Hi Dale and All,
I spoke with a couple of contractor friends of mine who are brothers about
the situation. After the beginning of the year they are going to come out and
take a really good look at the property and house and foundation. I won't know
what it will cost until they take a look which makes sense. Does anyone know
what a reasonable price would be for putting in French drains and gravel and
such. That's what I'm guessing what this project will turn into. I'd like to
have some kind of idea of what I'm getting into. Hopefully we won't have much
rain or if we have rain it won't come in a deluge which seems like the kind of
rain that creates the problem. Thanks again for all your help and input. I look
forward to your shared knowledge. It really help me to speak intelligently to
these guys and I didn't feel like a total idiot. This list serve is really
great, thanks for having it for us Kudos MR. moderator and creator!
Warm regards from sunny but cold Tallahassee Florida. I'll keep you all posted
on any updates with this project.
p.s. We're in the 30's tonight and in the low 70's tomorrow actually today
because it's already Monday. Have a great day!
Mycell
----- Original Message -----
From: Dale Leavens
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 12:36 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
I am contemplating east Texas!
It is again minus 17C already tonight (about 0F).
----- Original Message -----
From: Mycell Armington
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 12:12 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hi Dale,
I thought about all your many choices and even the last one extremely
seriously. Hey anyone want to buy a house in north Florida only miner repairs
are needed! (grin-smile) I'm seriously considering digging up around the base
of the wall that these 2 corners are on and doing the gravel thing and place
pipes in the gravel to see if this takes away the run off or the surface water.
As cold as you were saying it is where you are a snow bird home may appeal to
you and your wife. I'm sure you'd really enjoy all the home projects. LOL!
Warm regards,
Mycell
----- Original Message -----
From: Dale Leavens
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 8:47 PM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Well, it seeps pretty clear tat your septic leaching bed is getting saturated
or at least isn't draining satisfactorily for the tank to handle the load.
Probably a little of both. Pumping out the septic tank might be enough unless
the tank is filling from the saturated leach bed.
If your ground is flat you may need drainage into a tank and a sump pump to
move the water out of it but pumping it onto a neighbours property won't make
you friends.
I am quite certain though that you will not succeed in sealing against water
from the inside. It is difficult enough to keep water from coming into a boat
and it is designed for the purpose. You have to keep the water from entering
the building envelope in the first place.
Grading the landscape and creating adequate drainage if it is ground water,
stopping penetration if above grade infiltration as from driving rain will be
the ultimate answers.
Another option is to sell the home during the dry season.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mycell Armington
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hi Dale and All,
I personally believe that it is ground saturation, but what still confuses me
is that only the corners are the issue. My neighbors across the street have
some back up in their system also. Let me also explain that I am on a septic
system instead of connection with the city sewer system. The only time anyone
has check this area is when it has been slightly damp or dry. I really need to
get down with someone who knows more than me and explore the foundation
directly while someone else takes a physical look and I can lay hands on it.
Pardon the pun!
Here in this area of Florida we have those torrential down pours for a few
days not just with hurricanes but big thunder storms. As for 16
below,--oou--oou that's chilly burr--burr; although, I am an avid cross country
skier when and where I can and are in the appropriate weather that allows for
such fun as skiing and ice skating. I learned as a child living in MI for a
year or two.
I'll have someone come in and check the situation out and keep you all
posted.
Max, asked me in another e-mail how I pronounced my name, its pronounced like
the Y has a short I sound. I'll spell it phonetically Micelle with the emphasis
on the second syllable.
Thanks for all of yawl's input and if anyone thinks of anything else please
let me know.
Warm regards,
Mycell
----- Original Message -----
From: Dale Leavens
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hi,
I think the sewer back-up is more likely to be a coincidental event. My bet
there is that your main sewer lines are inadequate and that at least some of
the storm sewer run-off is being channeled into the sanitary sewer lines. When
there is a lot of rain the pipes can't carry it all so there isn't room for
yours. It might be that there is drainage around your foundations which has
been routed into the sewers too, I don't have any idea what the building
standards or customs might be where you live or how they were executed in your
particular situation.
Sealing the floor is not likely to help much or for long. If the moisture is
coming up from below and those corners of the building are just sitting in a
saturated puddle the water will come through. Further, your ceramic tile is
almost certainly impervious to water already. If it is coming up through the
floor it will be the grout between the tiles which can be cleaned for
appearance then sealed with special grout sealer, usually silicone based.
I feel quite likely that your water is coming in at the base of the walls
where they sit on the footing and is seeping across the floor immediately
adjacent to the wall. Weather it is because of saturated ground right there as
the level of the footing or it is coming in through cement block walls,
draining down inside the blocks and migrating out at the bottom is more
difficult to know about. Either way, sealing the inside will not stop the
problem for very long if at all in my opinion. I could be wrong, I was once
before.
Do you have contact with neighbours? Do any of them experience toilet back-up
during heavy rain? I expect this is a different problem and probably subsequent
to housing development in excess of the sewer capacity.
It got down to minus 16C here last night, about 3F degrees. The lake in the
middle of town has had ice over it since Thursday, after last night probably
enough to walk across though way too early for me to try. I'll bet there will
be some kids on it today though.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mycell Armington
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 11:08 PM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hi Dale,
The temps aren't much warmer here. 30's and 40's. It's just not warming up
enough. Now I do like my snow but all in all, I'm glad that I'm not snowed in.
It's not really a strong slope at all very gentle actually, but what I'm
wondering about if this same water accumulation is causing the back up in my
commodes at the same time and the rain is coming down. Some how I think the
high water I think is causing both problems. By the way, what's the best
surface sealant for this kind of project and what's the procedure to apply it.
I'm going to have to pull up the carpet and all that kind of thing and right
now it seems like a miserable project. Is there also any particular cleaning
that I need to do to the floor before I apply the sealant?.
Thanks again to all of you for your responses and help. I'll keep you posted
on this situation.
Warm regards,
Mycell
----- Original Message -----
From: Dale Leavens
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 10:24 PM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hello Mycell,
Robert has described one potentially pretty good solution. I would add that
you might extend the drain down hill as far away as you can from the building
if that is an option and dig and install a dry well. These can be variably
sophisticated but mostly you dig a hole and fill it with crushed rock with a
sort of barrel with holes in it like a colander into which the drain is
inserted. You could add a weeping bed I suppose but this should not be
necessary. the holey barrel has a relief float arrangement at the top to allow
water to escape should the well fill beyond capacity, being down hill from the
problem the excess should continue to drain away.
I wonder though if the problem is of rain driving against the building and
migrating through. Ceramic tile is normally impermeable to water so except for
the grout it seems unlikely to me that the water is rising up through the tile.
After all, one often tiles showers and bathroom floors to keep the water from
draining through to surfaces below and behind the tiles.
You say the building is made of concrete block. I once rented office space in
a strip mall with a concrete block wall. When wind drove rain against that wall
a certain amount would migrate through into the cavities of the block and run
down inside collecting at the bottom slowly filling up the blocks. This
hydraulic pressure and osmotic pressure being as the inside of the building was
dry and warm ultimately brought the water through the block wall mostly ad the
bottom of the wall.I have seen this too in basements where the bottom of the
wall leaked water across the floor and drilling small holes in the bottom of
the block drained them releasing a surprising amount of water. Each
compartment, usually three in a concrete block will collect water.
Now if the brickwork is a veneer and the water is getting behind it the
problem may be more difficult to solve but if the brick is properly installed
there should be venting at the bottom of the brick wall where it rests at the
base. Every so many bricks should have venting. Look to see that these are free
from blockage, they are there exactly to drain any moisture which gets behind
the bricks and if clear should keep water from collecting against the cement
block and migrating through.
If the cement block is directly exposed to the outside then scrubbing it a
little to clean it then applying a good quality waterproof paint of suitable
colour on the outside to keep wind from driving rain through the surface of the
blocks and into the cavities should stop it from collecting in there and making
it's way out either through the inside of the block or at the junction where
the block rests on the foundation where it can wander across the edges of your
floor.
Because we can't really see the walls involved it is hard to know, it might
even be that the upper part is wood cladding and this is not well enough
flashed to carry rain running down the wood from getting in behind the brick
and repairing the flashing might be the solution.
Hope these ideas are helpful in determining the source and solution to your
water infiltration problems.
Now that the snow has arrived here in Ernest, Janet and I might be convinced
to come for a visit and personal inspection and maybe even a little restoration
work. <GRIN>
----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Kennedy
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:24 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Well first we'll all send our appreciation and pray for the best for your son.
As for your water problem, you can probably look through the archives and
find a bunch on this topic. We've run it around many times.
The immediate suggestion would be to pick up a wet dry shop vac while they'll
be on sale this season. I've used them many times in a flooding situation and
the stronger ones will pull the water from carpet and help in drying it from
pulling a vacuum on the carpet itself.
As for outside, there are lots of places you can start.
Do you have gutters? Are they clean? Is there a downspout on that corner? If
there is a downspout, make sure it is able to empty without restriction to the
flow. If draining is free flowing, you may want to extend the end several feet
from the house.
It sounds like the house is built on a concrete pad so you don't have the
problem of cement blocks filling and leaking into the house below ground level.
There are various things that can be applied to cement block to water proof
it, but that is only a bandade over the problem. The problem is the need to
drain water away from the house before it can build up and soak through.
What you will need to do first is look at the ground itself on the corners
where the water comes into the house. The lay of the land needs to be higher at
the house and then slope away. If the ground is less than level it will collect
water there.
My first thoughts would be to dig a shallow trench around the outside and lay
drain tile. Drain tile is just 4 inch or larger plastic pipe with holes about
half way around the pipe. The holes need to face up so water can get in the
pipe and be carried away.
Shallow trench as in 8 to 12 inches. You would make a trench that has a
gentle slope like a quarter inch per foot, fill the bottom with a couple inches
of gravel, lay drain tile on the gravel and then fill the rest of the trench
with gravel so the drain tile is covered. Then you can use the remaining dirt
to cover the gravel and form a slope away from the house for the water to run
off.
Lots of us have done projects like this and my way is to wrap the drain tile
with a fabric before putting in the ground. The fabric works as a type of
filter keeping dirt and sand from washing into the tile and clogging it.
Of course the tile has to continue away from the house for a ways before
emptying out or you'll just move the problem somewhere else along the side of
the house. So you'll also have to decide where the lowest point is, and put in
a T or elbow to run more pipe away from the house.
Here is an idea to get you started and I'm sure more will follow. Good luck
----- Original Message -----
From: Mycell Armington
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:03 PM
Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Help--my floor is leaking upwards!
Hello All,
I joined this list several months ago and have just been lurking and reading
and learning. A lot of the things I don't know about personally and I probably
will never use, but I thought it would be good just to have a source to go to
when needing home repair questions answered. Well, I have a problem and I need
your counsel, please read this out and lend me your multitude of counsel.
First of all I'll try and explain my subject line. I live in a home that was
built in 1962. It was added on to at one end by closing in the car
port-/garage. Well that's another problem for another day. My immediate problem
is when it rains in massive quantities like for 2 or 3 days and I mean heavy
rain 10 inches or more in a 12 to 24 hour time frame the concrete foundation
gets wet and this is only in certain areas of the house that water soaks up
through ceramic tile. It's happened in the same places 3 times this year and
totally saturated my carpets that are on top of the tiling. The room that this
phenomenon is occurring in is my bedroom and it's only happening in two corners
those corners are on the outside of the house and they are on the same side.
The house is made of concrete block and brick and some wood siding.
Sorry to belabor the description but the better I describe the better you may
be able to help me.
I am a single mother of adult children who are scattered over different parts
of the world. My son is a United States Marine and is currently preparing to go
to Iraq so he can't really do anything.
I've asked a few people and they're saying there may be a sealant that can be
painted on or poured on. Please help because I'm truly tired of calling for
help to move heavy furniture around and pulling up nasty stinky carpet and
padding and then running box fans directly through the carpet to get it to dry
to prevent it from mildew and mold. I had someone the last time to cut the
padding in sections and I ran the padding through the dryer. I didn't think of
that one someone else did. Please, please , lend me your wisdom, counsel and
advice. It took about 30 hours the last time to finally get things back
together.
Warm regards and much thanks in advance for any workable solutions.
Mycell Armington in Tallahassee Florida.
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