My House is Leaking | AMERICAN HOUSING 

I wouldn't mess around, I'd get a basement guy out there. Also, it may help to put in window wells outside the basement windows. And definitely extend that downspout - either on the surface or buried (French drain) - to dump the rain water further away from your foundation.

Lawrence, unfortunately there is a lot more damage than meets the eye here. That moisture that’s coming into your “boiler room” and laundry room is also coming in other areas around the footing of your basement. Since you have a “finished basement”, meaning you have Sheetrock, wood paneling on the walls, baseboard, trim and wood framing behind all of that, it is hiding this. But it is also absorbing and holding that moisture and it will and most certainly has already started to mold, which is actually quite dangerous. I would highly recommend getting a reputable local contractor in there to give you a recommendation on what to do. Ignoring the issue will cause vast amounts of damage and possibly cost you tens of thousands dollars. Tackling the issue now might be as simple as ripping off a few pieces of Sheetrock and baseboard and doing some minor repairs, mold remediation, or maybe resin injections into foundation wall At the very least, like some other commenters have stated, try to sort out your gutter drainage. Those "green boards" are called splash blocks and are supposed to be running away from the foundation, they prevent the water coming from the gutter downspouts from draining directly against your foundation and help push it away and prevent erosion and seepage

Priority #1 - make sure your gutters and downspouts are clean, and divert the water as far away from your foundation as possible (down spout extenders, French drains, etc). The ground should grade away from the house. If drywall gets wet, cut it out above the waterline so it doesn’t get black mold.

I'm fairly familiar with this stuff. A few things: 1: That is a sump pump, but not installed correctly. What is usually done is to cut a hole in the floor, dig down a couple feet, install a plastic perforated basin, preferably surrounded with rock, and put the pump inside. It pumps out as the water fills up, and gives somewhere for ground water to go before getting to your floor. 2: One option would be to put a groove all the way around the inside perimeter so that water runs around and collects in this basin. 3: The most important first step is to reduce water that falls on the soil near your house. This means sloping soil so it doesn't tilt towards your house. Then digging a trench, putting a pipe in, and piping the downspouts so they come out where they can run away from your house. The pipes must slope the correct way. 4: Window wells may help. This is a way of recessing basement windows so that the soil around them can still slope the proper way, while providing a lip to keep water from falling in. 5: Foundation waterproofing products exist, but are best installed on the outside of the foundation walls. This is not practical for existing houses generally. 6: Sealing leaks from inside can sometimes work, but usually when you patch one the water just finds another way in. 7: Roof looks good from what you showed. Have a roofer come give you an opinion on venting. It is important and something that many older homes lack in. Feel free to message for further help if you want. I'm also knowledgeable with furnaces and water heaters.

Laurence, you’re lucky you have viewers who have experience with American houses and can give you lots of advice. 👍

Welcome to the untold joys and misery’s of home ownership. My motto is “It’s always something.” 😂

Welcome to the world of home ownership! The general idea with wet basements is to direct rainwater away from the foundation. All your downspouts should have extenders to move the water well away from the house. The ground around the perimeter should be graded away from the house. If the problem is persistent, look into perimeter drains (sometimes called French drains). There is a product called Dry-Loc that can be painted on cement walls that helps stop water penetration. I hope this helps! Robert from New York

A "sump" is a pit in the floor of the basement, often with a wooden or plastic cover so the dog or a child can't fall in. The "sump pump" is a pump in the bottom of the sump. Should the basement accumulate a quantity of water (washing machine overflow, water heater leak, etc.) it will flow into the sump and the pump will evacuate it into the sewer or into a separate well out in your yard.

First things first….downspout extend further from house wall (green things are splash blocks; these are to face away from wall), second check gutters, clean them and downspouts, add dirt to slope ground from walls, fill in low spots….typical thing for Midwest houses, ground settles and water is sneaky…it finds ways in. Welcome to home ownership!

Step one you can do yourself. Get all the roof drains away from the house. Extend away with additional spouts. Part 2 is to install drainage tile/pipe around the house to move any additional water away. Some digging and DIY from you tube could do it. After that you'll need a pro.

Those green things stacked under your down spout are splash guards/blocks. Their sole purpose is to direct water AWAY from the house. Right now they're directing rain along side/to the foundation. You only need one (not the 2 stacked) under your downspout, open end pointing away from your house & foundation to direct the rain away from the house.

Definitely get a professional to check the basement for water tightness and install the sump pump correctly. A dehumidifier is also a good idea. Better to spend a little on fixing things up now rather than wait and risk a bigger mess later.

You'll want to extend those downspouts so the rainwater doesn't go right into the foundation.

I don’t know how to stop the water, but noticed you had one or two window air conditioners laying on their backs, those should be kept stored in the same orientation as they would be in the window, oil in the compressors can go places it shouldn’t and cause trouble when you try to turn them back on. Love your channel, I wish you all the best!

You do indeed have a sump pump but from the appearance I does not appear to be installed correctly. A submersible pump is typically placed at the bottom of a "crock" recessed into the floor at a low point to collect any water. Once the water gets deep enough in the crock (maybe 12" or so) the pump turns on and discharges out the attached hose. Hopefully that hose is routed somewhere outside and away from the foundation. You don't want it just seeping back into the basement only to be pumped out again, route it to where it will flow away from the house naturally. The fact that your washer and dryer are built up off the floor is a red flag to me. I suspect the previous owner has had issues with the basement flooding and the wooden platform is their attempt to keep the appliances high enough that they won't get flooded (again?). Welcome to the wonderful world of home ownership.

It is pretty much impossible to seal basement floors/walls after it is built. It needs to be sealed from the outside, which would require digging. The second best option is to divert the water outside, so it doesn’t pool and soak around the wall. Also keep the wet wall open, to get some airflow, to avoid mold.

You can place plywood across those beams in the attic and store stuff up there. Just remember, it will get really hot up there in the summer. So don’t store anything that might melt like holiday candles, fragile plastics etc.

For a remodel consider putting in a set of stairs to the attic space, replacing the insulation with some manufactured in the last 40 years, and put a floor over it. That will give you storage space and even a hobby room if you want to finish the space up.

At the end of your downspout there were two splash blocks. Put one under that downspout so that it directs the water away from the house. Right now the water from the downspout is landing on the ground next to your house, and the water is finding its way into your basement. Put the other splash block under any other downspout that currently doesn't have one. But you still should get your foundation checked. Also, regarding the leaves, I'd just ignore them another month and they'll get mulched up when you mow your lawn the first time. Welcome to Chicagoland springs! Ain't homeownership fun?!

A quick, cheap, and easy start to addressing that downspout issue would be to rake away all the leaves and stones and bring in a little topsoil to slope water away from the wall, and move the downspout somewhere that the water runs well away from the house. Same with anywhere water stands, either lower the ground so water will run off somewhere else or add soil near the house (or both if needed).

Coming from Pittsburgh I can tell you that is NOT a proper Pittsburgh potty. If it was it would be in middle of the basement with no walls. LOL

Welcome to the joys of home ownership.

1: yes, that is a sump pump . . . but it is missing the "sump" part of the equation. The sump is a lowered basin (or hole) in the floor that the water can flow into to be pumped out. 2: your washer and drier looks lifted off the floor, this is a good hint that the previous owners did indeed have problems with flooding. 3: contouring the ground to slope away from the house will help prevent the puddles that seep into the basement. (this applies to the garage too) 4: extending the gutter drain pipes futher from the house will help too. (so will french drains, they are more expensive but can look really nice.) 5: if you want to use your attic for storage, you can lay plywood sheet across the ceiling beams as a floor, just like the previous owners used that door in the garage.

Watching this video, I couldn't help but think that you are just like your old man (sorry for your loss) with a house and a garden in the back and how proud he must have been of you and your success.

You could do with a french drain around your house.

Get yourself a leaf blower. WAY easier to clean up those leaves. Blow them into piles and then rake into the leaf bags. You’ll find lots of reasons to use it- for basic yard clean-ups, it’s fantastic. They have electric ones - cheap, easy, no maintenance. You may need a sump pump for the basement. Just sealing it may not be enough. Get a few bids, quotes and options from a few good dry basement companies and go from there. You’ll want to do this before the Spring rains and Summer thunderstorms begin.

Heh, I've lived in this house for 35 years, and last week was the first time I'd ever gotten up on the ladder, poked up the ceiling tile and looked into the attic. SCARY!

Didn't you all get a home inspection before purchase? Maybe have someone come and educate you on the sumpump.

A good service is *Perma-Seal* from what I often hear. They are experts who deal with all things in wet basements. They service the Chicago area. They also have very good reviews. WGN Radio out of downtown Chicago often advertises the service as well. I believe they also give free estimates. 🙂

Even before you showed the exterior, I figured that you really need to extend the drain pipe further away from the foundation so heavy rains won't seep down directly inside. Also check to make sure there are no clogs and leaks in the gutters.

It's pretty common for midwest basement to have a little seepage on the walls. It's mostly a problem if you have a finished basement. Check your rain utters. It's best if they carry water a few feet away from the foundation or down hill from the foundation. Also next time it start raining heavy look at your utters to make sure none are leaking.

French drains are your friend for moving water away from your foundation. The window wells are a fantastic idea as well. After you get the water issue taken care of you should also seal the inside of the basement AND get a dehumidifier to keep the moisture down. You do NOT want to be dealing with black mold. You could also get some plywood boards cut to fit through that attic opening and lay them atop the insulation to create some extra storage.

Just out of curiosity, did you have a home inspection before you purchased your house? It's really something you should have before you buy. Homeowners can easily disguise things they don't want to do. In fact, the people from him we bought our house tried to put moving boxes in front of the water heater so that the guy wouldn't inspect it and realize they needed to replace it. Unfortunately for them, it was caught and had to be replaced before we'd purchase the home. Definitely don't try and do the stuff yourself. Go ahead and hire a professional to inspect your house for leeks and make recommendations for improvements. Let the big stuff be done by someone who's a professional. Then you just do the maintenance. You'll save yourself a lot of money in the long run.

A "sump pump" is short for a submersible pump and usually rest in a small well/ hole in your basement floor. It helps keep your basement dry as they have a float that actives the pump.

There are companies that waterproof your basement. What I saw is fairly standard seepage, but you do need to pay to have it stopped or over time your foundation will fail

water in the basement very common thing. concrete itself is pourus and moisture can get thru. sometimes a basement may only be humid. my former house had a partial basement with a drain hole in the lowest corner. and sometimes the basement had water in it but eventually would drain out thru the hole. sure there is a few physical things that can be done but unless the concrete is treated with waterproofing on the inside and out. cant really stop it.

Maybe need a French drain installed, or grade the land a bit. Also getting the gutter water away is vital. On surface or under if you're already digging for a french drain.

I've owned a home in Minneapolis and Cincinnati and both had basements. Heavy downpours always resulted in a wet basement. Landscaping and extenders on the downspouts took care of it.

Lawrence, I love your channel. I've lived in the midwest my whole life and have been a homeowner for 30 years. As others have commented, you have a drainage problem, not a leakage problem. It doesn't look like a huge problem, but the previous owners either ignored it or put in ineffective fixes like the stacked downspout splashblocks. Here's what I would do, in order: 1. Get some flexible downspout extensions, one for every downspout in every corner of the house. Use them to divert rainwater as far from the house as you can, preferably onto ground that slopes away from the house, but without creating trip hazards or encroaching on your neighbor's property. Do this before the next major rainfall. This is a temporary fix. 2. Get a landscape or drainage guy to walk around your property and recommend a permanent solution. It may be as simple as a yard or two of backfill, it might involve one or more window wells, or possibly a more expensive drainage system. But you'll get the best advice from someone who can see the situation in person. They can't dig until the snow melts, so schedule that for the spring. 3. Figure out how to clean the basement floor. I'd try blue dish soap, warm water, and a stiff bristle brush for the first pass. You'll also need a wet-vac and a floor squeegee. While you're cleaning you'll want to open the basement windows, which probably haven't been opened in years and might be painted shut. So set aside time to get them operable. Obviously, remove that cabinet and anything else that isn't fastened down or plumbed in. For the second pass, I'd use concrete floor cleaner/degreaser, following instructions on the label. Sounds like a summer job to me. 4. After that you'll know which way the basement floor slopes, so you'll know the best place for a sump pump basin. Decide whether the annoyance of having an 18 inch wide hole in the floor (plus installation cost) balances the benefit of a dry basement. 5. By next fall, the grass seed or sod (turf) that was part of the landscaping will be established, because you dutifully watered it all summer, so it's time to remove the flexible extensions from step 1 and replace them with something nicer looking. Like lengths of downspout or maybe just the splashblocks that you saved in the garage. Other thoughts: I would treat the wet back yard as a separate drainage problem, because the solution for it will be more expensive. Water on the garage floor is no big deal. After all, you wouldn't hesitate to park a wet car there. But water running down the driveway into the garage means the house is downhill from the street, which complicates the drainage situation. A little water on the basement floor is also NBD, though you're right to check it isn't coming from a ceiling or wall. A puddle standing a foot away from a floor drain suggests the floor doesn't slope toward that drain, which is less than ideal, but there's not much you can do about it. But water regularly coming into contact with wood or the inside of a finished wall is a serious problem. I didn't see any of that (other than the cabinet, which has to go) but it seems some other commenters did. Like other commenters I was suprised to see a sump pump sitting on the floor instead of in a sump basin. That would be unusual in other parts of the midwest, but I guess not unusual in Chicago. It's only going to turn on if there's inches of water on the floor; i.e. it's there to mitigate a serious flood. (There's a little float dangling from the side; by lifting it gently you can see how high it will let the water get.)

The joys of home ownership.

Another point to add to the list. After cleaning up around the house, start putting down more dirt you want to grade it away from the house. Water should most definitely not pool up outside the house. Your gutters should also have extensions moving the water 6ft from the house (your city will have a specific distance in its housing code)

Midwest house basics : good roof, and good drainage path for rain water . Gotta make sure the water flows around and away from your house , you don’t want it pooling up anywhere near the foundation

Water leaks in homes can be very frustrating, but at least you are on the right track, getting to the root of the cause. Good luck, Laurence❤️👍

Sloping the earth away from the window will do wonders to route water away. On that downspout with the green plastic below, you can get a flexible tube that connects to the downspout. You want to direct that water at least 3 feet away from the wall.

I lived in a house for 15 years that had a sump pump. It was in a tube 10 feet down outside my basement. Never heard it, didn't even know if it worked...until it didn't. The year that places that never flooded, did, in my town. We got that fixed RIGHT AWAY. Water seeped in the drain field under the wall. What a mess. We got up up every 2 hours all night long to suction the water up to keep it out of the other two rooms until we could fix it the next day.

Hi Laurence. Congrats on 450K subscribers. Putting in a shower room would be a great addition where that cabinet resided in the laundry room. I too had water coming in my basement. I resolved it simply by extending the downspout 4 feet away from the foundation and adding dirt to divert any water from pooling against the wall. These fixes can be something you could do in an afternoon. There are drain tiles along the footing of the foundation meant to move water, but only so much. If they get saturated, water will find its way into the basement. I also noticed a concrete slab by the back porch. Make sure that it is not sloping towards the house. You can also hire a contractor to solve the water issue by reconfiguring your downspouts, put in a French drain or even replacing the basement windows with glass blocks.

This isn't too terrible as the area goes, in which I once had a house whose basement would turn into a pond during severe rain. There are various services for dealing with it, depending on the severity of the trouble. In a mild case like this, a system of water channeling baseboards to a suitably located drain may work. As far as easier approaches are concened, channeling external water away from house foundations will be helpful. In extreme cases, external drainage trenches filled with gravel and perforated pipe may be called for. It was a good idea to put the laundry machines up on platforms like yours are. This protects them not only from rain leakage but plumbing leakage including the machines themselves. Getting a dehumidifier appliance if you don't already have one will be helpful in keeping the basement drier. It should be placed so that its condensate water will go into a drain. Excessive humidity in a basement can lead to mold which will form spores that can aggravate allergies or create worse health problems for some people.

Lawrence, don't let everybody else scare you. These things happen, it's not a huge deal. My advice is to not seal it up. Start outside, do you have gutters? If so, how/where are they draining? Make sure the roof water is being carried to a low spot min 15-20' from the house. This can be done either by using a downspout extension or by trenching a pipe. Next, check for any low spots in your yard that might collect water. If possible, bring soil in to build up your yard as to get water to flow away from the house. If water is still an issue, you can hand trench some drain tyle around the wet areas. Essentially your just giving the water an alternative path to flow rather than inside your foundation. If all else fails, you could have a sump pump and basin installed on the inside. This, with perimeter drain tyle, is only to be used if the other stuff I mentioned is not practical. This will work but can get expensive and requires the constant use of electricity.

I love that every dad has responded with practical advice. Good luck with the repairs!

We got a in ground sump pump for our basement. Do check with foundation people. Important. I always swore to house hunt on a rainy day.

That didn't look bad at all. It's not like you have to throw a blue tarp over the roof resulting in the devaluation of the homes in your area. You could install French drains, but that's a lot. Look at "Frost King DE300 Standard Plastic Drain Away Downspout Extender" (tm) And for the basement a good elastomeric paint after the place dries out.

Definitely you need to extend the drain pipes away from the house. And bank a bit of soil around the foundation to help the rain water run off. Also, if your ground is still frozen, a really hard rain will not sink into the greater lawn but will sit on the soil and eventually find the lowest place to run which is your basement. You may not have many problems once the soil thaws. Our basement in MN always leaks just a bit in the one corner right before the ground thaws but doesn’t leak the rest of the year.

Sump Pumps are generally placed in a depressed hole not directly on the floor, and the green down spout diverter is facing the wrong way. I would also recommend installing a french drain in your yard to help drain away the excess water.

I believe your heavy rain was our heavy rain before the weekend. The night we had two 60+foot tall pine trees try to crush our house. They both missed. We were on national TV though, because it looked impressive and a neighbor's car was pancaked. You are definitely going to need professional help for that basement, however. I'm afraid you have a general drainage problem outside. Not to mention those green things under the downspout are pointing wrong ways and you need a longer exit for the water anyway. Welcome to the joys of home ownership, especially an older home.

There are things called downspout extenders that you can attach to the downspouts from your gutters to divert the water away from your house. They have them at Home Depot.

Nothing worse or scary than finding water where you don’t expect in the house. Some home issues can be resolved for $20, some for hundreds and some for thousands. It’s so fun to just never know until it happens!

Any kind of water issues, immediately check the grading outside the house (water should flow away from the house), and also check the downspouts which should have water exiting at least 3 feet from the house so as not to seep into the basement or foundation. Seriously, I had some water issues and a company wanted to charge $50k to fix it by chopping up my basement. All it took it to extend the downspouts.

Your community has great advice. OUTSIDE: We live in Mid-Coast Maine. Moved in 10 yes ago. Have graded and made a trench to move the rain away from the cement walls. We sealed small cracks by the window corners. The basement sits in ledge, so water runs down the mountain. We are on a hill and still get lots of runoff. Make sure your drain pipes have long extensions that go at least two feet from the foundation You can use a flex pipe and move it against the house and wwhen you know rain is coming move it out. We have to make sure they are clear of snow in the winter, because the snow will block the flow pool then freeze as the temps go up and down. INSIDE: Seal any cracks. Seal your damp corners. First clean...we use bleach or Odoban before Dry then apply the sealent. It looks like your pump is a surface pump. We have that and a wet vac. All can be purchased at big box stores Take pics show them and ask for help. That is what they are there for! Our basement will never be a finished basement. Way to much water every time it rains. Best of luck!!😊

That's a nice basement "loo". I'm used to it being in the corner but out in the open lol and the shower in the basement is what I'm most used to because what's a basement without mold.

Welcome to the midwest. Homes with basements can be the worst/best thing.

That pump is just an emergency water pump, which as situated looks to only function if you get actual standing water in the basement. In order to be a "sump pump", there has to be a sump pit, which by definition needs to be below the basement floor, and the pump down inside the pit. Normally, the foundation drain tile (perforated pipes which allow ground water that is trying to come into your basement to instead have an easier place to flow into, and that drain tile gets routed into the sump pit. Then the sump pump removes the water in the pit when it gets deep enough. There needs to be some sort of electronic level switch or a float switch to operate the sump pump. Many (most?) of the emergency water pumps these days have an electronic controller inside that just turns the pump on briefly as long intervals, checks the motor current to see if it is high enough to indicate that water is being pumped, and if so then it keeps the pump running until the motor current falls to a lower level. Once the controller has detected that pumping has occurred, it starts checking for more water by running the motor test more often. If several subsequent tests reveal there is no more water to pump, the interval gets extended. If your emergency water pump has no float switch on its outside, then it either A) has the automatic controller as I have just described, or B) it has no water sensor or controller of any kind and just runs continuously when plugged in. It is also possible that such a dumb pump can be plugged into a separate float switch circuit, where that float switch is not part of the pump assembly and might even be located some small distance away from the pump. If your drain tile is working and adequately arranged, and it empties into a sump pit equipped with a working sump pump, then you should not get water accumulation in your basement. That said, you can still have leaks in the basement walls or even in the floor, and some ground water might get in that way, bypassing the whole drain tile/sump pump scheme. That mysterious little puddle of water on the floor is almost certainly what remains of a trickle that came from over by the wall, and the trickle itself has dried up leaving just that little puddle. Other commenters are correct. The real solution is to get as much water to flow away from the house as possible. Then whatever water remains will try to take the easiest path downwards to wherever, and if that means finding ANY leak into your basement, that is where it will go. Whatever water is still in the ground next to the basement should find its way into the drain tile and then be pumped away via the pump pit and sump pump. It looks like the house is without a sump pit, which suggests that there might not be any drain tile (why install drain tile if there is no place for the water collected by the tile to flow into?). If you live in an area with a lot of rain, or flooding from snow melt, and you have a basement, the house really needs to have that whole scheme or you will have problems, probably big problems. Here is another thing. In most areas, it is illegal to have a sump pump discharge into the septic/sanitary sewer. When this happens, it dramatically increases the water flow in the septic sewer, which overwhelms the city's sewer treatment plant, which means they have no choice but to allow "flow through", discharging untreated sewerage into whatever natural stream, river, whatever they normally only discharge clean treated water into. Most houses can legally have their sump pump discharge into the storm sewer system, or out to lower ground away from the house. Some municipalities allow a scheme where if the normal sump cannot discharge enough water due to a blocked line or extremely heavy extended downpours, that a secondary sump and pump can then discharge into the septic sewer. In that case the city's sewerage treatment plant needs to file an exception with the EPA or other related authority. I have heard of many cases where, which such exceptions happen often or severely, that inspectors start coming door to door with warrants, trying to figure out which houses are having their sump pumps discharging illegally.

I live in Ohio where downpours and flood alerts are common. My basement moisture is mainly from the gutters. Even with clean gutters and downspouts and a long extension to get it away from the house, the rain comes in so fierce it can overflow and finds its way to the lowest spots of the house. I have a surrounding porch deck that I suspect a groundhog has dug a den under the deck and has probably exposed the foundation for the water to flow into the wall. My future project for inspection.

Ooh Laurence-I’m so excited you talked about Beyond Paradise! I watched episode #1 as soon as your video was over. As a die-hard fan of Death in Paradise, this is a good filler until the next series comes on. Thank you!

First. I had this issue. Turned out to be 3 layers of shingles on the roof >_

I might start with the easy things. Spray your basement window(s) from outside with the hose and see if that's the source of the leak. That downspout with deflectors might be splashing water into the house (get those out of the way, give the water a clear path away from the house). If there's no easy leak, then keep in mind that a little water around a foundation in places where there are hard freezes can collapse the basement wall. Seen it happen. It's expensive to fix, but cheaper than a new foundation wall.

We've got a sandstone foundation. Leaks are common and the concrete floor in the basement was done in a way to make sure water flows to the drain. There's evidence the basement flooded before we moved in, and then one day it happened to us. It doesn't happen very often but when it does, you need your rain boots on, not snow boots because you'd have to take the laces off to wash them afterwards. We're still getting rain, been raining all night and into this morning, so I know the basement floor is gonna start being covered. Our pump is within the pipe thing, it has to bring the water from the drain up a pipe to lead it to the pipe that goes outside, underground, for a good distance out to the woods. 2 winters ago I think it was, the ground was so cold, fluid in the pipe froze, created an ice tube preventing water from going out, so basement stayed in a puddle of water for a few days. Oh, this is were it's important to have a Dehumidifier in the basement, if your basement commonly leaks, for us there's nothing that can be done, because sandstone slowly breaks down over time. And there's an estimate they're from 1900 or 1901 when placed. Pretty impressive tho how long they last.

Many Chicago homes are connected to a storm drain system that will back up in heavy storms. Ours used to shoot water as high as the first floor and fill the basement with 12 to 18 inches of water. The water was clean storm water until some neighbors began illegally connecting toilets to the storm drains. That’s when we moved outta there.

Usually, there’s a channel dug around the base of the wall that drains any water toward the sump pump. That didn’t really look like a sump pump to me.

If your Sump-pump was actually in a Sump(hole in the ground) it would work far better at keeping the basement water-free You also might need more than one as large as your basement is. Please get hoses attached to your drain spouts(gutters) and lead them at least 10(better yet 20+) ft away from your foundation that will help a lot and is cheap and easy

Before I would get a basement man I would find the sump which will have a pump in it. Sump pump. The floor of a basement is not level. There is a small slope to it to drain water. The sump will be in the lowest part of the basement floor. The slump is like a 18 inch round hole that is about one to two foot deep. Ground water will come up in the sump during heavy rain because the water table is rising. A pump is put into the sump so as the water rises it's pumped out through a pipe that goes outside and into a storm drain. When you find the sump there will be a pump in it with a plastic pipe that will go out of the basement. As a Church custodian retired I had a few sump to care for. It could be as easy as putting a new pump in but if you do not have experience get someone who is. Your washer is a good place to look because they are usually place there. I see it is up off the floor. That means your basement has a history of flooding. The sump may in that area. Get a marble and put it on the floor. It will round towards the low spot where the sump is.

The proper solution involves digging down. Sealing from the inside will not work.

Lawrence, I suggest you get a shop vac for times when water is coming up or in in the basement, which will happen from time to time. The water in your case is very likely coming up through the ground as it gets saturated, and it finds a way to come up through a crack in the floor foundation. Getting it sealed would likely be very expensive, but you can probably get buy with just a shop vac and being watchful. I've lived in this area for 62 years, and I've seen this quite a lot. You should be fine as long as you get a shop vac and start calling it a furnace room instead of a boiler room, since there is no boiler, and most US houses stopped using boilers 60 years ago.

I would consider having your basement windows replaces with glass block. It will make your home more secure and make a huge difference in not allowing as much heat to escape. I wish I had done mine right away when I moved in.

Once water gets past the concrete, nothing will stop it. The place i had in Ohio had pea gravel and drain pipes under the basement concrete. Those all drained into a sump, from which a pump sent it up and it is the basement. There was also waterproofing on the outside of the basement walls. That was backfilled with more pea gravel and then capped with topsoil. I don't think they put any bentonite clay in the sides, but i could be wrong. Keeps everything nice and dry until the pump goes out, at which point the floor starts weeping water Also, those splash blocks should be pointed out away from the house. They're useless as positioned. That is a sump pump in the corner, but without a sump it isn't doing much. There should be a hole in the floor, about 18" dia and maybe 3' deep, with the sump pump at the bottom and a water level switch to activate it.

I love the fact that Laurence asks for help in his channel since he has a sizable community now. I would suggest potentially using dirt to fill in those areas where the water accumulated. I often use lawn clippings for areas on the lawn itself (if there are bald patches or deeper holes).

It is very odd to think that, depending on where exactly in the Chicago suburbs you are, I could conceivably run across you in some random place and never even realize it. Anyways, it looks like any suggestions I could’ve made have already been pointed out a dozen times by more knowledgeable folks, so I’ll just say I’m glad you didn’t get anything worse than that!

Did you have a home inspection when you bought the house? Years ago, we had to dig all the dirt away from the exterior wall, (just one where it leaked fortunately), creating a 40 foot long by about 3 foot wide. We dug down that distance about 6 feet. It took a bit of time to dig by hand. Most of ours was big rock free and very much clay. We had a company spray the wall with a sticky sealant then they added a membrane. We put many inches of stone in the bottom then backfilled up to within a foot and a half of the top then added a drainage pipe with a fabric "sock" on it. The sock lets water in but keeps stones etc out so the pipe does not clog. Just remember, The Joy Of Ownership!!!

The level of the ground outside next to your house should be the highest ground spot and yours is the lowest spot. All the water is seeping right down the outside basement walls looking for the smallest crack. Bring in dirt to lay against your house right away and some carpet grass next month. Get the water down spout drain to bring the water at least 6 ft from your home. The sump pump is to keep water from intruding from below your home but your issue seems to be coming form the walls. Get the water outside draining away from your home. Basement waterproofing works wonders and cost as much as a car or you can do this yourself. I too live in Chicago. Vote for mayor next week!

You have very minor problems that are easily corrected. The key to keeping your basement dry is to make sure that the ground slopes away from the house and that leaves and other debris do not accumulate around the foundation. Extend your downspouts at least 6 feet from the foundation, and make sure they do not leak and slope downward away from the house. For areas under basement windows, the ideal solution is to dig out a semi-circle of dirt about 3 feet deep and install a drain. Put a preformed window well ( Home Depot) to line the hole you dug, then fill the hole with about 1 foot of large-sized gravel. If you want you can install a plastic cover over the hole, but if you have done everything right, it isn't necessary. You may want to pay someone to do this because there is a lot of digging involved. This can all be done easily on a weekend.

You don't need to rake up your leaves. It's good for the grass and earth underneath to let them lie. : )

Living in LA, we get some rain and the whole hell falls apart. This is what is being American is all about.

Definitely check your gutters. The house we just moved out of (rented duplex) had bad gutters and the owner refused to fix them. As a result, ALL the rain from the entire roof fell in a beautiful waterfall at the SE corner of the house right down into the foundation whenever we got the least amount of rain (and I'm in Indianapolis so you know...). Over the course of the 3 years we lived there, the entire back end of the house SUNK 4 INCHES INTO THE GROUND!!! The toilet popped up off the floor due to the floor sinking away from around it. No doors were square in their frames anymore. We could not lock nor latch the back door for over a year (he didn't fix the either). The hallway and kitchen slanted downhill. Walls were cracking. Stairs started separating from the wall. We left because we didn't want to be in the ending scene of "Carrie." What I'm saying is a simple gutter cleaning and drainage check can save you tens of thousands of dollars in foundation repairs.

I’m in Illinois too and that storm created a swamp in my backyard. First time in 20 years that’s happened.

It isn't a true american house unless it's falling apart at the seams

I am resisting the urge to leave advice in the comments, because I am sure that you will soon get plenty of advice from people who are more knowledgeable than I.

A sump pump will be in a "sump" or a hole that is about 2' in diameter and dug down 2 to 3 feet. The pump pumps up and out any water that runs into the basement and into basement drains that aren't connected to the city sewer. Gray water is safe to run outside; black water is NOT. That...thing...on your floor is likely some sort of pump, but I'm not sure it's a sump pump.

Being from Illinois myself, we dealt with flooding last summer, due in part to the heavy rain. If you have a sump pump in the basement, one of the best things I can recommend if you don't already have it, is a battery backup unit for your sump pump. The flooding we dealt with last year was due to losing power during a heavy rain. No power meant no pump. The sump overflowed due to the inlet draning into the pit, and the pump not being able to keep up, and covered our entire basement in about 3 inches of water. The battery backup will ensure if you lose power, the pump itself can keep working. Speaking from experience, carrying water out of the pit in buckets is not fun haha

Add soil on the exterior so that it slopes away from the foundation and keep your gutters clean. Maintain that and monitor for further moisture entry.

I'm really glad you did this video and I hope it's watched by lots of young people who haven't even thought about buying a home yet. Doing a full inspection of your new home after a heavy rain is so basic but smart and can save you thousands of dollars in repairs in the long run. I live in Tennessee, and learned when I was looking for places to live, to always check it out during/after a rain. I only learned this after living in a condo whose parking lot and lower levels wound up under 4ft of water. When you are buying a home, the home inspector is supposed to discover any issues and let you know, but other than seeing old damage - which is sometimes easily disguised with cleaning or paint - there are things that may not show up immediately. Our current home is at the head of a neighborhood built in between 2 creeks, and the flooding issue is real. Had a friend come look at doing some repairs on mom's house down the street and asked when he'd be coming back to do them, and he said, "when it stops raining." I replied, "Great - see you in August then." (it was February when this happened) We have 8hrs of rain due today and have had about that much every day this week.

I would dig under gutter down spout and look for a storm drain. It's likely broke underground and allowing water to flood in. Most old houses had 2 cisterns. We seen the one capped off in previous video that he called a coal shout. So the other should be inside by the other cistern. They may have used other cistern as sump pump. Seen it before.

I can't remember (from previous videos) if you said whether or not you had a home inspection done... If you did, then you're like me and you got a really lousy one! Perhaps find a reputable home inspector to do a once over twice on the entire house for everything!! Beyond that, can I just say how fun it was the way you introduced us to the attic by doing old videos introducing you past self over and over!!! And the music of you going up the hall steps to the attic with the ladder was like creepy carnival music setting the stage for a spooky trepidation as you opened the "door" to the attic. SO COOL... *shivers * creepy cool!!

Thinking about that little puddle in the middle. I had my entire basement under two to three inches of water at least three times the first years in my 1928 ranch. It would drain, but it would leave leaves and dirt and a big cleaning job. By the third time I figured out that those two storm drains at the curb were the culprit. This came to me when a city worker laughed , (I'm standing in a pouring rainstorm) and said there were at least 80 houses in my neighborhood with flooding like mine. It occurred to me that I had not seen the city cleaning out those drains in decades. So I called my proper city department and demanded that they clean them out. Problem solved. Storm drains are not supposed to be connected to home sewer drains any longer, but they are slow in getting to that separation. That particular house was supposed to be separated in 2017 and it still hasnt happened. Water is such a wonderful thing when it stays where it is supposed to be ...tubs, showers and sinks.

You need downspout extensions on all your downspouts to deposit the water away from the foundation. We ran all of our downspouts underground and away from the house and added a pop up that will be flush with the ground until it rains and then it pops up to let the water out. Do you have a sump pump and foundation drainage tile around the base of your outside basement walls? You might also need more downspouts if the trough is overflowing during a downpour. If you decide to go with entirely new gutters and downspouts make sure to go as big as possible to move as much water faster. Welcome to homeownership where there is always something to fix.

From my extensive years of watching home renovation shows, I believe that the soggy soil outside of your boiler room is known as a French drain (a trench filled with gravel or rock, or both, with or without a perforated pipe that redirects surface water and groundwater away from an area. The perforated pipe is called a weeping tile. When the pipe is draining, it "weeps", or exudes liquids. [Wikipedia]). However, over time the gravel breaks down and/or fills with muck, and the weeping tiles get clogged. Usually what is needed is to dig out the french drain, clear out the weeping tile (or replace it down right, which may be the better option in the long run); then dry out the foundation and waterproof it with a membrane or polymer spray, and replace the gravel and top soil. You'll also need to look for mould growth, as it has clearly been an ongoing problem for a while. If there's no sign of mould, you'll still need to heat treat the building (preferably for you, before the summer), and make sure that there aren't any leaks that will make all of your invested time, money and efforts a waste. All of this is prohibitively expensive, so get ready to have an anxiety attack. Best of wishes my friend. I do not envy you at this moment. My prayers are with you

Now you know why a good dehumidifier is a good idea! As a former home owner I can tell you that good drainage around the perimeter of your home is the first thing you need to improve upon! The ground should always slope away from the house and this includes your driveway which should be at least two inches below the lip of the garage. Older house's foundations were not water proofed like new houses are today. Concrete blocks, which is what your foundation is made of, are not water proof because they are quite porous. It would require a complete digging out around the entire foundation which can be very expensive, so stick with the grading of the ground first. Also check to make sure your gutters are clean and the down spouts end at least two feet away from the foundation. Water proofing the inside of the foundation is a waste of time as water pressure will simply push through anything you apply.

That down spout needs an extension. All that's happening now is the water is being deposited at your foundation, pooling during heavy rains, and likely adding to your leak problem. Add extensions to direct the water either onto you driveway, where - hopefully - you have enough of a decline to it can run down to the road, or out into your backyard, onto the grass or a flowerbed. Also, grading can do a fair bit - build up your soil around your house so that there is no water pooling at the foundation. However, be considerate of your neighbours, and be sure not to direct unwanted water at their property.

It's a basement. When you have down pours, they sometimes leak. That's why you have a sump pump. The are things you can do like get the drain water away from the foundation. Start there. Route the down spouts away from the walls. That's a cheap first step. Make sure the sump pump works. Ask a neighbor for help checking it.

I watched "Beyond Paradise" only last week! I soon realized its connection to "Death in Paradise" which was a "feel good" detective series. This could be the next - Doc Martin - in popularity. I live in Bangkok, Thailand and have lived in Western China in Chengdu, Sichuan (where the Panda come from) the city is surrounded by mountains and twice a year would have two solid days of rain! It's best, not to, have a basement. In the UK some friends of mine had their basement flooded, as the canal close to their property was re-opened. Action is required, Lawrence. Best wishes from Bangkok.

1 Get extensions on your downspouts asap. 2 Install covers over your window wells. Standing water so close to your house is a big problem. Don't delay you have a major problem.

I grew up in Oregon, where downspouts are required to feed into an underground pipe that takes the water out to the street. It always strikes me as odd when I see houses in other parts of the country where the downspouts just dump the water at the foot of the house.