Please send good thoughts...

[Jem]

So I woke up this morning with about 2 inches of water in my basement. It's ground water seeping up due to all the snow melt and rain, and I don't think all the frost has left the ground as we have not had a lot of warm weather. My area has NEVER flooded before so this was very unexpected, even with all the flood warnings in the surrounding areas.
As the day went on the water continued to rise, so it was a losing battle as I continued to use the shop vac to suck as much water as I could. Our floors in the basement aren't perfectly even, so at the lowest point of the floor it rose to about 5 inches. My husband went out and bought a water pump, and that really did help, we got as much water out of the basement as we could with it, as it has to be submerged in a minimum of a 1/4 inch of water. The water is still coming in though, we turned the pump off so we could eat dinner and not have to watch it (it was sitting in the minimum amount) and when dinner was done the water had risen again...not super fast but you can tell it's still coming up.
The scary thing...I don't know if we're covered by our home insurance...When I talked to the adjuster, he warned me that if the guy suspected that our foundation was the problem we would not be covered. Thankfully, our foundation is fine, the inspector believes that it is indeed ground water seeping up. However, after my adjuster told me about not being covered if our foundation was compromised, I decided to take a look at my policy...now I'm confused and don't know if I'm covered for ground water either...the adjuster said I was covered...I think...I'm second guessing what we actually talked about...so now I'm just terrified.
The inspector said he would be sending his findings to the insurance company tonight, so we will hopefully get a phone call from our adjuster tomorrow morning/afternoon and we'll find out at that point if we're covered. God I hope so!!!!
We have lost a few things...some important, some not so much. Thankfully, over the years, I've been sorting and transferring a lot of my stuff into plastic bins. Most of the stuff that was still in carboard boxes was stuff I was putting aside for a yard sale, but my husband unfortunately may have lost some childhood memory stuff...papers, pictures, newspaper clippings...that kind of thing...we have them all laid out so they will hopefully dry out well. He also has a vintage drum set...we got it out of the water as soon as we could, but some of the drums did get wet, I guess we won't know the extent of the damage until they dry up.
A silver lining...this was ground water and not a sewage backup...so more things will be salvageable.
Obviously our floors, baseboards and the bottoms of the drywall are toast. All of my family have already said they will do everything they can to help if we're not coved by the insurance.
I'm feeling very defeated...it's seems it's always something...and usually something big...not just everyday normal stress crap.
By body is already screaming at me from all the buckets of water I've picked up and dumped, all the bending and squatting and all the up and down the stairs....and it ain't over yet. This is the first time I've sat down for more than 10 minutes since about 7:30 this morning when I noticed all the water.
So...yeah....please pray, wish, hope...whatever you do...for me that this will turn out OK.

 

[iPappy]

So I woke up this morning with about 2 inches of water in my basement. It's ground water seeping up due to all the snow melt and rain, and I don't think all the frost has left the ground as we have not had a lot of warm weather. My area has NEVER flooded before so this was very unexpected, even with all the flood warnings in the surrounding areas.
As the day went on the water continued to rise, so it was a losing battle as I continued to use the shop vac to suck as much water as I could. Our floors in the basement aren't perfectly even, so at the lowest point of the floor it rose to about 5 inches. My husband went out and bought a water pump, and that really did help, we got as much water out of the basement as we could with it, as it has to be submerged in a minimum of a 1/4 inch of water. The water is still coming in though, we turned the pump off so we could eat dinner and not have to watch it (it was sitting in the minimum amount) and when dinner was done the water had risen again...not super fast but you can tell it's still coming up.
The scary thing...I don't know if we're covered by our home insurance...When I talked to the adjuster, he warned me that if the guy suspected that our foundation was the problem we would not be covered. Thankfully, our foundation is fine, the inspector believes that it is indeed ground water seeping up. However, after my adjuster told me about not being covered if our foundation was compromised, I decided to take a look at my policy...now I'm confused and don't know if I'm covered for ground water either...the adjuster said I was covered...I think...I'm second guessing what we actually talked about...so now I'm just terrified.
The inspector said he would be sending his findings to the insurance company tonight, so we will hopefully get a phone call from our adjuster tomorrow morning/afternoon and we'll find out at that point if we're covered. God I hope so!!!!
We have lost a few things...some important, some not so much. Thankfully, over the years, I've been sorting and transferring a lot of my stuff into plastic bins. Most of the stuff that was still in carboard boxes was stuff I was putting aside for a yard sale, but my husband unfortunately may have lost some childhood memory stuff...papers, pictures, newspaper clippings...that kind of thing...we have them all laid out so they will hopefully dry out well. He also has a vintage drum set...we got it out of the water as soon as we could, but some of the drums did get wet, I guess we won't know the extent of the damage until they dry up.
A silver lining...this was ground water and not a sewage backup...so more things will be salvageable.
Obviously our floors, baseboards and the bottoms of the drywall are toast. All of my family have already said they will do everything they can to help if we're not coved by the insurance.
I'm feeling very defeated...it's seems it's always something...and usually something big...not just everyday normal stress crap.
By body is already screaming at me from all the buckets of water I've picked up and dumped, all the bending and squatting and all the up and down the stairs....and it ain't over yet. This is the first time I've sat down for more than 10 minutes since about 7:30 this morning when I noticed all the water.
So...yeah....please pray, wish, hope...whatever you do...for me that this will turn out OK.

I am sorry Jem , I hope things will turn out better than OK and the important things can be saved and you're all covered for it. As big of a PITA this is, I'm glad you noticed it now vs. a day or two from now, which would have made it so much worse.

 

[susanm9006]

So sorry Jem . I went through my groundwater flooded basement a few weeks ago when my sump pump failed. I fortunately don’t have a finished basement and pretty much everything was already above the water level but it is an exhausting job to clean up and dump all that water. For sure the next shop vac I buy will have a hose connection so that the bucket part can drain itself to a floor drain instead of having to be dumped.

Is the water coming in everywhere or is it coming in from one wall? If it’s mostly from one section you can try putting up these flood tubes that act sort of like sand bags and keep the water confined. Stores like Lowe’s carry them and they aren’t terribly expensive. You have to keep pumping the water out but it does keep most of the water out of other sections of the basement drier

Hopefully insurance will cover the repairs. I would also be thinking about whether you should have a sump pump system installed.

 

[Margot Lane]

So sorry. Given the way the world is turning, I have a feeling you might not be alone in seeing new events from nature. Are your neighbors struggling with this as well? Please let us know what happens.

 

[Winchester]

Good luck with it all. We had a similar issue over the weekend with a clogged French drain that put water into our basement. Got it all cleaned up, but that was a pain in the butt. Hope it all goes well.

 

[Jem]

I would also be thinking about whether you should have a sump pump system installed.

I grew up in this neighborhood as a child, and I'm back as an adult. Have several family members in this neighborhood as well. This is just not a place where sump pumps are needed, nobody has them around here, or at least not many...this is just so unexpected. But yes, we may get a sump pump installed incase these weather events become the norm.

I have a feeling you might not be alone in seeing new events from nature. Are your neighbors struggling with this as well?

I haven't spoken to any of the neighbors yet, so I'm not sure if anyone else have had issues with flooding. But the ditches have been filled with water this year...not something that usually happens and at the low point of the neighborhood (the other end from where I'm at), had water flooded across the whole road in one spot....very unusual.
The remediation inspector said he's been really busy the last few days, going to several places that are not known for flooding.

The water is still coming in, so we didn't get any sleep last night. We had to get up and turn the pump on every 45 minutes or so, but then get back up again to turn it off after a half hour because the pump is working faster than the water coming in. You can't let a pump run too dry so we couldn't just leave it on all night. We have it sitting in the area where we think the majority of the water stems from...there's and old pit in the basement.....maybe from a sump pump from way back in the day...it's also a low point in the floor so the water gets deeper there first.
So overall, it's a good thing that we can pump faster than the water coming in...but makes for a very sleepless night.

I have a feeling you might not be alone in seeing new events from nature.

I think I'm going to put a call in to the city. Just this summer, a drainage ditch was dug that fed into the direction of my neighborhood. It was created to help with drainage from all the new subdivisions being built that are very flood prone. They've been doing other water drainage projects, and holding ponds for these stupid subdivisions as well over the last couple years. I'd be really mad if this is the reason my once perfectly dry house is now a flooded mess.

 

[Furrywurrypurry]

Sending positive thoughts your way.

When something big goes wrong in the place you call home it’s so disrupting and disorienting.
Hoping you find yourself back on drier footing soon and that this limits itself to a freak one off.

 

[rubysmama]

Jem : sorry to hear about your flooded basement. I can imagine the shock, when it's not something you ever had to be concerned about. Fingers crossed the insurance covers the damage / losses.

 

[cassiopea]

Thoughts and well wishes coming your way with a speedy resolution

 

[denice]

I think I'm going to put a call in to the city. Just this summer, a drainage ditch was dug that fed into the direction of my neighborhood. It was created to help with drainage from all the new subdivisions being built that are very flood prone. They've been doing other water drainage projects, and holding ponds for these stupid subdivisions as well over the last couple years. I'd be really mad if this is the reason my once perfectly dry house is now a flooded mess.

If this is the first time this has happened and snow melt and rain in the spring is normal for your area then I think this could be a possibility. If that is the case and you have neighbors close by you aren't the only ones having this problem.

 

[Jem]

Thanks everyone...

It's not looking good for the insurance coverage. We had the inspector come back a second time so we could show him what we believed could be an old sump pit (no pump)...we didn't even know we had it!!! Unfortunately it doesn't look like it was originally a sump pit but rather just a hole they dug in the concrete so they could tie into the main drainage pipe...they just didn't refill the hole after. The guy said he would re-submit his findings that he does agree that the water could have come up thru this hole and not the foundation and floors (thru pressure from ground water seeping into the concrete). You see, we have coverage for drain backup, sewage backup and SURFACE water entering our home (as long as it's not a foundation problem)....but ground water seeping into our home is not covered. IF the hole we found was a sump pit or a drain...we would have been fine, but because it's just a hole...it's not....well, probably not, it will depend on how the adjuster reads the inspectors findings...
Our last hope is when we start to pull up the flooring we find a drain somewhere that we can blame the water on. The guy said that if we find a drain, he'll come back and assess again so he can report to the insurance that it was also a possibility for the water.
In the mean time, we are responsible for the cleanup, so I'm going to try and start pulling up floors tomorrow. My mom's bringing me a second dehumidifier and a heater to help dry out the basement tomorrow morning...I think she's bringing us a big industrial fan too.

Thankfully, everyone around me is ready and willing to help with whatever we need. My Stepdad is actually the maintenance man for the townhouse complex they live in so we have access to basically every tool and emergency equipment we need and of course great knowledgeable labor.

We won't be able to replace the floors right away as we just don't have the money, but my Mom has a few area rugs that she's not using that she said we could have to make the basement more comfy so we don't have to just have the concrete floors.

My Dad is more than willing to help however he can but unfortunately my Stepmother's Mom is palliative and could go any day now...the doctor said it was almost time, so he's quite busy with all that...I don't want to burden him when his wife needs him.

I'm loosing some precious storage/shelving, so I'm going to keep my eyes open come yard sale season for some replacements. When I'm done posting here I'm going to go online and see what I can find...

I'm exhausted, I have no appetite (yes, I'm forcing myself to eat), and by body is broken...but I keep pushing to get things cleaned up. I think I'm one trusting ear or hug away from bursting into tears...

 

[Jem]

The water has stopped coming in and from the looks of outside, is starting to recede. Our ditches are now empty and the rain has stopped.
I'm trying to find the silver lining in all this and one thing would be that I've been putting off cleaning out, purging and organizing our storage room. Well, because of the flood, we now have no choice. I've been bringing up all our stuff out of the basement, mostly in the finished portion as we need to get to pulling up the floors but it all has to get done, so as I try to fit all my stuff in other areas of my home temporarily, and before putting it all back when the basement is dry, we're going purge.

 

[strider rose]

Jem thats awful and i hope that things gets better for you very soon hun

 

[Jem]

It's official...no coverage.

Good news though, the water stopped seeping in last night and things are drying up. We've got 2 dehumidifiers running atm and our gas stove/fireplace running to help. I pulled a couple baseboards off the wall and so far so good...no mold is visible. We'll start pulling up everything tomorrow. I'm going to go to work tomorrow, now that the water has stopped coming in. It's a short shift, so when I get home at around 1:30pm I'll get moving on the baseboards, floors and hopefully get to cutting the drywall. I don't really want to go to work, I'm still so exhausted and my legs just aren't working right, but I gotta make some moolah.
I already had next week booked off as my regular spring holiday. I won't be able to focus on my yard clean up as I had planned, but I'll at least have time to get thru all the sorting and the many dump runs we're probably going to make.
I hope I'm at least able to do some raking though...with all our pine tree needles, they need to be picked up so the grass will actually grow.

To those of you with inflammatory autoimmune diseases...what OTC meds work well to get thru severe DOMS....my ibuprofen just isn't cutting it. I'm going to take an extra dose of magnesium tonight to see if that helps any...

 

[Jem]

We got some muscle last night to help with moving our big couch outside, and my husband brought some awkwardly shaped things that can't be stacked and could get damaged to his shop for storing. I got the floors and baseboards out on one side of the basement, so I can work on ripping up floors on the other side now that I have more room to move things around. Still no visible mold. The backs of the floors had rubber bottoms so I'm sure that helps prevent mold.
Today I'm taking the rest of the floors out and hopefully get to cutting the drywall out too.
Then we need to figure out what we're going to do about the built in storage in the crawl space. How they built it was to first make the base/platform shelf and then put the posts and other shelves on top. The platform is completely saturated but when we rip that out the rest of the shelves won't have any support because the posts don't go all the way down to the floor. We'll have to cut blocks to support it I guess...The shelves are mounted/attached on the walls as well, they aren't just sitting on the platform, so we can't just lift them off then set them back down without the platform.

 

[Jem]

Oh and one more thing. This week is "free dump week" for our city. Which is great for saving money, but of course everyone takes advantage, so you could be in line for several hours just waiting to get to the dump. We don't have time for that, so we might have to hang on to our garbage until next week.

 

[susanm9006]

We got some muscle last night to help with moving our big couch outside, and my husband brought some awkwardly shaped things that can't be stacked and could get damaged to his shop for storing. I got the floors and baseboards out on one side of the basement, so I can work on ripping up floors on the other side now that I have more room to move things around. Still no visible mold. The backs of the floors had rubber bottoms so I'm sure that helps prevent mold.
Today I'm taking the rest of the floors out and hopefully get to cutting the drywall out too.
Then we need to figure out what we're going to do about the built in storage in the crawl space. How they built it was to first make the base/platform shelf and then put the posts and other shelves on top. The platform is completely saturated but when we rip that out the rest of the shelves won't have any support because the posts don't go all the way down to the floor. We'll have to cut blocks to support it I guess...The shelves are mounted/attached on the walls as well, they aren't just sitting on the platform, so we can't just lift them off then set them back down without the platform.

Is your flooring planks? Just wondering with the rubber back whether it could be vinyl. If so it can get soaked and be fine.

 

[Jem]

Is your flooring planks? Just wondering with the rubber back whether it could be vinyl. If so it can get soaked and be fine.

Unfortunately the floors are ruined...it's laminate but with hard rubber/plastic on the backs. The rubber backs are probably why they are good for putting over concrete, as it creates a moisture barrier, but they sure as heck didn't stand up to 3-5 inches of water.

 

[susanm9006]

So sorry. I would consider vinyl plank for future floor. It can be self installed and its cheap.

 

[Jem]

Yeah, I've been looking at different types of vinyl plank flooring, with hopefully a thick underlay. I know it's best to really make sure the the concrete is smooth if laying directly over, but I just don't have the funds to resurface the concrete. Our floors were uneven before with the laminate and it wasn't bad. Until then though, I'm just going to lay some hand-me-down area rugs to make it a bit more comfy for hubby...it's his "man cave" area.
When pulling up the floors, I did find an old "out of commission" drain. They stuffed it with insulation and that's it, just put the flooring right over. so I pulled the now soaking insulation out of the hole and we'll see what we need to do with it. I'm not sure if it's a "flood drain" that just connects to the city lines or right into the ground water system or if it's connected to my sewage drain...It's doesn't stink so I assume its not a raw sewage line.
We're not allowed to have overflow/flood drains or sump pumps connected to city lines...they have to drain into the ground/ditches. I don't want to take a chance on where it connects so we'll probably just cap it like the previous owner SHOULD have done.
IDK...we'll see what someone who knows what they are doing says.