What sort of waterproofing was done on the exterior of the below grade construction?

What is your normal water table?

What sort of grading and drainage is there to ensure positive surface runoff away from the perimeter of the house?

I’m probably not going to be able to answer everything! For waterproofing- only what they normally do for a finished basement. It never even occurred to us to ask what exactly they do and if we should do more. Ugh, I could kick myself.

I don’t know what our normal water table is - but I know it was high earlier in the spring. Around June we noticed a slight rotten egg smell with our water - after some research and asking around- we learned that can happen when water table is high (we have our own well). Sure enough, when it dried out the smell went away.

I also don’t know how to describe grading and drainage. Excavator did a few other little things that weren’t ideal so I wonder if the grading wasn’t quite perfect? Especially considering the way our lot slopes. I know there is a drain right by the exposed window (the bottom of the window is nearly flush with the ground).

Downspouts buried, one is connected to the storm sewer.

Sorry I don’t know these answers! Hopefully something up there is helpful?

This type of situation must be evaluated on-site, hard to say without seeing grading, etc. If you can take a few pictures of the troubled area, this way we could get some sort of an idea what is going on there.

It’s raining again (cringe) but if it’s dry tomorrow I can take some pics that show that southeastern corner where the lot slopes down.

Mainly I want to make sure I’m asking the right questions of the builder - and it sounds like re-evaluating the slope of the yard around the house and drainage is number one. If water is coming up through the concrete seams in the basement - can that be fixed without demo?

Also, builder suggested the concrete sub should come and look at it. Who else would be in a good position to help trouble shoot? What other tradesmen would be able to identify the root cause?

And thank you both so much for trying to help me :)

A critical question is whether proper waterproofing was applied to the exterior of the basement, or the cheaper and less effective damp proofing.

I’ll definitely address the water proofing with them. Update- not good - rain started again, hard- and water was POURING in through the exposed window and coming in through the baseboards it seemed. Also up through the concrete seam. Got videos and pics. Updated ins agent and waiting for restoration team to arrive. I’m so sad. I know it’s just stuff and carpet and drywall and it can be replaced, and it will get fixed. But the visual got the better of me and i burst into tears and scared my poor 8 yr old boy :(

I guess the silver lining is that this problem is so huge now, it cannot be ignored. But I’m still sad. My beautiful new home has 3-4 in of water in our finished basement :(

Development: I just spoke with the builder again and he asked if our landscaper raised the level of the ground next to that exposed window, and mentioned that there should be six inches from the ground to the bottom of the window.

Well, we don’t- the ground is even with the bottom of the window, maybe 1 inch below buts not much. The thing is - it’s always been like that. I remember when they were digging the well, the mud was high right up against the window.

If it’s supposed to have a 6 in gap between the ground and window, the builder didn’t put one there! I feel like they’re going to try to blame it on the landscaper. Shouldn’t the excavator have done it right?

Oh no! I'm so sorry Kate! So, we had this happen to us a few years ago in an older house (not a new construction) and I don't know if this will help you or not, but at least I can provide some info on what happened to us. We had a particularly rainy year and basically, the soil around the house was not completely compacted so the water completely soaked the soil, eventually leaking into the basement. There's actually a great video explaining this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlUZwwKDqXo

We ended up hiring a waterproofing company called B-Dry which has a lifetime warranty on its products (we have actually now demanded that this be done in all of our future homes --- that was 2 homes ago, and we've now gotten B-Dry to come in on our last home and our new construction house). They created a French drain system for us with a channel into a sump pump and then they waterproofed the entire basement area of the home. After dealing with water in my basement, I swore I'd never deal with it again because it's such a headache and heartache.

I would want to know if the water is coming in through the floor or if it's coming in through the windows. If it's coming in through the windows, it's a much easier fix than if it's coming through the floor. Also, take as many videos as you can. One of the issues that we ran into is that our insurance company refused to pay for anything --- in your case, your new home warranty should cover the costs, but I would push to get a real waterproofing company to come in and fix all of this.

Also, I should add that after we got B-Dry to install our waterproofing system, our basements were bone dry. I mean, we had years where we had epic amounts of rain and our basements stayed so dry that we didn't even need to turn a de-humidifier on. So, if you have a choice, my strong recommendation would be to have your builder cover the cost of a real waterproofing company.

Thank you, Akila! The video was helpful, and I wonder if the new/loose soil is a factor for us as well. I’ll definitely push for the builder to pay for a waterproofing system like B-dry. My concern now is that the builder is going to get squirrelly and start trying to blame this on everyone else. I really hope they take ownership and step up and don’t play the blame game.

Ballpark- how much money should B-dry cost? Are we talking 10k, 20k, 30k ?

Not great pics for diagnosing, but here they are

It looks like it could be the high water table or the grading issue and also it could be the foundation's perimeter drain issue. Can you please take a few pictures from the outside especially the same side of the house that you have interior pictures taken?

The dark spot on the foundation that you see at the bottom indicates the water level on the outside which is not dissipating fast enough through the perimeter drain which is leading to the sump-pump.

The window water issue could be for the same reason, too much water is entering the window well and is not draining fast enough.

A few exterior pictures would help.

Thank you! Yes - I will get some outside pics soon of that side! The restoration team suggested we may want to try to block that window overnight- we were supposed to get more storms overnight. Where we live, the only store open was Walmart and they didn’t have plywood and were out of sand bags. I have an old ikea floating shelf still wrapped in plastic from our move that we used to try to create some kind of barrier between water and window ... luckily we didn’t get any major downpours overnight - I don’t think our ikea shelf would have worked all that well :)

Builder is stopping by today. Is my thought process correct here that the builder should pay to correct whatever’s causing this? I think they’re insurance should pay for the water remediation and rebuild too. (But am I off base there?)

Some outdoor pics of the same side of the house where water came in - the window you see in the pics is the basement bedroom window. The last pic (hopefully they post in the right order) I took from our back patio, you can see how the whole back corner of the lot slopes down. (Disregard the ikea shelf)

Its difficult to be sure from the photos but the frame at the window does not appear to be sloping down and away from the house. The material added at the bottom of the widow will not stop water from entering. If water is entering at the window, you may need a window well with crushed stone and a drain to daylight at a lower grade.

If water is entering through joints in the slab due to a high water table the interior French drain system is the only solution.

You should not have any wall to wall carpeting in the basement even after the water problem is solved.

Yeah the ikea shelf was a “nothing better” option around 1am. Absurd, but at least we felt like we were doing something.

I think the grading is the key issue here too, and there is a gap in the window that aided water coming in. I want to add a window well too- and fix the grading.

Does it make sense that water would not only come in through the window itself- but also seep down through the walls and then come up through the concrete seams?

For sure, that is not graded properly......the ground is much too high there.....you should be able to see several inches of your foundation wall around the entire house and the siding should not be buried under soil or mulch. Not sure if that is your entire problem, but proper grading would at least prevent the water from coming in through the window. At least this part of the problem should be completely obvious to your builder.

Thank you all SO MUCH. I know we’re at the beginning of a long and challenging situation here. It has been very comforting to me and my husband to have you all to ask and get feedback to get our ducks in a row here before we speak with the builder.

Thank you!

I ended up in the exact same boat. New construction house, cellar was bone dry until we had a big rain event about 3 months or so after we moved in.

In my case what had happened was some brilliant mind crushed the footer drain backfilling the foundation. So the drains weren't really tested until we got a monster storm, at that point all that water backed up into the cellar.

All my pretty landscaping and sod got ripped up and it was a muddy mess. But the second they cut out that crushed section of footer drain, water came pouring out and that was the last time water has ever been in my basement.

I don't have the skills to evaluate this any further - just wanted to throw the "crushed footer drain" out there as something else to consider.

You said it wasn't the sump pump, but if you are having water come up through the floor, clearly your sump pump isn't moving enough water. I know people with 2 or even 3 sump pumps, because one wasn't sufficient to handle water at their location.

You definitely have a grading issue, the window and the siding are to low to the ground, the foundation would be above the ground with siding should have been up at least 8", if pressure-treated plywood wasn't used for the first row you will have plywood deterioration issues down the road. Around here new house would never pass inspection with grading coming up this high.

This is building code section (not sure if your region follows IRC Residential code:

SECTION R317 PROTECTION OF WOOD AND WOOD-BASED PRODUCTS AGAINST DECAY

R317.1 Location required.

Protection of wood and wood-based products from decay shall be provided in the following locations by the use of naturally durable wood or wood that is preservative-treated in accordance with AWPA U1 for the species, product, preservative, and end-use. Preservatives shall be listed in Section 4 of AWPA U1.

1. Wood joists or the bottom of a wood structural floor when closer than 18 inches (457 mm) or wood girders when closer than 12 inches (305 mm) to the exposed ground in crawl spaces or unexcavated area located within the periphery of the building foundation.

2. Wood framing members that rest on concrete or masonry exterior foundation walls and are less than 8 inches (203 mm) from the exposed ground.

3. Sills and sleepers on a concrete or masonry slab that is in direct contact with the ground unless separated from such slab by an impervious moisture barrier.

Also if the original backfill settled and they filled it with mulch, you will have water issues, like in this sample.

Thank you so much!

Builder and their landscaper are trying to blame this entirely on our landscaper who laid sod and top soil. The claim is that the excavator does rough grading and the landscaper does the final grading. Which I understand - but it seems crazy to me that an inch or two of top soil would cause this much damage. My thought is that the original excavator didn’t leave enough room for the final grading then. Our landscaper may carry some blame but I don’t think it’s entirely his fault.

Is it possible that this could all be caused by the landscapers top soil? Or does that sound like the blame game?

It looks like your yard slopes nicely, I'm not sure about the back of the house what the situation there, but the grading should be min 8" lower than the siding.

I'm not sure how much backfill they put around the house, maybe it was too much and they didn't account for the topsoil or they had everything graded and your landscaper put more dirt/topsoil in with the mulch on top and this is why up against or over the siding...This would have to be resolved onsite.

Also if it's a new house, I always tell homeowners (even my customers when I sell them a newly built house) don't do anything for the first year... give it a chance for everything to settle before you do landscaping and everything else, because any grading settlement, etc still under the warranty for the first year.

Remediation under way...

Alright - bottom half of the wall is torn out for drying. Turns out- there is no insulation there. They checked other walls, none there either. I understand insulation basements may not be the standard - but two of our walls are not fully underground, and one is a bedroom. In fact the far corner of the bedroom is half exposed.

I can’t believe they didn’t even ask or offer us the option to insulate those two walls. We would have paid extra for it, no question. Heck, our garage is fully insulated and drywalled (ceiling too). So I’m stumped as to why they’d see we wanted to pay extra for it in the garage but not in a basement bedroom?

Should I be totally shocked or is this not really that big of a deal? (I know interior walls wouldn’t be insulated.)

Following. Sorry you’re going through this!

Actually....the fact that there was no insulation there turns out to be positive because if they had insulated, it would have held in all that moisture and been a wonderful place for mold to take hold.

That really blows that the basement was finished.

The WI code calls out damproofing so thats what builders use. Its highly ineffective and pisses me off that buidlers use this in 2019.

Hopefully all works out. If you're in the Milwaukee vicinity there is an idenpendent cosultant that can review the entire situation.

Thanks, Whaas! We are about an hour north of MKE, so may be close enough! I’d love more info - if there is a link or name I should search!

Update - Builder is taking responsibility and paying for ALL repairs and work to resolve the root cause. (Which we’ve determined is the grading.) we’re also building a window well to help with the grading issue.

While it’s not solely the builders fault- I think it comes down to the excavator who is their sub; so they’re doing the right thing. Our landscaper has offered to help with the window well- I don’t think it can be blamed on him, but he’s part of the equation and I’m happy to see them working together to resolve.

Whew. Thank you ALL so much for your help- we were super stressed out and emotional and peppering everyone with questions! Thank you!!!

You had the right to be stressed out! Anyone in that situation would be.