Tag: weeping system

Thinking About Drainage

September 13, 2016 / / 2 Comments

We’re slowly getting settled into the basement. Even after a few weeks, we still have a lot of stuff strewn about upstairs that we’re working on moving, putting into boxes, or outright getting rid of. Sarah’s been on an IKEA kick, loading up our humble abode with storage, since we’re completely lacking in the closet department. It’s starting to feel like home, though it definitely feels like a basement. Meanwhile, we’re thinking about next steps. After all, the whole point of moving into the basement is to get the rest of the project done. The next major step is second floor demo. We want to get that done before winter hits, mostly so that we can work inside all winter. However, we have to finish the aforementioned moving and clearing before that happens. We’ve also decided we need to make our drainage project happen sooner rather than later.

The drainage project was something we were planning to do in the landscaping phase, but the rainy weather has underscored that we need to control the flow of water into our basement. Essentially, it’s a just-below-grade weeping system that will wrap around the front and side of our house. The reason this was slated for the landscaping phase is that the goal is to drain this into a rain garden/water feature in the back yard. However, right now our back yard is mostly patio and we plan to keep it that way so we can bring in the parade of dumpsters and trucks that will get this project done. Instead, we’ll drain into our canceled catch basin for the time being and redirect it later. Our catch basin is filled with gravel, but it can still hold a couple-few hundred gallons of water, keep it away from the house, and drain into subsoil, all of which are critical to our basement staying dry.

The plan is to dig up the cracked and crumbling sidewalk along the side of the house, dig a trench that slopes to the center about a foot deep, and put down a plastic landscaping barrier that’s caulked to both our house and the neighbors. We’ll put perforated pipe in the bottom and backfill with stone. Lastly we’ll put in paver step stones in place of the sidewalk. As I said, the pipe will drain to the catch basin in the back yard for the time being and eventually drain to a water feature. We’ll put in connections so that when we redo the roof and gutters, the downspouts can drain into the system as well.

The drainage will eventually continue across the front of the house, minus the pavers, since we’re putting a new front porch over it. Ideally we’d have a proper exterior weeping system, which is a drainage pipe around the outside of the foundation at the bottom of the basement wall. Unfortunately, we’re very close to our neighbors. The North side of our house literally sits on the property line and both sides are between 3-4 feet away from the houses next door. Excavating down to the bottom of the 120-year-old brick wall risks not only our own structure, but the neighbors as well. The drainage project we’re doing is basically a compromise because the pipe won’t be below the frost line. If it got cold enough, especially after a snowmelt or heavy rain, it’s possible for the whole thing to freeze up. That said we believe it will keep the vast majority of water away from our foundation and out of our basement.

The dumpster is on order, and the project kicks off in a couple days. We need to get everything dug out in a week so that the dumpster can go back on time, but after the basement dig out, I’m not too worried about that. Once that’s done we need to get the barrier and pipe installed, then get some pea gravel delivered. Finally, we need to pick out some pavers. That’s the fun part.

Interior Weeping System

November 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Starting the trench

Starting the trench

After we got the basement dug out, we were planning to have the weeping system put in by our plumbers, but the plumbing quotes were all so high that we had decided to do the weeping system ourselves to save money. I started with some Internet research, followed by a perusal of Chicago Building Code. I also watched an episode of Mike Holmes putting in an interior weeper. Finally, I spoke to the plumbers to see how they typically do it.

Slow progress

Slow progress

I recalled my architect telling me that the weeping trench had to be twice as far from the footing as it was deep to prevent undermining the footing (since we’d dug to the bottom of the footing). Since we’re using 4″ drain tile pipe, the minimum trench size is 6″, so it’s set 1′ in from the footings. The plumbers said they typically dig the trench a foot wide, but I was at a shortage of places to dump the dirt and I didn’t want to dig more than I had to. Plus, I didn’t see much of an advantage to making the trench wider. I initially started digging the trench an even 6″ deep, but I realized that the pipe needed to slope toward the sump crock by ⅛” per feet, also known as 1″ per 8′. I started with the depth of the sump crock openings and worked backward. The result put the top of the pipe proud of the trench in places, but still within the stone that goes under the concrete and foam insulation.

Bay trench
Stone and fittings
Pipe and start of sleeve
Sleeve installed

I bought a big 36″ deep by 24″ wide sump crock, rigid PVC drain tile pipe, a bunch of assorted fittings, and a pipe filter sock. The plumber suggested I account for the front bay window with some 45° fittings, but because of how sharp our bay is compared to most, I wound up using street 45s plus 22.5s for “67.5” degree turns. In my previous post on the mechanical room layout, I alluded to the challenges of figuring out where the sump basin would fit without interfering with pipes for the ejector pit, the sewer line, the pex tubing that will eventually come out of the floor by the radiant system, and without the outlet pipes being in the way of the boiler. I settled on an area along the wall that’s in front of the radiant panel, but not where the pex will come out of the floor.

Finished install

Finished install

One of the advantages of rigid PVC drain tile over the corrugated stuff is you can snake it if it ever gets clogged, so I added a clean-out at the far end of the run, as well as a connection for the drain in the back steps landing. The hardest part was digging the trench and sump pit and hauling out the dirt. Once I had started putting the pieces into place, assembly went quickly. The last step in the process is our sump pump, but I still have to plug it in, so I’ll cover that in another post.

Basement Updates

October 5, 2015 / / 3 Comments

I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been trying to complete something before making a post about it, but I haven’t finished anything other than leveling the subsoil, which I already made a post about when I was a third of the way done with it. I didn’t want to write another post just to say I’d finished, especially since flattening dirt isn’t particularly interesting, even if it is a lot of work. Instead there are about five different things in progress, all basement related, so I’ll give a run down on where we are and what we’re trying to get done.

First off: the plumbers. We’ve signed our contract, paid the deposit, permits are being pulled and/or updated, and once that’s done they can get started. Rather than dig up the existing clay sewer pipe they are going to re-line it, a process where they run a scope, clean out the pipe with water jets, then shove an inflatable sock down it all the way to the city sewer main. They inflate it and then squeeze an epoxy resin around the sock, which not only creates a whole new pipe within the existing one, it fills any cracks or holes at the same time. The result is a brand new sewer line without any digging, plus it will actually be a larger 6″ diameter pipe than it would be if it had been if we had redone it in cast iron. The sewer line will be an “overhead system” meaning it will go up to collect the drains from the first and second floor, but the basement drains will go to an ejector pit which then pumps up to the level of the first floor before entering the drain. That prevents sewer backups from flooding the basement.

Next, the plumbers will need to dig a hole in the basement and a couple pits out at the street so they can horizontally bore a new copper supply line and disconnect the old lead line. Once that enters the basement at the front there will be a new water meter and an overhead copper line running along the beam back to the mechanical room. Finally, they will be canceling our old catch basin in the back yard and running the rough plumbing for the basement bathroom. The process should take about four or five weeks, depending on permits and inspections.

While that’s going on I’ve been working on the interior weeping system (aka drain tile). I’ve dug a trench around most of the basement that will connect to a sump basin. I picked up a large 24″ x 36″ crock that’s about twice what’s required by code. I’m still researching sump pumps to put into it. For now that will tie into our sewer system, as Chicago code allows combined storm and sewer, but once we’ve redone the back yard I plan to route this into a rain garden along with the downspouts and the drainage for the walkway along the side of the house.

I’ve talked to our concrete guy about getting the back steps redone while it’s still warm enough out. Our plans call for the exterior basement steps to go to the South rather than straight out or to the North as they do now, so we need them to knock out the existing retaining walls and put in a new one. The plumbers will install  an area drain at the bottom landing that connects to the weeping system. Hopefully he’ll be out this week so we can get that process rolling. We unfortunately had to fill in the pit we had dug for the steps with all the excess dirt from leveling the basement and digging the trench.

Lastly, I tried replacing the rest of the basement windows yesterday but discovered the brick around the windows and the sills are in worse shape than I had hoped, so I called our tuckpointers. We’ll have them replace the sills and clean up the window and door openings so we can get the rest of the new windows installed. I also ordered our new back door, since it will take a few weeks to get it in.

So despite not being good about updating the blog, we are keeping busy with the house. As we finish any of these projects I’ll write posts about them individually. The weather is getting much cooler as Fall sets in, so we need to get a lot done in the next several weeks!

Basement Dig Out – Part Forever

September 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My last basement dig out post was June 3rd. With the dumpsters and excavator gone we stalled out and decided just to hire the rest out. The concrete contractors we talked to gave us some very reasonable quotes and we were just waiting for the plumbers to get back to us. We finally got a couple plumbing quotes, but they’re really, really expensive.

We’re basically looking for three things from the plumbers: (1) replace the old clay sewer line under the basement floor with an overhead system plus rough-in for the basement bathroom and floor drains to an ejector pit, (2) replace the old lead water service with a new copper line, and (3) install an interior weeping system (aka drain tile) with a sump pit. The new water line in particular involves either excavating pits and horizontal boring or a trench across the yard and the street, so it’s the biggest line item, but the sewer work is pretty pricey too.

We’re going to try and get another couple quotes in hopes of a less expensive option, but time is getting short to get this work done before the cold weather sets in. In the mean time, we’re going to tackle the weeping system ourselves. While it’s the least expensive item on the list, it’s the only one we can realistically do. Even though it  won’t bring the plumbing costs down by a lot, we’ve got to do everything we can if we want to move forward.

Before we can put in the weeping system we need to level the subsoil in the basement. When we dug out the basement with the mini-excavator, our limited experience meant the end result wasn’t what you’d call perfectly smooth. Because it’s all clay, making it flat is extremely labor intensive. We’d held off leveling it until we’d talked to the plumbers because we weren’t sure if they were going to have to dig up the existing sewer and water lines. Now we know that’s not the case and we can get started. They’ll only need to dig a hole in the front corner, and over by the soil stack.

Not level

Not level

The first step was to dig out the corners where we couldn’t get the excavator in close, then go around with a pressure washer and clean up the stone footings. Once everything was cleaned up I used the laser level to measure how close to level the subsoil is. I started working from the front bay window toward the back of the house, focusing on one four foot square at a time. I quickly discovered there’s a gradient of clay consistency from one side of the house to the other, requiring different techniques to level out.

Level line

Level line

On the North side of the house the hard-packed clay is the consistency of old, dried fudge. It’s so dense you can’t slice a shovel through it and I have to use the mattock to chip it away. As I move to the other side, it gets gradually softer, which is why a lot of that side is actually dug too deep. So, I take all the clay shavings from the one side and dump them on the other, then use a block of wood and a hand-held sledge hammer to pound it flat. I thought about using a plate compactor or a lawn roller, but everywhere I need to compact the clay it’s sticky and would make a huge mess. As much as I don’t want to do it all by hand, it’s probably the only way. I drew a line on both the shovel and my block of wood to check my progress as I went, as well as a longer board that I could use to check larger areas. Basically, everything needs to be 6″ below the laser line.

Progress is very slow. I often find myself adding up square footage in my head and breaking it down into percentages, since while the digging is physically hard and time consuming, it’s also mind numbing. Each 4×4 section is averaging me nearly half an hour. I’ve only done about 300 square feet so far, to the back of the first column footing, but just that has been a huge pain over several days.

I’m planning to get the leveling finished over the long weekend, but there’s a lot more work to the weeping system. My hope is that by doing this portion ourselves, we can save enough money to still move forward with the basement this year. After getting excited about our reinvigorated timeline, I don’t want to get derailed out of the gate.