Basement window well fills with water.

[Alan Weisman]

Hi,

I've got a basement flooding issue and I'm asking around to try to figure out what to do. We have a rain gutter downspout that drops into some PVC that goes underground for drainage. 3 feet away from that I have a basement window about 16 inches below grade in a window well. At the bottom sill of the window outside is 4 inch perforated PVC put there I guess to offer some sort of drainage.

There is definitely a connection between this PVC in the window well and the gutter drainage system. When it rains this PVC begins to fill with water. No problem, but when it rains really hard the PVC fills up and water starts flooding out of the perforation holes. The window well completely fills up with water and it starts pouring into my basement through leaks between the window and frame.

I'm thinking that the gutter drainage system is backing up and flooding into this PVC pipe that runs along the window. If I'm right about this I have a couple of questions: What was this PVC running along the window meant to do? There are gutters up above so it stays dry in that area. Also, is there some way of getting that gutter drain to accept more water without digging the whole thing up to clean or reline with gravel? Thanks very much, Alan.

[Art]

The gutter drain is supposed to have an outlet someplace. Someone probably covered it up. Find it and open it and your problem should be over if the pipe isn't crushed underground. To find it you could get a long snake at the hardware store.