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Hi. There is a house in Teaneck NJ which we are interested in buying, however it seems to have regular water intrusion into the unfinished basement. I stopped by the house to check it following a recent thunderstorm, and water was trickling into the basement at several locations along the walls and at the floor-wall juncture. There are also many stains on the slab indicating past water pooling. I suspect that water enters every time there is a substantial rain.
The house is vacant, but the current owners have recently installed a sump pump, evidently without French drains. It is clear that some effort was made in the past to install exterior drainage (you can see some exposed PVC pipes and a mud-clogged grate) around the house, but this is not working and the water is still coming in.
So here is the question: Should we run from this house like the plague, or should we assume that all problems have a solution, and wait for an inspector to tell us what the issues actually are? We ultimately need to be able to finish this basement, so we need to be confident that the water intrusion can be solved. Thanks for any tips!
It sounds bad - band-aid solutions that haven't worked. How does the house sit? If it is lower than others on the street, addressing this will be that much harder. There may be a way to fix it, but it will cost. You'd better make sure the price of the house is accordingly low if you pursue it, low enough that you'll still come out ahead even after the repairs are done.
Everything has a solution. What the solution to this depends on the cause of the water intrusion. Look at the grade of the land around the house and the neighborhood. It may be possible to regrade the land around it to make the water run away from the house. It may need to have the outside dug out and the exterior walls sealed and a french drain put in around the house to steer the water away. Expensive. If it is an older house, the previous water proofing may have failed with age. If the price of the house is worth the expense of the big dig and waterproofing, and it's a solution, go for it.
You already found the problem, why do you need an inspector to come in and repeat it to you? He'll probably just write the same thing that you saw in the report with a reco to hire a water mitigation contractor to look into the problem... Save your 500 bucks.
Hi. There is a house in Teaneck NJ which we are interested in buying, however it seems to have regular water intrusion into the unfinished basement. I stopped by the house to check it following a recent thunderstorm, and water was trickling into the basement at several locations along the walls and at the floor-wall juncture. There are also many stains on the slab indicating past water pooling. I suspect that water enters every time there is a substantial rain.
The house is vacant, but the current owners have recently installed a sump pump, evidently without French drains. It is clear that some effort was made in the past to install exterior drainage (you can see some exposed PVC pipes and a mud-clogged grate) around the house, but this is not working and the water is still coming in.
So here is the question: Should we run from this house like the plague, or should we assume that all problems have a solution, and wait for an inspector to tell us what the issues actually are? We ultimately need to be able to finish this basement, so we need to be confident that the water intrusion can be solved. Thanks for any tips!
Easter Sunday i spent all day pumping water out of my rentals unfinished half basement spent all this week trying to find why water was getting in.I too have trouble when the rains are heavy and suspect sewage and rain water back up [the system here is very old sewage and storm combined] also i had a gutter drain stopped up that i had to snake out.
Water also was bubbling up thru the floor and my neighbors home [house is unoccupied] is doing the same he too worked all week on his property.
I believe they call this Hydrostatic pressure when the ground is saturated the water has no where to go [water is like electricity it will follow the least path of resistance] so it forces its way in thru cracks and your foundations...look for wet spots and correct your problems by diverting the water away from the house.
I would wait to see what your inspector says but if i knew ahead of time that i had a water problem like i have now [it got into the water heater and the furnace what a mess]....i would not purchased this property. Google search Causes of water in your basement? Should help you out it helped me.
I had an old house sitting on a hillside, stone foundation. There was a hole in the floor for water to drain out. Worked fine. But i wouldn't have wanted to fix the basement for anything other than what it was-a place for the furnace, water heater, etc.
Check with your local fountation contractor and price having them dig up all around the house to the bottom of the foundation and seal it correctly and then put in a weeping drain system. You should be able to get it done, depending on the size of the house, for a few thousand dollars. Then tell the seller to fix it properly or run like Hell...!!
There was a hole in the floor for water to drain out.
Or drain in. Something to always look for, the house we just moved into has drains in the floor. The downspouts from the house drain into this line too, then it travels beneath the basement floor to all the drains, lastly through a sump and then about 200 ft. shot from the house out to the road. It works well but it was installed 60 years ago. We suspect the line is partially blocked. this past winter we had huge amount of water draining off the mountain and it just couldn't handle it and backed up into the basement. There was no sump pump but there is now.
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what a mess]....i would not purchased this property. Google search Causes of water in your basement? Should help you out it helped me.
Something to always look for, the house we just moved into has drains in the floor. The downspouts from the house drain into this line too, then it travels beneath the basement floor to all the drains, lastly through a sump and then about 200 ft. shot from the house out to the road. It works well but it was installed 60 years ago. We suspect the line is partially blocked. this past winter we had huge amount of water draining off the mountain and it just couldn't handle it and backed up into the basement. There was no sump pump but there is now. 
