Sorry about the long history here, but figured it is important before we just get loads of "waterproof your foundation" responses. The land around our house slopes down from a wooded area behind our property to a stream in a culvert under the street in front. The basement floor is 7 feet below grade and has an overhead sewer exiting the house, so every basement drain must be pumped up. The house was waterproofed years ago and has two sump pump wells in the basement to empty the footer drains. The system just works a little too well. During heavy rains, the 4-inch footer drain pipes can simply overwhelm the pumps and their 1-1/2 inch discharge pipes. Water comes up from the sumps and floods the basement. There is nothing more to do about waterproofing the foundation or walls, or adding more footer drains.

It used to be that a storm would only flood the basement this way once every few years. This would also only happen when power went out and a battery backup pump was just not powerful enough to contain the flow. We prepared for that. Nothing was left out on the floor. The walls were cut with a 1-1/2 inch space at the bottom (with access to floor drains that lead to a sump) and then covered with 4-inch vinyl base trim, which prevented water on the floor from wicking up into drywall on the walls.

Now, some new neighbors moved in the last couple years and built massive additions on their houses. More water seems to come rushing in the footer drains more often. We just had massive flooding two weeks in a row, and just about once a month last summer, all with pumps running at full power. The water this last time reached at least eight inches up the walls before the inflow subsided and the pumps could remove it.

I am upgrading to more powerful pumps, but we still have to be ready for the floods that will come.

Is there a baseboard product that would be suitable for exposure to water for the bottom foot of the walls? Is there a door for basement closets that will not be damaged by a few inches of water?

Thanks,

---H