How to seal hole in basement floor from well pipes???

[Lissa]

My house is about 30 years old. We moved in about 5 years ago. We have a septic and well, living in the country. We also have lots of rodents outdoors. Up until about 2 years ago they stayed outdoors. Now they have moved in, our basement that is. From what we can tell the mice are coming in through a hole in our basement floor. We have an oil tank and the tank is over the hole, but on legs. THe hole is for the pipes from our water well and is about 2 feet x 2 feet. It is covered by peice of wood and plastic on top of that, duct taped down. It appears to have come loose and I did see one of the mice run under it. My husband also hear one scratching at the board. Obviously we need to seal it up somehow. I hesitate to do what they did before because it was not a long term solution. This is our first house so I have not seen this before, or a house with a well. Does anyone know how we could seal it up? There will have to be a hole for the pipes to come up from the floor to inside of the house. Does anyone know if the well pump is located there? I thought of getting sheet metal and screwing it down. Maybe sealing around the pipes with steal wool? But I am not sure if I need to have it more accessible for some reason in case something goes wrong with our well? Any information would be appreciated. I have not been able to find any information about it so far. Thanks so much!

Lisa C.

[willshak]

All of the following are guesses since I cannot investigate your basement and property from where I am. Besides, I am not a plumber, but I play one at home and do have a well. I doubt that the well is directly below the hole. Since you have more than one pipe (2?) coming from that hole, one is probably for the water supply, and the other for the electrical wires going to a submersible pump. The submersible pump is a large cylinder about 3 1/2" or 4" in diameter and about 4 feet long (I don't have one on hand so the measurements are just fuzzy guestimates from the last time I saw mine). How could they pull the 4' well pump, and its lengthy supply pipe and wires, out for repair or replacement from the hole in the basement, or even more unlikely, from under an oil tank? The last time I had mine pulled from my 20 year old,

[wayne]

try steel wool and see if that works

Wayne

[Joe Bobst]

Steel wool rusts pretty quickly when damp. If that is a probelm, squirt the opening full of foam. Easily removed for future work if needed. Critters seem to give up on munching foam fairly quickly in my experience, YMMV

Joe

[Harry K]

Just wondering. Are you sure it is your well? It sounds more like a sump pump installation to me.

Harry K

[Chet Hayes]

I agree, I've never seen well pipes enter through the basement floor. Typically, they come in through the wall, as that is simple, easy, and by far the best way. Nor do they require a 2X2 hole.

[default]

My well is a 1.5" galvanized pipe driven vertically into the basement floor. I'm mildly surprised that anyone would do a setup like that a mere 30 years ago, and setting up an oil tank over the wellhead is monumentally stupid. But in any case, my solution to OP's problem would be to cast a cement lid to put over the hole, in two parts, so it fits around the pipe(s). Just make it heavy enough so mice can't move it.

[Porter Rockwell]

Ditto on Expanding foam. I find it a great way to seal out the mice.. and it is easilly removable if needed. The only downside is it is messy, and looks cheap when done, but it is your basement floor so who cares if it can get the job done.

Just cut a piece of sheet metal so it is just small enough to rest in the hole, with maybe a half inch clearance on every side, temporarily duct tape it in place, and fill around it's edge with the foam. the foam will expand and lock metal in place, It will look messy, but it will seal that baby up tightly, and keep mice out. You could just use a plywood board, but they could chew through it.

[Lissa]

I had to laugh at the oil tank comment being "stupid." My husband and I were saying that all afternoon while trying to fix it! We have also come to the conclusion that the PVC pipe is there for drainage. But our basement has not had one drop of water in 5 years we have lived here. And have 100 + inches of snow a year, plus alot of rain. So I don't see the need for this drainage pipe. And no one else around here has this setup. All their well pipes come in through the wall also. We do have it sealed for now (I hope) but are going to have a plumber come out at some point to verfy that the pipe is useless and that we can fill it with gravel and cement. Thanks for all the ideas. iT just confirms what I was feeling!

[Harry K]

O.K. Now for the real problem. If you are on a well the major thing is to find WHERE that well is. Then do some googling on well/tank maintenance procedures. The time to do that is now, not a 4 p.m. on a Sunday when you find you are out of water. Maintaining these systems is something the average homeowner can do but they need to understand the systems.

Harry K

[Lissa]

Thanks for the tip. I will make sure to take some time and do that!

[David Combs]

Beware: perhaps you have a toilet down there, or something else that feeds the sewer (if you use a sewer, that is, not a cess pool.)

In our case, during a big rain the sewer ourside, running down the (small!) hill our house is halfway up, COLLAPSED just a few feet DOWNhill from our house and sewer-connection.

Luckily I heard the noise in the basement, and when I went down there, there was about 3 inthes of "water" (er, sewage), and a GUYSER rising out of the toilet, about two feet high!

Being as the hill also sloped down perpendicular to the road (and seweer and front door), and the back of the basement was at ground level, and had a door to the back yard -- I managed to get it open -- WHOOSH all this crap runs out, down the hill into the yard at our back, and on down to a wee creek.

The city's sewer-people came (this was 10pm on a friday night), worked all night, huge ditch dug into the street, finally fixed maybe 8am next morning. Those guys then came in and helped clean up the place, and that done, they left for what was left of the weekend.

...

A few hours later, more rain.

Damned if it didn't collapse again! Another guyser! Same shit -- no, different shit, I guess, since the other had already gone down the hill.

Again -- they came back, repeated the whole operation, cleaning, etc.

Moral: beware of removing all drainage from the basement.

David