Q: What’s another term for a Vermont basement?
Vol. 1, No. 4
A: An indoor swimming pool.
In March of our first year as owners, we decided to pass on building a new house in the meadow and instead renovate the existing house. There was momentum heading into that decision. We’d fallen in love with the history of the place, and discovered personal connections. I’d been learning about the lower environmental impact of renovating versus building anew. We’d buffed up the interior, aided by some hardworking friends and family. Walls were stripped of three and four layers of wallpaper, cracked plaster repaired, and all but one of the rooms were repainted. A ceiling and an exterior door were replaced, as was the old kitchen range, which was a favorite dwelling place for the resident mice. We beat back the mouse population. Holes in the foundation were plugged, making further mouse intrusions more challenging.
And we hired out some work too…a new heating system (we will come back to that in a future blog for sure!). Wiring and electrical service upgrades. An electric car charger. Plumbing for a washer and dryer. A driveway.
Much of that work will remain even with the more recent decision to do an energy retrofit on the existing house. Much of what was purchased can be reused. And all the work made it more livable in the last couple of years.
No regrets. We were cruising, and planning the renovation was going to be a blast!
Then came the spring thaw.
Get out the inflatable raft!
One morning in late March, with all that fun early work behind us, and the fresh excitement of turning our eyes toward the house redesign and renovation, I bounded down the cellar steps to get my ShopVac to clean up some plaster dust on the first floor. I turned right at the bottom of the stairs and paused…the entire earthen floor part of our basement was completely flooded–about four inches of standing water.
“Okay, so there is the seasonal water. I guess the “season” is spring/snowmelt”, I thought. There were signs the basement was “seasonally wet” from the time we moved in. Smell, for one. Rusted metal on the electrical panel and temporary lally columns, which were there to provide support to the floor joists beams–some of which had mold and/or rot. To their credit, the sellers had also disclosed “seasonal water”.
When we’d looked at the house in July, and took occupancy in September, there was no standing water in the basement. But we’d seen the signs, and tried to prepare by resetting the sump pump to be a bit lower in its hole. Should have known better– the sump clearly wasn’t in the lowest spot of the basement, and didn’t do much to help. So, I got to work and shop-vacced up a lot of water, dumped it in the sump (where it was then pumped outside), and got the bulk water out of the basement.
All good, and on with my day!
It took three hours for the indoor swimming pool to refill. It seemed to take even less the next time.
This was clearly a losing battle. And it was fairly clear this was a groundwater issue. We hadn’t had rain in over a week, the foundation was dry above the water line…..this was a rising water level issue.
Adding a fountain feature to the swimming pool
The next morning, I was sitting in a chair on the first floor reading about how to manage bulk water in fieldstone basements when I heard a running water sound in the basement. If not for the location, one might describe it as a pleasant “babbling brook” sound. I went downstairs, and was unsurprised to see the swimming pool back to its original level. What DID surprise me was the fact that there was now water pouring in from the conduit that housed the pipe that brought water from, and electricity to, our well.
When we bought the house, I wondered why a piece of gutter had been set under that conduit and tilted towards the sump pump. Suspecting some utility to this jury-rigged contraption, I faithfully reconstructed it after we set the pump deeper. I now had my answer: water pours in through the conduit, down the gutter, and into the sump–creating a lovely sound effect. But uncontrolled running water in the basement is not really the goal. And it was clearly a distinct source of water from the “automatic swimming pool filler” that was filling the other part of the basement. Something to do with the well, no doubt. So, I called a well expert in the area.
He said he’d need to see the well to understand what might be happening. Naturally, he asked where the well head was. I couldn’t answer, exactly. I told him it was buried. “Must be an old well then! All well heads are supposed to be above grade. Anyway, you will need to find it and send me some photos before we can start to sort out what is going on.”
The treasure hunt
As it happened, my brothers were visiting when I placed that call. Joe said “Good luck getting to that well head right now. Even if we can locate it, we would need some sticks of dynamite to excavate–the ground is still frozen solid.” It was unnerving. Joe is usually right in such matters. He is also usually fairly optimistic. Richard, however, was undaunted, as was the inveterate problem solver, Sophie. Sophie took us down to the wall next to the well pump manual in the basement that gave us some coordinates (was that a “27” or a “29”, and is the pit 1 foot down, or 9, or…?)--and the treasure hunt was on!
All manner of measuring, twine on sticks to find intersecting arcs, the whole nine yards (or 27 feet). After a while, Richard declared confidently that he knew exactly where it was, and pointed to the spot. “Dig here”, he said. It was a snow covered section of yard, beneath what remained of the snowpile from the driveway plowing. Joe raised his eyebrows (was that to convey his suspicions about accuracy, or to remind about frozen ground–which I had confirmed on some bare sections of yard was really quite hard, or…?).
Nonetheless, we got out the piece of rebar, pounded it twice, and EUREKA!! We hit something hard and hollow sounding. Richard looked more confident, Joe’s eyebrows went higher. Sophie smiled. And I dug.
Apparently, the snow had acted as an insulator from some of the recent cold snaps, and the ground under the snow pile was softer than the exposed ground. I was able to dig down, and, there it was! A large concrete cover to the well pit!! We’d struck gold on the first try! There was much hooting and hollering, and high fives all around!
We dug down, got the cover off, and found that the well pit was flooded with water. We pumped that out so we could get a look…and the rest flowed fairly easily, so to speak.
Stopping the flow
We discovered that the conduit was flowing water inside because the well pit was flooded with groundwater. This no doubt happened seasonally with the snowmelt. Since the conduit was open at both the well pit end and in the basement, we essentially had a four inch pipe conveying water right into the basement when the water levels got high enough in the well pit. Some spray foam at both ends fixed that issue. The well experts came the next week and extended the well head above grade, and then I filled the pit with sand.
To deal with the bulk water that gave rise to the indoor swimming pool, I contacted Northern Basement Systems. They implemented a three-part approach to solve the bulk water issue: 1. Trench drains around perimeter of basement that run to a new sump (set in the lowest spot of the basement), 2. Drainage mat covered with thick, rip-resistant plastic sheeting drainage to cover foundation walls and floor (also tied into perimeter drains and sump), and 3. A good dehumidifier. After two callbacks to get the system optimized in the crawlspace area, it has been a total success for the past 18 months, including during this year’s spring melt. The sump was very busy then, but the basement remained nice and dry.
Looking ahead
We’ve work to do when we do the full energy retrofit to have more robust bulk water management, and vapor control for this basement area. But that’s another story, one in which I came to understand (counterintuitively) that the house has survived as long as it did in large part because (1) the basement was as open to water flow as it was, and (2) the house is extremely leaky to air (drafty) and poorly insulated. To the building scientists, that makes total sense. To many, that may just seem an affront to the idea that these old houses survived so long because they harken back to a level of craftsmanship that just can’t be found today. They are testaments to wonderful craftsmanship, of course–but that isn’t the secret to their longevity–especially not for the house Moses Chaplin built.
For now, we are happy enough to have retired the indoor swimming pool with the “babbling brook” feature. We prefer our version of a Vermont outdoor swimming pool anyway. The view is nicer.
Great find of the well!!
Did you find a good and energy efficient dehumidifier? I have been doing some research to find a good one. Pump or no pump?