Ice Pocalypse
We’ve debated whether to post pictures and write up of what happened in mid-January. Ultimately, we must have decided to go ahead and be open about it because you’re reading about it. We’re writing about this a few months removed, as we were way too busy and stressed about ice forming in our basement to have words to put in our blog. And to be honest, it gave us a long pause here in posting regular updates because it took the wind out of our sails.
Back in January, temperatures plummeted to well below zero Fahrenheit. Couple this with some poor timing of holidays and lack of availability of our plumber, which meant that our sump pump was still pushing our perimeter drain water out through a temporary drain through a window.
Frozen temporary sump pump drains
This meant that with our sump pump line frozen, our sump pump pit and sump pump also experienced near-freezing temperatures. As a large amount of winter precipitation came in at the same time the temperatures plummeted, and water continued to creep up our concrete foundation, finding ways into our lower level primarily through our perimeter drain and then out onto our concrete floor.
At the worst point, we had chunks of ice measuring almost 3 inches thick throughout the unfinished basement floor. Remediation came in the form of a multipronged approach: We had space heaters coupled with shovels and we (yes, Josh did about half of the ice removal work) pick-axed our way through inches and inches of ice. Another prong had our plumbers come out as soon as possible and finish our sump pump line and install a new sump pump, as we had now ruined our second sump pump.
This new sump pump now drains outside to a semi-permanent location that is always in a negative slope, so once the water reaches the highest point, it will continue to move until it makes it well away from our foundation. Plumbing the drain as well as coupling it with a space heater to keep the vertical portion of the drain well above freezing, has kept the space dry ever since.
We have also located a crack in our foundation that was continuing to cause some leaking. Experts have reviewed the situation and determined it to be caused by a negative slope (our rough grading was halted back in the Fall of 2023) and by a crack in the foundation that formed after a window was incorrectly formed and needed to be cut out. Both the general contractor and the concrete subcontractor have worked out all remediations and we’re now very confident the worst is behind us.
