Our new house (~1 year old) has a had an unusual problem from the beginning. When the builders ran the sewer line to connect to the main line at the end of of a dead end street, they had do go down a small stretch of a ditch. Also, the sewer line had to be run fairly shallow (`4ft) because of the elevation of the main sewer line.
Because of the shallowness of the line and the fact that it's partially running under a ditch that drains surface water for that street, water is finding its way down into the gravel around the sewer line and then flowing toward the house. The amount of water is often significant. When the ground is saturated and it's raining or we have a snow melt, it isn't unusual for the basement sump pump to run every minute or less..that's a lot of water!
I first noticed this problem immediately after they ran the line, before they even started framing the house. The excavator dug up a portion of the line, removed the gravel and refilled with soil to create a dam. However, that did not solve the problem. The last attempt by the builder was to create another damn using bentonite. I hand dug a 2'x2' section to expose the pipe so I can confirm to the builder that the water was in fact coming from around the sewer line. The builder then removed the gravel from the small excavate portion (2'x2') and added the bentonite.
With the recent snow melt, once again I got significant water running to the house from the same source.
The builder has asked me to get the city involved to see if they can work on the ditch to eliminate the standing water in it. However, I don't think this will solve the problem completely. First, the nature of the ditch is such that there will always be some backup because it runs through a small patch of woods that will fill up with leaves, etc during the fall. Also, during the winter, the city snowplows pile the snow at the end of the street when cleaning the streets.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have to resolve the issue. I feel that the builder has basically abandoned me on this issue.
Because of the shallowness of the line and the fact that it's partially running under a ditch that drains surface water for that street, water is finding its way down into the gravel around the sewer line and then flowing toward the house. The amount of water is often significant. When the ground is saturated and it's raining or we have a snow melt, it isn't unusual for the basement sump pump to run every minute or less..that's a lot of water!
I first noticed this problem immediately after they ran the line, before they even started framing the house. The excavator dug up a portion of the line, removed the gravel and refilled with soil to create a dam. However, that did not solve the problem. The last attempt by the builder was to create another damn using bentonite. I hand dug a 2'x2' section to expose the pipe so I can confirm to the builder that the water was in fact coming from around the sewer line. The builder then removed the gravel from the small excavate portion (2'x2') and added the bentonite.
With the recent snow melt, once again I got significant water running to the house from the same source.
The builder has asked me to get the city involved to see if they can work on the ditch to eliminate the standing water in it. However, I don't think this will solve the problem completely. First, the nature of the ditch is such that there will always be some backup because it runs through a small patch of woods that will fill up with leaves, etc during the fall. Also, during the winter, the city snowplows pile the snow at the end of the street when cleaning the streets.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have to resolve the issue. I feel that the builder has basically abandoned me on this issue.
