New home not moved into yet. We are in south with huge rains. Walkout basement with french drains that worked until the got clogged as we did not extend them long enough to clear construction dirt buildup. Result is water seeping through basement walls. We built usingcinder blocks, filled with rebar steel and filled with concrete. we put moisture proof sealer on walls interior and had painted 2 coates of ames saterproof sealer on exterior plus a foam board to keep rock from damaging wall sealant before we backfilled with rocks then sand. We sustained 20 inches of rain in 24 hours. Basement loked great until 6 hours later, water built up and could not get out. We dug up and found drains, cleaned and water gushed out. Guess the trouble of backfilling with rock and sand was good idea as it is getting to french drain, just blocked. So I know it will work but problem is much greater. We built 8' x 60' concrete porch on back side of house above basement that is underground theinking that water will never get in there...wrong. We have exposed soil which is sandy-clay, mostly clay. They graded and were ready to put grass down. Well, we left a 2' x 2' hole in two areas inf ront of porch for plumber to put cut-off valves for us where water lines enter home. Rain came first. It filled holes with water then pushed through under concrete porches and left huge voids under. Rain came again and now continued to make void under attached garage that attaches to one corner of basement. Now water is running around corner and lying in large hole against house. How do you fill these voids, we cannot reach them. Will anything last or will it continue to happen? Will that bentonite stuff work? Any ideas would be very much appreciated. No one has basements in the south, guess we know why now. mac

Skypathway - we are unfortunatley the first ones with a complete home so guess our neighbors will have to learn from us, unless they were better at planning. A cute shed sounds like a possibility, any ideas ?? mjjones453 - wish we had a basement, but its not built around here. Too costly as we don't have to dig far on anything since the ground doesn't really freeze here. susieq07 - thanks for showing yours. I guess a shed of some sort would be a possibility like skypathway suggested. We need it enclosed and insulated. I posted on the plumbing forum to see if we could pull plumbing all the way from that end and back and put it on the garage side where it would be hidden more. Sounds like it might be a possibility. Just a PITA to do.

I ended up blowing out the air with the compressor. It got a lot of it I think but I also used the bread trick as well. One of the pipes still was wet inside and the bread dried it right up. Also ended up chopping the ends off some heater hoses and using that for flex line. They don't sell 3/4 copper flex at my home depot but do sell the copper heater connection hoses. Anyhow, no leaks now and all is good! Thanks for all the responses, really helped me out!

Hi all, In a major renovation, we replaced most of our old plumbing, and, added a new floor with new plumbing. The water hammer took about 2 weeks to show up. It only occurs when faucets are shut off quickly. Our plumber [after ripping open some walls to look for loose pipes (!?!)] installed a pressure reducing valve where the water enters the house. He claims it took the pressure from ~130 to ~60psi. No help. Then he added a large hammer arrestor just inside that valve. Nope! Then he installed smaller hammer arrestors under each sink & behind the washer. Still no luck... I read that ceramic-valve faucets can cause water hammer due to the abrupt shut off. Interestingly, our 2 "old" upstairs ceramic faucets now cause water hammer, but the same faucets didn't when we had only a single story house. We have 2 Takagi tankless water heaters mounted outside the house. The plumber thinks they must be responsible for the hammer. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Pableau