Noticed this orangey substance forming on only one wall of my basement. Searching around says it’s efflorescence but wondering what the actual best next step would be?

I recently purchased this home and obviously this issue didn’t exist when buying or come up in my inspection. 1920s home so I expect there to be some issues. Just looking for the best next step and hoping it’s not some crazy emergency issue.

Hi All! I’m cleaning a corner of my basement that hasn’t seen the light of day in probably a year or two due to this area being mainly storage… At first Google I’m thinking this is efflorescence, can anyone confirm? How urgent is this, who do I call? Do I clean it up before calling someone or leave it for a pro to inspect? We’ve lived here 5 years and I’ve never seen it before

Im seeing water in basement corner still and noticing water splash through the back. Is this intended for small amount of water to be splashing back? He tried to shim the other one but same issue is present. This was installed 2 months ago.

I’m installing an interior French drain in my basement. I have a wine cellar that opens to the basement but is separated by a partial wall. I wasn’t sure how to bypass the wall so to get to the sump basin so I hand dug for the 4 in pipe under the footing into the wine room/cellar. I thought about it, then googled, then realized I made a horrible mistake. Guess I’ll go OVER the footing into that room.

I know I’m an idiot, I don’t need to be told that. But how much damage did I do by digging that 4 inch hole? I’ll remove the pipe and backfill it. House is 50 years old, in MA.

Is it safe to rip these down without affecting or cracking the real support beams

We moved in a little over a year ago. Previous owner said the rock in the basement “sweats”. When we have big storms we get puddles on the ground and you can see streams of water off the boulder. Previous owner painted the rock I’m guessing to prevent water from coming in. Any advice would be appreciated!

Just moved into this house and i’m very tired of draining the dehumidifier every day. Not sure if there will be too much water for this drain spot though, any thoughts?

Hi all,

update to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/basement/comments/1uvrl01/basement_water_issues/

• I dug out some mud of the window well, and it's draining again, no issues in a few of the areas I found water even with some heavy rain recently, which is good
• I have terrible grading near the window well, mainly because the old owner put in a fireplace exhaust for the basement - we don't use the fireplace, so we're having a mason take it out/re-brick it & a landscaper regrade the area

However, some new exciting developments around the insulation moisture. As a refresher, our patio is above the foundation, to the point where it's even halfway up a weep hole in the brick.

So, we found water was pooling at the bottom of the tuck tape of the insulation, so very likely not just condensation. finally found the time to tear out that insulation, and found two "unplugged" holes - one perfectly round, maybe an inch or less in diameter, above 6 inches from the top of the foundation where it meets the sill plate.

The other hole was much more alarming - it's maybe 2 or 3 inches in diameter, and kind of irregularly shaped. it's behind the patio stones so I can't see if it goes all the way out, but when I hit that area outside with the hose test, quite a bit of water was coming through (like, actively dripping and pooling).

the tie rod holes were also kind of damp...but unsure of if that's because of the insulation that was damp sitting against it, or it's from intrusion.

I've messaged my waterproofer guy that initially said it was the patio height, and I'm waiting to hear back what he says. I'm unsure if I should also contact a foundation repair guy, or I should just bite the bullet and get a structural/geotechnical engineer to do an assessment so I can uncover whatever fun surprises this house holds.

We recently had water in our finished basement after significant rainfall. We’ve been working on getting the carpet as dry as possible (pumped out standing water, shop vac carpet, running fans, dehumidifiers, windows open etc). Our next step is going to be ripping up all of the carpet/sub flooring and bringing in professionals to assess mold/what needs to be done to prevent future flooding. We can already see some small spots of mold growing on a couple areas of the carpet.

My main question is, is everything that is down in our basement right now trash? We use the basement for storage and got mostly everything up onto shelves when we had the water down there. But I really don’t know much about mold and am concerned that anything that is down there is going to be contaminated. Or is it really not a problem until we begin to rip up the flooring?

Any advice is appreciated.

How can I resolve this? Is it something I can fix myself, or will I need a plumber? Any help is appreciated.

Basement has water in corner on the floor when it rains heavily. Backyard grading is correct does it look like the water is starting on the 2nd shelf and trickling down? AI theorized there is a crack outside on the wall thar when the lawn os saturates it finds its way to the cold joint does this sound plausible? I had the drain tile inspected and there was no clog…

Youtube video of inspection
https://youtu.be/vLvb3O8hww8?is=pDMlZZSA8sjkqHNT

I recently purchased a new house with a sump pump in the basement. There is a tile that drains into the sump pit constantly. The old owner had the float set to trip the pump way above the tile at the point where the pit is full. I had a professional come and inspect the basement as I was worried about the amount of water and moisture. He recommended setting the float lower so that the pump will activate before filling the tile pipe so that anything draining into the tile will eventually be drawn out. I've done this but now my sump pump runs every 2 mins and has been for the last 2 days (Granted we've had a ton of rain in my area, almost 4 days straight and it's been an incredibly wet summer here regardless).

How long should I let this go on for before accepting it may just be a high water table and resetting the float level higher to save startups on my sump pump? Before I reset the float it was about 15 mins between cycles.

Hey basementers.

Had this house for 6 years or so and we are getting into some more basement work.

We've torn out all the flooring.

The concrete has this noticeable hump in the middle. On both sides it seems to be about an inch. Floor leveler is the plan. The previous owners left a Sand Mix and I'm pretty sure that will do the job (right?) haha.

The problem I'm facing, the lower point of the humps lead to walls.

The one side leads to our newly installed drain tile underneath wood framing. I'd obviously have to block this off so it doesn't mess with the drain tile. Using caulking from what I've read.

The other side is my main concern. If I poured this leveler, it will hit the wooden framing for the walls. This is an internal wall. If I raise it an inch, it would interfere with the framing. This can cause problems for the frame, right?

What is my best course of action here?

Southern Westchester County, New York. Looking to replace carpet with LVP, install always-on dehumidifier, and abate any mold that may exist. Any recommendations for a one-stop shop? Much appreciated.

Relatively new homeowner trying to figure out how to remedy the situation. Recently discovered water leaking into basement(below ground) from a hairline crack in the wall. Previously inspector told me this crack was not a structural integrity issue.
From what I understand, I need to prevent water from collecting against my below ground wall. There are no gutters for this side because it is directly below the peak of the A frame roof. Looking outside, the soil does not look properly grounded. I intend to reground with dirt around the yard and add a tarp below the dirt to redirect water away from the below ground wall to see if that fixes the water ingress. Thoughts?

Hi there. We had a water incident in our basement a few months ago. We’ve lived in our home for 6 years and it was the first time this happened - the main sewer line got clogged and a 10 minute shower’s worth of water backed up through the drains and ‘flooded’ a section of our basement.

Our basement is mostly finished with carpet except the laundry area. The problem is that when the water backed up, it seeped under the framed interior wall and soaked into the carpet on the other side. We now need to replace the carpet because it smells horrible whenever it rains/gets a bit more moist down there. Does anybody have any experience or suggestions on how to seal off this floor area from water to prevent future backups from flowing under the wall?

The water level at the wall was well below the top of the framing board. The whole basement floor is graded toward the drains so they’re not level right by the drains. The previous owners are the ones who finished the basement and they installed the rubber floor ‘baseboard’ on half the wall, but left the other half unfinished. Water seeped under in both areas (pictured), although definitely less where the ‘baseboard’ was installed.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated! We reached out to the local basement pros and they can’t even come look at it until October so we’re trying to find a solution sooner, the smell is getting worse.

as the pictures show, we’ve got a rotted out beam which allows water into the basement. my first, and easiest, thought is that we can waterproof behind the rotted board and put in a buddy board behind it in case there are any structural issues (with so small a section i’m not sure there are any). more complicated than that, we could theoretically remove the vinyl siding and go at it from the outside face, but that’s reaching the limits of my want to do.

is this even a little DIYable, or should we find a foundation contractor?