little bit of water from basement floor drain......should be easy.....

[magicianstalk]

Hey all,

In my basement, there is a grated "storm drain" in the middle of the basement. It's round, flush with the floor, and about 5 inches in diameter. The other day, it rained a record amount of rain in a short period of time. a little water (about a gallon or less) was right around the drain when i went down after the rain (within a

1-square foot area). Now, since the floor is tiled, and it was only a little water, and if is the worst it will get, i I'm not totally worried about it, but i have a few questions and would like to prevent it simple if possiible.

1) is this the situation in which i hear people should have the drain snaked for tree roots, etc to prevent this?

2) could some sort of some sort of simple backflow preventer device help to prevent this?

3) there is always water resident about 6 inches down the pipe - should i remove some of this to prevent the problem, or will the water level just remain the same - or is this water necessary?

I am hoping there is some little trick i can do to rectify this problem....

Thanks for your help,

Matt ( [e-mail])

[Speedy Jim]

Snaking the drain will have ZERO effect. The problem is that the city sewer becomes overloaded during heavy rain and backs up.

It's called a "backwater" valve and installation is not simple in most cases. Talk to your city and ask if they are even permitted and also whether this is a "sanitary" sewer, rather than storm (or maybe a combined).

Do a GOOGLE for "backwater valve".

You *may* be able to get away with installing a "standpipe" in the drain. The hazard is that water pressure under the slab (due to leakage) can lift the slab.

That is the water in the "trap"; it's supposed to be there.

You may be lucky if this is the worst that ever happens. Talk to some neighbors and ask if there are sections of the city which have even worse flooding problems. It's a political problem... Jim

[tgilb]

| | 2) could some sort of some sort of simple backflow preventer device | help to prevent this? | | 3) there is always water resident about 6 inches down the pipe - | should i remove some of this to prevent the problem, or will the water | level just remain the same - or is this water necessary? | | I am hoping there is some little trick i can do to rectify this | problem.... | | | Thanks for your help, | | Matt | ( [e-mail])

Had the same problem in my basement. The backflow device in my floor drain was simply a hollow ball, in a chamber/trap just below the grate and a flange, that would float/raise when the drain backed up and being the round opening in the flange above it was slightly smaller that the ball itself it would be forced up against a round rubber seal on the underside of the flange and seal itself. My problem was that this ball had been constructed in halves and had come apart. I simply had to take off the grate and flange, replace the ball and then re-assemble. I occasionally check that the rubber gasket is clean. That was 15 years ago and have had no problems since. Here's another description:

[royroy]

You didn't identify this, but is this a drain to a drain field or into the city system. Can you remover the grate, and is the top of the pipe threaded inside or outside. If so, get a cap of appropriate size and screw it in/on to the top of the pipe.

Go to a hardware or plumbers supply store, with the pipe dimensions in hand---just the inside diameter of the pipe will suffice. Get a wing-nut test plug. Just slip that sucker into the drain and tighten the wingnut. It will expand and tightly close the hole. Yes, it will stick up and you won't be able to put the grate back, but you don't have to have it in there all the time, just when you expect a flood.

no

probably

One final thing. When this first happened to me I discovered that the leak was also coming from the concrete surrounding the pipe. I chipped some of it out and filled it with hydraulic cement. That part of the problem ceased

HTH. YMMV