I am sorry that you are going through this. My sister-in-law called last night - her basement is flooded, too. She rigged up some sort of pump with a garden hose and is pumping it out. I have never had any experience with this ordeal, so have no advise - just prayers for your safety.

kayjones - thank you for the good thoughts! I feel so stressed and frantic, and the positive thoughts help!

Silvercomet

I know exactly what you are going through. A few years ago we lost power and our basement flooded. We lost our brand new carpeting that was 1 year old. Two years ago we had a horrible storm and lost power again. DH and I decided to stay up all night and bail out the sump pump. Power was off for 26 hours and we got rid of 5000 gallons of water. But we prevailed and saved the basement. It took LOTS of caffine and 3 hour sleep shifts. The stress and exhaustion was unbelievable. I cant' imagine what the people of Wisconsin and Cedar Rapids are going through.

I don't have an answer to your question but can offer you (((HUGS)))

Samkaren
your resident DJ

Bless your heart Silvercomet! I'm so sorry, I'm no help, but I will add you to my prayers.

I'm praying for a Good Samaritan to come round and help you.

Gayle

When we put in the basement here in ND, we installed a double drain tile around the basement, all cement flour and reinforced styrofoam bricks with double sump pumps. We also have a backup diesel generator hooked up so we can use that to keep the refrigerators, heat and pumps going. Also we have river rock next to the house, except in front where we have smaller flower beds again set in containers. My SIL does not like trees and flower beds right next to the house.
I am sorry about the flooding and hope you can get your basement finished and sealed.

Sending special thoughts your way. You must be absolutely exhausted. The weather sure isn't being kind this year.

I'm here in SE Wisconsin, bailing right along with you, Silvercomet. Same situation: Sump pump failed, water pored in through the concrete block. My basement is just like yours - finished beautifully, but with area rugs on tile.

I Shop Vacked all day Sunday, first to remove the inch or two of water from the floor, then to dry the rugs. The rugs have been laying on the driveway every time the sun shines, which isn't very often!

They say misery loves company. I wish there weren't so darned many of us. We'll get through it somehow. Good luck to you.

Sherry

I recently watched an episode of Ask This Old House that was about sump pumps. They showed a battery operated model that was used as a backup if the primary electric model failed. There was also a model that didn't use any power at all - it connects to your water pipes an when it turn on, city water pressure runs it. For every gallon of city water that runs through it, it removes another two gallons of water you need to get rid of. This sounds good because as long as you have water pressure, your basement is protected.

Here is a link that might be useful: water powered sump pump

Thank you so much for all the good wishes! It really does help. And it's good to know people have gone through this and come out sane! Many people have it worse than me, and I'm still completely overwhelmed.

I'm definitely looking into the water powered sump pump or the battery backup - that's a great idea. If I lose power during a storm, I want my sump pump working more than ever!

Does anyone know how homeowners insurance is likely to handle this? I don't have flood insurance, and the homeowners seems to exclude most water. I bought the sump pump overflow endorsement, but I think the water came in either through or over the foundation. The sump pump failed, but I don't think all the water came in from the sump, so I'm concerned it'll be excluded. If my insurance isn't going to cover it, then I'd rather not tell them. But if there's a good chance they'll cover it, then I really need to call!

We had a flood in our basement this past January. Actually the toilet backed up due to a broken pipe. Keep the doors open and run fans, that will help it dry out. I know how nerve wracking it can be. We had a cesspool guy in three times before the pipe got fixed. It finally dried out. Hope yours isn't so bad. And keep your sense of humor. A year from now you may be laughing about this!

I am so sorry your basement got flooded. I was worried about mine, but my neighbor assured me that mine is O.K. My main worry is my washer and dryer are in the basement.

I feel so bad for you. Our basement flooded twice years ago when the city built a new subdivision and hooked the sewer system up to our old existing one. Our neighbours were knee deep in filth. Finally we got hit but only about 6 inches. We had the basement redone and got hit again. We raised H at city hall and finally got them to redo the sewers and to install sump pumps with battery back up in all our basements. To this day when it rains I get nervous. I too was a backet case.
I do hope your rain stops soon and you can find a solution so that it won't happen again.

One of our school secretaries has only been in their new house for 8 months. This last weekend they had 4 inches of water in their totally finished basement. Their kids rooms and living room were downstairs. I hate to tell you this but they had the insurance company come out and they said since it was ground water seeping up and into the basement it was flood related and would be covered under flood insurance which they don't have. Good luck to you. We took over our extra subpump to them to use so they have several pumps going full blast.

Stacie
girlsingardens

Sorry about your flood. I, too, live in SE Wisc and can attest that we had something greater than a 100 yrs flood. It topped the last 100 yrs flood of a few years ago.

If your basement walls, footing, and footing drains are proeperly designed and built, then you water flood is attributable about 100% to the sump pump. When the sump pump does not have enough capacity - or in your case it quit- to remove the water as fast as it comes in, the water outside the basement wall will rise over the footings, soak the bottom cinder blocks and continue to rise to grade level.

If the sump pump quits, sometimes it better to have the basement flood. If something is blocking the water flow from outside the walls to the sump crock, then water pressure builds on the walls - think of the basement as a concrete boat. This pressure can cause a wall to buckle inward. This hazard is most prevalent for a newly constructed basement without any house over it. The weight of the house helps to stabalize the walls and makes it harder to push the walls in. In the usual construction, a house is not connected to the basement walls; It merely sits on the walls.

When a basement floods, it equalizes the hydraulic pressure on both sides of the wall.

When I witnessed the amount of water that fell in the past week, I question the usefulness of a battery operated sump pump. It would have to have a hugh battery bank to keep it running as long as needed. In a storm like this one, a power loss can last 1 day or more. WE-Energies was pretty good about getting power restored in a timely fashion, but they had only so many crews and they worked off a priority list - the most critical came first. A home owners flooded basement does not rate as high as a police and fire station, or a hospital and traffic lights.

Last week, hardware stores in Milwaukee reported a run on sump pumps and emergency pumps. They sold out.

By your description, you site design seems ok. Water drains have been designed to move the water away from the house. The sump water should be routed more than 10 feet away from the house and to a location that drains away from the house, else the water merely comes back and is recirculated.

My advice to you is to replace your sump pump with a quality unit. You may wish to consider a sealed, submersible one, one that can run under water.

In my house, my pump does not run very often. It may go a couple of years before turning on, and that can be bad too. 5 years ago, it was finally called on to run and was frozen by corrosion. I was a busy little boy for about an 1/2 hour while I took the pump impeller housing apart to un-jam the pump and get it back in the crock before water started coming over the top of the crock. I barely made it. As part of home maintence, one should run the pump twice a year to insure that it is in working order. if there is no water in the crock, put some in for the test.

I watched a house next door being refurbished, It is owned by a trust of siblings who inherited it. They had a damp basement wall problem. As part of the upgrade, dirt was dug away from the absement wall and a waterpproof sheet was glued to the outside of the wall down to a depth of about 5 feet. This week was a test on that job.

Not everyone can afford one, but a backup alternator is good. Have an electrican arrange the circuits to run the sump, refrigerator, freezer, a couple of lights, and the telephone off the alternator. Size the alternator to carry the loads mention above plus a margin. Again, this unit will require periodic maintence to stay in working order. Gasoline engines that sit for long periods of time can become inoperative. And one must have enough fuel on hand to run the alternator for a few hours. Hopefully, replacement fuel can be procured during the emergency.

jemdandy - that's a lot of good info, thanks! I'll be marking my calendar to test my sump pump from now on. And I like the idea of an alternator, I'll have to keep that in mind.

stacie - I was afraid of that with the insurance; it sounds like at best it'll be a struggle with them. At least my basement carpet etc. wasn't brand new!

And I'm so very glad I'm only dealing with water and not sewer (knock wood, it's still raining). Yikes!

I can hear thunder right now - here's hoping the rain lets up for everyone!

An aside:

Around here, people buy alternators not for floods, but for winter storms. The power can be out for days and the furnace is down until you get power.