POOPWATER!! Or: How to reclaim your basement after a sewer back-up

[DirtyErnie]

So, my sewer check/backwater valve either hasn't done it's job, or the local municipality has blown it up. I'm leaning towards the latter of the two choices since manhole cover out front looks like a Vegas casino water show (gross exaggeration, emphasis on gross) every time we get more than 3" of rain. We've had 3" of rain quite a lot this spring, but I digress.

At some point, after having a new check put in, I'm going to have to get with the cleaning program and get my basement back. (Servicemaster came after the first back-up and gutted/cleaned/dried the whole place)

If anyone has cleaning/sanitizing/rebuilding advice, I'm all ears.

Current thoughts are:
1. fill in the bowl shaped floors in 3 of 4 rooms with some lite concrete and get them level, light slope towards the drain in the (still bowl-shaped) laundry room
2. epoxy paint the now flat floors and use throw rugs
3. new paneling on existing 2x2"'s or replace 2x2's and then panel?


Thanks!

 

[gggGary]

No untreated wood or paneling in a basement prone to flooding......
Keep everything on the walls at least an inch off the floor. maintain the air gap so the wall space can dry out. It will be very difficult to get anything to bond to that dirty concrete you have now.
Use bleach in your scrubbing water to kill off mold, and use lots of ventilation, run dehumidifiers 24 -7 for a while, a long while.
The local utility can be on the hook for back up damages caused by their problems.

 

[terry b]

Sounds like a shitty deal. Is it coming up through the floor drain or where?

 

[DirtyErnie]

Floor drain, toilet, bathtub. June 1st. Like this:

 

[DirtyErnie]

Servicemaster came in and did this (gotta say, I'm kinda diggin' the toilet-in-the-shower bit. Three-S morning goes 2x fast):

 

[DirtyErnie]

aaaaaaaaaaand tonight we had a redux:

 

[terry b]

Man that has got to be heart breaking. What are you going to do? What does the municipality have to say? I have heard of this of this before where the storm drains and the sanitary sewers run together and they can not handel the storm run off so they back up into homes. I am sorry this is happening to you. I hope you grt some dry weather soon.

 

[DirtyErnie]

Looks like good weather forecast for the week. State Farm is getting checks out to me for structure and personal property. Unfortunately, structure is maxed out, and Servicemaster gets paid out of that. In another week I should hear back from the municipality, since they're meeting with the Metropolitan Council (who actually is in charge of the sewers around the Twin Cities) in a few days.
For now, I called the plumber and we're going to get a new backwater valve installed ASAP.

Another thing about the house, the foundation drain tile was installed through the basement floor AFTER the house is built. Any advice on this setup vs. the outside-the-foundation type of drain tile?

Thanks!

 

[terry b]

Are the foudation weeper tiles run to a sump crock with a sump pump?

 

[DirtyErnie]

Yessir. Part of replacing the sewer check/backwater valve will be installing a deeper sump basin. 22" doesn't really seem deep enough for the setup. Going to go to a 30" hole to get the hi water switch level in the basin well below the foundation tile level.

 

[Iowa Mark]

Could be like a lot of cities with large amounts of basements and sump pumps. Way too many sumps are plumbed right into the sanitary sewer system. Big rain hits and all the sumps kick in, delivering all that water to an already taxed pipe. The whole system fills to the height of the nearest outlet, manhole, unplugged basement drain, weak one way valve. Sewer systems cost lots of money and create massive disruption of a neighborhood with all the digging, and later repaving of the streets. Everyone gets assessed their share of the cost and so it takes catastrophic events to get anyone to agree to it. You might be just starting to write checks because of your sewer.

 

[DirtyErnie]

Problem is the sewer line is under control of the 'Metropolitan Council' here in the Twin Cities. I'm in Mound, sewer treatment plant is down in Shakopee. My turds take a 25-mile ride before anything happens to them.
The bigger part of the issue is that I'm on a string of islands. the two islands farther 'out' in the string are a different municipality, and their sewer lines are a. junk b. below the water table. you start getting rain and they fill the line to max capacity. before it even gets into Mound.

Other problem is, the city has had approval for about a decade to get the 8" line in front of my place upgraded. Met Council has been busy building light rail...

 

[peanut]

Block off all outlets to the sewer in the basement . Build in a small waste holding tank for waste water from the bath, shower, WH Basin and install an automatic pump to pump the water up to the next floor level and make a connection with a non return valve into the soil and waste stack well above the highest point the sewer water rises to.
With the toilet you could get a mascerating toilet and again pump that to a higher floor level connection to the soil and vent stack.

With no soil outlet in the basement you could then remove all the wall cladding and 'Tank' the basement ie sand & cement render all the walls and floors with a water proof render which would prevent any ground water from entering your basement walls and floor . This is the best solution and has been used successfully for decades in the city of Bath England where almost all the properties have underground accommodation

 

[peanut]

oops db post ! getting a lot of page freezes on here lately.?

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Ernie,
you poor bastard.
happened to me in Pinawa MB where I used to live. "100 year rain" they said.
Cheap fuckers who built the town put in 4" lines instead of 6" is what I say.
2 feet of brown sewage efflux in the basement, the only thing not ruined was the cat's litter box, floating around like a toy boat.
Wife was booked into a conference, should she stay?
No, there's nothing to be done until the level goes back down, so go.
When she got back all the ruined stuff was at the town dump and the basement was a clean damp empty concrete box that smelled of strong disinfectant.
How was it?
Full of shit.
Oh.
Well, that 100 year rain came again the next year and my wife had nowhere to be.
After the nasty brown fluid had drained away again my wife was looking at the turds, toilet paper and the occasional condom on the floor and said
This place is full of SHIT.
Toldya, just like last time.
But I thought you meant shit, not SHIT.
So yeah, I know how you feel.
There's a TV reality show called Jacked. Maybe that's your answer, lift the whole house up eight feet, build a new lower storey and use the existing basement as a foundation.

 

[terry b]

So how much time do spend in the basement. If the bathroom down there does not get used much i would think about sealing all incoming pipes and the floor drains permanently. The wheepers will handle the ground water. Pump it out the basement wall above grade and pipe it away from the house about twenty feet.

 

[DirtyErnie]

Fortunately, any flooding was contained to below an inch or so of water by what remains of the backwater checkvalve slowing things down and the sump pump (1/2" trash capacity) throwing the rest out the house and down the hill at about 3,000 gallons/minute.
Plumbers have been called, Hopefully they will be putting in a new check valve sometime before the next heavy rains

I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up the most recent episode (last Thursday), with a garden hose, a squeegee, a shop vac, and a shitload of bleach. I'd picked up a 3M half-face respirator so I didn't have to breathe all that mold. Also got a 2-gallon sprayer to douse everything with a still bleach solution.
Sprayed and pushed any 'sludge' into the sump basin first, then bleached everything, let it soak a couple minutes. Then hit it with a big scrub brush, and then slurped all that up with the shop vac.
Afterwards, I mixed up a Borax solution and soaked down all the wood and affected concrete to more permanently and deeply treat it agains mold.

Dehumidifier is screaming its guts out down there.

I can't wait to get the sump basin another 8" deeper. I'm willing to bet that would eliminate the few remaining damp spots on the up-hill side. If that doesn't, the French Drain I'm going to install around that side of the house should.

Thanks, guys! There's some great info going on here, keep it coming!

 

[DirtyErnie]

So how much time do spend in the basement. If the bathroom down there does not get used much i would think about sealing all incoming pipes and the floor drains permanently. The wheepers will handle the ground water. Pump it out the basement wall above grade and pipe it away from the house about twenty feet.

Unfortunately, I have a workshop/hobby room down there, and a room mate that likes to hide out in cold places. There is a full bathroom down there, as well as the laundry, so she's happy and I don't have to share a bathroom with anyone.
All sewer plumbing in the house runs into the main pipe in the Laundry room floor, through the backwater check valve, and then out to the municipal sewer . Unfortunately, there's no real way to shut off the basement, since all upstairs lines immediately run downstairs to pipes embedded in the concrete floor.
I wish I could do what you recommend. Even if it was possible, I'm 99% sure the city/Metro Council would shut it down before I even started.

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Ernie,
good to see you are keeping your head above water.
1/2" trash capacity sump pump, eh? Is that like "If you have a big enough bilge pump you don't need a boat."?
BTW, I've an amateur's knowledge of the building trade but have never seen the term; what is a "French Drain"?

 

[DirtyErnie]

http://bit.ly/13grGpl

ok, that was snarky.
basically a trench full of coarse rock, maybe with a pipe, to run water out of a place quickly. Could be shallow at the surface level, or deeper in the ground depending on your need. I'd probably do a shallow one with a bit of a swale on top.

The 1/2" trash capacity has more to do with the apparently elevated possibility of having the sump pump be the emergency 'bilge pump' to keep poopwater as low as possible in the basement. The first episode of flooding killed the original sump pump. I'm not sure if that was due to being on constantly for 12 hours or all the garbage it ate. Not going to gamble.