I have a 1" black plastic pipe coming into my basement from my deep well. It comes through a hole the poured concrete wall and shares the hole with the well power cable. The hole is sealed with what looks like mortar. I get a fair drip-drip-drip leak during the early spring melt (like now) every year and, occassionally, during a summer deluge. Right now I'm getting about 5 gallons every 6 hours.
Can any of you good folks in the CBN brain trust suggest how I might go about patching such a leak? Is there anything I can do from inside the basement, or, must I (ugh) excavate the outside of the wall? Thanks for any help!
There could be some way to patch it, but instead of patching you could also consider what the previous owner of my house did...
Same setup as you it sounds, pipe comes in about 12" off the basement floor and apparently leaked like crazy. A well was built about 12" away from the way and about 18" tall with bricks and mortar and then a sump pump sits in that little "well" and evertime the water fills up (which right now is about every 10 minutes [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] ) it is pumped up and outside to the back of the house.
There may be a downsoide to this solution, but my guess is any type of patch you do on the inside of the wall is going to not last long (on the other hand if you want to excavate on the outside and patch it it might work better).
The sysmte I have has the added benefit of giving the water a place to go...i.e. it wants to come it anyway, so let it and then pump it out somplace downhill..otherwise the pressure would continue to build on the outside.
Haven't priced sump-pumps lately but my guess is that this whole setup would cost about $150 bucks with your own labor (cement, bricks, pump, and some piping to the outside).
See attached picture of my setup..not much too look at but has kept my cellar dry for the 5 years I have been here...
Thouhts:
Assumming the hole in the basement wall was made after the wall was poured and then the pump discharge line and electical cable were sealed in place by mortar.
Chip out the existing mortar seal rembering that the electrical cable probably has 220 volts. Try and clean the edges as much as possible. Try and place a sheet of aluminum flashing on the outside of the basement wall . this may not look pretty or be easy to do. Then inject silicon sealant and try and work it back and around the outside of basement. The aluminum flashing is placed for this purpose. Get a nice layer of silicon that will seal the hole.pipes,cable and let it dry. Next day finish filling the hole with silicone making sure there are no voids. It may work but only try it when the soil outside the basement is dry or there is no water leaking in.
Remember the 220 volt cable!!! Trip the breaker before starting.
Thanks, Egon and EJB, for the great ideas! I'm resigning myself to digging the sucker up at the end of summer and repacking the through-hole. For the time being, I've got a version of EJB's sump hole going using a bucket, utility pump, and some flashing siliconed onto the concrete wall. The floor is dry, the bucket empties itself, and the wife is happy.
Mine did the same for a year-and-a-half that I owned my new-to-me house. It was built in '74. Anyway, I didn't think nothing of it, except the ground on the outside of the wall was always a little wet. On a whim, I turned off a valve which fed an outside faucet. After a while, the ground dried up and the slow weeping stopped. I figured I'd fix the break in the ground at a later date. Well, that later date came unexpectedly this last winter in 20-degree weather! The main line from the well pump to the house cracked where it entered the foundation wall making a very muddy mess outside the wall. I dug down and fixed both water lines. Supposedly, over the years, the ground shifts, but the foundation does not. Where a water line enters concrete, it will break. Both my father and father-in-law had to do this same fix on their houses.
So, I guess my suggestion is to make sure your water line is not cracked (even a little).
One idea was to pack river rock (smooth gravel) 6" around the water line for about 18" away from the house. The rock would give a little, but packed dirt would not.
Reply With Quote
