Reply to Broken downspout dumping water by foundation

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It should be fine, OP. Not ideal but your house has perimeter drains and if they’re working properly, they can handle it. [/quote]

Utter nonsense.

If perimeter drains could handle it, why would the house have gutters and downspouts?

There was a time after perimeter drains were introduced, in the 50's and 60's, when people thought they were magic and could handle any amount of water. Houses were built without gutters and downspouts. Those that are still standing were retrofitted with gutters and downspouts. [/quote]

All homes built after 90s have exterior French drains and sump , you should be able to not ever have water in the basement even if a downspout fails. [/quote]

Again, utter nonsense.

A typical summer rainstorm might drop an inch of rain in an hour. If a house has one thousand square feet of roof, that's 83 cubic feet per hour, or 667 gallons per hour or 11 gallons per minute. The perimeter drains are a horizontal pipe, they're going to be completely overwhelmed by that level of flow.

They are meant as a backup for any water that gets past the gutters and downspouts, they're not meant to take the whole flow. [/quote]

Okay but one storm? Wouldn’t the water just sit by the foundation for a few hours waiting to drain? I’m not saying it’s good but I would be shocked if that led to an immediate problem. [/quote]

It would sit by the foundation looking for every crack and crevice that wasn't perfectly waterproof and finding its way in.

Foundations aren't submarines, they aren't perfectly waterproof. [/quote]

Yeah, but that’s what the drain is for! And the plastic pimple stuff. Our sump pump got stuck once and water backed up in the pit and presumably the drains for several hours. It was fine! I don’t think the drains being temporarily overwhelmed will give OP a problem as long as it gets fixed. [/quote]

You have no concept of scale.

The perimeter drains are there if a couple of gallons of water sneak past the gutters. The gutters are meant to divert hundreds or thousands of gallons of water per hour.

No part of the exterior of a house is truly waterproof.  The way the whole thing is built is you use mostly waterproof materials, then you do everything you can to direct the bulk of the water away so it doesn't leak. Roofing, siding, windows, doors, are all like that. And the basement is no exception. That dimple mat will have seams, fluid applied coatings will have thin spots, foundations will have cracks.[b] If enough water is against it for enough time, some will leak in. [/b]

No part of a house is waterproof like a boat. And boats aren't even completely waterproof, they have bilge pumps. [/quote]

Yes!! One storm! One storm happened with one broken downspout. OP doesn’t say she had a huge puddle for a day or anything like that. Something to fix promptly, not a disaster. [/quote]

One storm can dump hundreds of gallons of water down the downspouts. It only takes a couple of gallons in a finished basement to cause problems.

Some building materials can get wet and dry out with no problem, some can't and have to be replaced. [/quote]

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