The Utter Devastation Caused by Basement Flooding
There are very few things in a homeowner's life that are more horrible than a flooded basement. Even if it's just clean water backing up through the drains, it can do a great deal of damage. And if the flood happens to contain sewage or mud, the devastation is just that much worse. There's no easy way to clean up the mess. You see people on TV news who, following disasters, are shoveling the mud and muck from their homes. Things kept in the basement are ruined, and that may well include a furnace and a water heater as well as laundry appliances and furniture. Basement flooding is a disaster you want to keep from happening to you at all costs.
We'd lived in our home less than a year when my husband woke me up one morning telling me that we had water in the basement. We had a newborn at the time, and I'd been up most of the night, so I told him a little water was no big deal and asked him to let me sleep. He persisted by telling me that the water in the basement was at least 3 feet deep. That got me out of bed. Boxes of our things were spread out on the basement floor, because we hadn't gotten around to unpacking them yet, and they included my entire library of around 500 books. There was nothing we could do but have the neighbor back his garbage truck up to the door and throw all of this stuff in.
In addition, paneling had buckled, our pool table crashed to the floor, and our washer and dryer were ruined. We had thought we were protected. After all, someone had painted the walls with waterproofing paint, and no one had warned us there was a problem. The walls weren't where our problem lay, though. We had water coming up through the floor drains, the toilet, and even the stand pipe for the washer. This necessitated having a large hole dug in the basement floor (yes, it was cement and tile), and a pumping system installed. It was a lot of mess, work, and expense. It did, however, fix the problem.
The moral of this story is that you need to find out about water problems before buying a house. If you have a home with a wet basement, you need to do whatever it takes to fix the problem. A good waterproofing contractor will be able to tell you what needs to be done.
We'd lived in our home less than a year when my husband woke me up one morning telling me that we had water in the basement. We had a newborn at the time, and I'd been up most of the night, so I told him a little water was no big deal and asked him to let me sleep. He persisted by telling me that the water in the basement was at least 3 feet deep. That got me out of bed. Boxes of our things were spread out on the basement floor, because we hadn't gotten around to unpacking them yet, and they included my entire library of around 500 books. There was nothing we could do but have the neighbor back his garbage truck up to the door and throw all of this stuff in.
In addition, paneling had buckled, our pool table crashed to the floor, and our washer and dryer were ruined. We had thought we were protected. After all, someone had painted the walls with waterproofing paint, and no one had warned us there was a problem. The walls weren't where our problem lay, though. We had water coming up through the floor drains, the toilet, and even the stand pipe for the washer. This necessitated having a large hole dug in the basement floor (yes, it was cement and tile), and a pumping system installed. It was a lot of mess, work, and expense. It did, however, fix the problem.
The moral of this story is that you need to find out about water problems before buying a house. If you have a home with a wet basement, you need to do whatever it takes to fix the problem. A good waterproofing contractor will be able to tell you what needs to be done.
