Excessive Water Issue (attorney, new home, crawl space)

[19782009]

With the recent heavy rain and snow melting my backyard became a swimming pool.
It is not the first time that this is happening, but this time it was the worse.
Sump pump was working overtime for 2-3 days to help keep my crawl space dry.
Now, the question is...is this problem all my responsibility or the village has to help me in some way?
I mean, I am at the lowest point of all surrounding houses and the neighbor behind me sits the highest.
All the water from their yards coming into mine, especially from the house just right behind ours and that house is new construction (few years old I believe).
That house actually sits very high, looks like when they build it they put a lot of dirt or whatever to make their yard that high.
Is there anybody out there with the same problem and idea how to solve it?

[TempesT68]

You can try calling the city but I don't think there is anything they can do. My backyard has been a lake as well. From the massive snow we got this year and fairly quick melting is just overloading how fast the ground can absorb it.

[chet everett]

Really is a town by town issue and even then A WHOLE LOT DEPENDS on how you approach the appropriate officials.

I honestly have direct experience on both "uphill" and "down stream" sides of this issue. In my case I was able to find a sympathetic elected but unpaid official who sorta guided me along in how the town sets budget priorities for these sorts of things and was able to work out a reasonable compromise that solved both problems with a fair division of costs. Additional storm drains were installed at mutual cost...

I very good friend of mine is an attorney and as part of his practice he does litigation work another west suburban town. He was involved in a situation where a builder constructed a home for himself that discharged copious amounts of water onto the neighbors' back yard as well as the town's streets. The litigation forced the builder to reconfigure his "sump system" to discharge water into a very costly underground "holding tank" and then slowly discharge that water into the town's storm water system. Complicating matters the builder had to heat his driveway to allow the discharge system to keep from freezing. I understand the total cost for the modifications was in the six figures. Had the builder not complied the town was prepared to seize the property, worth nearly one million dollars, and raze the home for serious violations of building codes / deliberate efforts to subvert inspection...

[cubssoxfan]

Chet brings up a good point. Was the new home built out back, built to code?

[sgresident]

You really should check at your village office and get some info. Everything is often case-by-case. I did read somewhere..I think it is downers grove, that it is not considered an issue if water dissipates in 3 or 4 days. if it remains longer, could be an issue. but if you are low, and others are high..did they make things too high etc. all would need to be determined by the village engineers. Good Luck. we had a water issue that no one would help us with, so we took matters into our own hands. it cost us around $5000. but was worth it. the sump is still running 24/7 but there is a ton of moisture out there.

[19782009]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

Chet brings up a good point. Was the new home built out back, built to code?

Well, I know that the owner of the house is a owner of building company himself and already owns 3-4 houses in my neighborhood only, 2 of them newer construction.

[19782009]

Originally Posted by sgresident

You really should check at your village office and get some info. Everything is often case-by-case. I did read somewhere..I think it is downers grove, that it is not considered an issue if water dissipates in 3 or 4 days. if it remains longer, could be an issue. but if you are low, and others are high..did they make things too high etc. all would need to be determined by the village engineers. Good Luck. we had a water issue that no one would help us with, so we took matters into our own hands. it cost us around $5000. but was worth it. the sump is still running 24/7 but there is a ton of moisture out there.

What company did you hire for this kind of job? I was thinking of calling the landscaping co. for estimate.
But now will definitely call the village first to see if they can help.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by 19782009

Well, I know that the owner of the house is a owner of building company himself and already owns 3-4 houses in my neighborhood only, 2 of them newer construction.

I'm not suggesting anything malicious done by the builder, but human error can occur. You are 1) asking the village for advice and assitance to remedy your situation 2) if they are not helpful or do not do it themselves, you should have the right to ask the building department or code department to review the files and/or inspect to make sure the home was built to code.
You might be able to find information on this yourself. AH has many of its code requirements on line.

[19782009]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

I'm not suggesting anything malicious done by the builder, but human error can occur. You are 1) asking the village for advice and assitance to remedy your situation 2) if they are not helpful or do not do it themselves, you should have the right to ask the building department or code department to review the files and/or inspect to make sure the home was built to code.
You might be able to find information on this yourself. AH has many of its code requirements on line.

I know that you are not suggesting that, don't worry.
And thanks for the info, I will definitely ask the village for assistance, although I am not too optimistic.
In the meantime I will hope that it is not going to rain that much as predicted Sun/Mon .

[pvande55]

You think this snowfall was bad? A few years back there was a snowstorm then it suddenly went up to 50 deg F and it all melted while the ground was still frozen. This last time it melted slowly over several days. I doubt if you can expect village officials to prevent all natural occurrences.