a definite no-no if you have water problems; it'd get destroyed almost immediately.

I agree you need to fix the water problem, but as for flooring options, I have this stuff on the first floor of my house:

http://www.usfloorsllc.com/display-category/coretec-plus/

I switched to it after I had a busted ice maker line destroy the laminate that was there when I bought the house. This CoreTec stuff looks a lot like wood, but is actually vinyl. It's waterproof, so it won't get destroyed by water.

Keep in mind, though, that if water is pooling up on it, it could get between the floor and concrete, so you're risking mold issues. You'd have to pull it up and dry it each time you have a flood. You wouldn't have to replace the floor, but it'd still be a big problem.

Definitely work on the flooding before investing in a new floor.

 

[DrPizza]

Possible solution: put in a sort of sump pump with a float switch out there were the water pools up, since it's on your property, pump it to your sewer line. Probably against code, but it would stop damage to your home. Since it's so close to your house, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to be able to run a drain line into your house from there, with minimal digging.

Incidentally, since there seems to be some confusion above, many (most?) cities have both storm drains as well as sewer drains.

 

[Greenman]

I love This Guy's attitude!

That was an entertaining video. The guy hammers away at how the cheap contractor did everything wrong, then he proceeds to do the job incorrectly.

 

[Aharami]

That was an entertaining video. The guy hammers away at how the cheap contractor did everything wrong, then he proceeds to do the job incorrectly.

how did he do the job incorrectly? Asking because I'd like to know. I am going through an addition on my house and I want to make sure my contractor is doing the job properly. So far he has built the block walls, laid out a foundation drain, coated the outside of the foundation walls with tar/2"foam/tar/rar, installed a new sump pump, and laid down those plastic 3" pipes with holes in it on the inside near the footings

 

[JamesWilliams]

You can do epoxy, at a low rate.

 

[luv2liv]

You can do epoxy, at a low rate.

what kind of epoxy? can you share the link?
i would like to try to coat the roof tar stuff first.
if that doesnt stop the water, the sump pump to pump the water to the front of the house would be next.