Has your finished basement ever flooded?

[Anonymous]

We have an largely unfinished basement that flooded in 2006. Since then, we have installed a backup sump pump and two extra batteries, put in a French drain system, planted lots of trees to soak up water, etc. It was an "act of God" scenario which couldn't have been prevented since we were on vacation, but we are still terrified when it rains.

It would be nice to put up drywall, retile the floors and make it useable space - but is that smart? How difficult is it to clean up if there is water again? Does drywall or panelling need to be replaced if that happens, or will things dry out?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Yes, FOUR effing times, if you can believe it. And it's not from water coming in from outside. We don't have drainage problems, we have what we affectionately refer to as a "plumbing curse.". We have had 4 separate, unrelated, mostly unforeseeable plumbing disasters that flooded our basement over the past 8 years. We are in the midst of cleanup/repair #4 right now.

To answer your questions, it can be VERY difficult to clean up. With a basement, presumably you are not down there all the time, so you may not notice the water immediately. If it is a plumbing leak, at least it is clean water so things are easier to salvage, but rainwater leaking in from outside is dirty & creates even more problems. If you have carpet and you address the damage immediately, you can sometimes save the carpet (but never the padding underneath - once that's wet, it has to be replaced). If drywall gets wet, that also has to be replaced because of the risk of mold. The remediation/mitigation is expensive - you need to call ServPro or ServiceMaster and use industrial fans and dehumidifiers to dry things out, and then deal with the repairs on top of that. Three of the four times, we had to claim it on our homeowners despite the deductible and surcharge because there was so much damage that it was too much to pay out of pocket.

If I were you, I would maybe leave unfinished the areas where you are most prone to water coming in so you can minimize the cost & hassle if you do have water enter the basement.

[Anonymous]

If you decide to finish, use tile with area rugs or Flor tiles rather than wall-to-wall carpet. It will be much easier to clean up in the event of a flood.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the comments. Yes, we would not put carpeting down there in any case, would just put down new tile, maybe sit an indoor/outdoor area rug over it.

Does drywall or panelling always need to be ripped out? I ask because the basement at my house growing up flooded occasionally and we never ripped it out. I don't know if this resulted in a mold problem or not, but I think not because my brother was very allergic to many things and we spent much of our teens down there. We had a dehumidifier running all the time, so maybe that dried everything out over time?

[Anonymous]

Some older houses have a drain in the basement floor. If you do, then don't seal it up when you finish out the basement. Preserve it instead. You may need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the comments. Yes, we would not put carpeting down there in any case, would just put down new tile, maybe sit an indoor/outdoor area rug over it.

Does drywall or panelling always need to be ripped out? I ask because the basement at my house growing up flooded occasionally and we never ripped it out. I don't know if this resulted in a mold problem or not, but I think not because my brother was very allergic to many things and we spent much of our teens down there. We had a dehumidifier running all the time, so maybe that dried everything out over time?

Not always. By code, there is supposed to be a (small) gap between the wall and the floor, so that a minor amount of water will never reach the wall. But, if drywall comes into contact with water, it wicks it up like a sponge. Sometimes this can be dried out using industrial fans, etc., sometimes it can't.

Our finished basement flooded once. There was an epic rainstorm a few years ago and our sump pump got overwhelmed. We added a backup pump and few other drainage features and have not had a problem since. Luckily, we have an older house with a drain (we have been told that this is against code now, so newer houses cannot have this?), so there was minimal damage. Basically, just ruined carpet.

[Anonymous]

We've had a lot of flooding problems. We have two sump pumps and everything is fine as long as they WORK! We have everything backed up on the pumps (back up battery, pump, yada yada yada) and the main one STILL broke down last spring and we had another flood. Yes, twice we've had to rip out drywall and get the mold remediation folks out to clean up. It's really maddening!

My new strategy is to just go ahead and replace the sump pumps every 4 years. In my experience living in houses with flooding problems and sump pumps, they seem to last 5 years max. Cheaper to just keep replacing them than to keep flooding!!!

Good luck! DC is a notorious place for basement flooding, as I've been told over and over again by the pros!! One water removal pro told me "lady, basements were never meant to be lived in!!!

[Anonymous]

Some simple steps to prevent water from entering the basement are:
1. make sure your gutters and leaders are clean and move the water as far from the foundation as possible.
2. Make sure that the dirt next to the foundation slopes away from the foundation (it isn't flat)
3. Sump pumps work well...so do french drains! You may need a professional to do this for you.


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[Anonymous]

Our finished basement is partially underground. When it rains heavily for many days in a row (like, during hurricane season) the basement floor accumulates some water. We have worked on the gutters and the planting and the grading, but we have not done the ultimate maintenance: digging out the dirt away from the underground foundation and replacing the waterproof barrier put there when it was built. The only way I know about this is because I saw a neighbor having it done. They use their basement as living space; we use ours only for storage and the ping pong table so we're careful about keeping things off the floor. If I were to invest in creating cozy living space down there, I would definitely do the above-mentioned maintenance.