I am rehabbing a house that I hope to move in to that has had drainage problems in the basement. (Because I am not in the house all the time, it is hard to closely watch drainage issues as they occur.) About 5 days ago I installed parallel corrugated plastic piping on the western and eastern sides of the house to take advantage of a slight downward grade from west (back) to east (front) to take the water to a ditch and street that are in front of the house -- in fact, I posted questions about the piping last week.) Several days ago we had a small rain, and I noticed that the sump pump would discharge several times an hour about 4 hours after the rain. Last night and this morning we had a substantial amount of rain in Cincinnati (I would guess about about
1.5 or 2 inches) and when I visited the house at 7:30 in the morning there was several inches of water in the basement, and I did not hear the sump pump running. (Normally, there is a whoosh sound when the water is being discharged.) Unfortunately, I had a business meeting scheduled in the morning and was wearing a suit, so I couldn't go down into the water and look for the source, and I couldn't check the water flow in the corrugated piping. Because I didn't hear the sump pump running, my best guess was that the sump pump had shut down. (As far as I know, the electricity had not gone off earlier, and it was running at the time I was in the house.)I was able to return at about 1:30 in the afternoon, and the sump pump was running, and the water had drained from the basement. My best guess is that the water overwhelmed the sump pump. Is that reasonable or are there other better explanations for what occurred. One factor that leads me to guess that the sump pump was overwhelmed was that a previous problem in one wall caused by a nearby downspout that emptied into a blocked pipe did not reoccur. [I installed a new gutter and directed the water to the front of the house and away from the pipe that was on the side of the house] I would add that water was not pooling near the house, but there was a significant puddle where the water from the sump pump drained out from a corrugated pipe about
20 feet from the house. Any help would be appreciated.Thanks,
JD