Wet basement and coal boiler.

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lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 2:01 pm

i get water in my basement whenever it rains.
it gets pumped out as soon as it runs in, but no matter what i do the basement will always be damp.
the one side where the coal bin and the coal stove are located now i repaired the walls and the floor only gets wet spot where the wall meets the floor, before i fixed it it was like a creek. i hope for the same results on the other side of the basement. repairs go slow, the walls are rubble and i only work on them a section at a time. i cannot do the drain tile because the basement slab is the footer. dad had it poured in 1971 six inches thick because the house had no footers and one wall was getting pushed. 47 yrs later all is fine.
40 yrs ago dad looked into jacking up the house and replacing the basement. it was too costly.

it gets musty smelling down there in the summer so i have to run a dehumidifier when i do not have the coal stove going.

would having a efm down there running all year help act as a dehumidifier?

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 2:14 pm

lincolnmania wrote:
Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 2:01 pm
would having a efm down there running all year help act as a dehumidifier?
YUP!

Make sure you put it up on a few blocks to keep the base out of any water that might enter you basement.

-Don

 
lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 2:32 pm

yes, i have the furnace and the coal stove and the water heater on 2" blocks.
when i moved home after dad passed away there was no working sump pump, now i have two. i will have four when i am done. i want to add a 12v backup pump for the deeper of the two basement sumps and i just bought a zoeller m53 and a crawl space sump to install.....that's not gonna be fun.

 
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coalkirk
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Post by coalkirk » Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 8:27 pm

Keeping a basement dry is all about managing water on the exterior of the home. Grading, rain gutter maintenance, etc. Have you looked at improving these conditions?

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 8:38 pm

coalkirk wrote:
Wed. Feb. 20, 2019 8:27 pm
Keeping a basement dry is all about managing water on the exterior of the home. Grading, rain gutter maintenance, etc. Have you looked at improving these conditions?
Good advice. Money is better spent keeping the water away from the house than trying to remove it from the basement.


 
lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Thu. Feb. 21, 2019 3:47 am

just got new gutters and downspouts in august. the previous ones leaked horribly.
having the downspouts on the driveway side drain under the driveway when i get the excavating done on the driveway.
i had drainage on the other side that went to the storm drain at the street, but some idiot handyman my parents hired destroyed it with a backhoe trying to waterproof the basement walls with driveway sealer. i had a 2" pipe from the sump pump roughted into that drain, last year when i hooked up the new sump pumps i hooked into that line i roughed in and turned the pumps on and the water came running back into the basement right away.
there's a slope on that side neighbors house up on the hill. the drain is going to be hard to do again because now i have to deal with the sewer pipe in the location that i had that drain.

only way to fix it now from the outside all the way around the house is to tear out the wraparound deck and wheelchair ramp and the central a/c unit and rip the yard up. that's not happening right now. i have 40 thousand set aside for the garage and the boiler. i do not want to get a loan for this either. mom and i are debt free and do not desire debt. i don't know of a single house on this street with a dry basement. i am just happy that i cam make the water go away when it comes in. if you saw the basement two years ago, i have made massive progress.

why overbuild on a old home? i got 40 yrs left if i am lucky. i doubt my kid is gonna care much about this place in 30 yrs. the avg home price on my street is 130 grand.

 
ben
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Post by ben » Thu. Feb. 21, 2019 7:04 am

My basement is would definitely require a dehumidifier to run all summer. But, my EFM puts out enough heat to keep the basement dry. I can really notice a difference when I shut my unit off if I clean it or go on vacation.

Someone told me running a dehumidifier is almost the same cost as running a small air conditioner.

 
lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Thu. Feb. 21, 2019 7:24 am

it is as much as a small air conditioner. i had to run one in my apartment at the shop.

 
lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Fri. Feb. 22, 2019 2:01 pm

Finally had a excavation contractor come today that answered the phone and showed up.
pretty sure this is going to be the one i hire, he explained everything well, and his daily price for the men and machines is much lower than the pole barn builder excavating crew (and they were not going to do any compaction where the pole barn is going) he wants to put the downspout drains under the driveway on the north side and on the south side dig up the drains that a friend and i installed yrs ago that got damaged when the sewage was installed....the drain used to go out to the storm drain at the street. i also had a 1.5" pipe for the sump pumps buried in the yard, we are going to try to repair that and reconnect to it while also digging a trench to the pole barn for the heat and electrical.

i thought of a sump in a yard sump, but isn't that going to run non stop? i already have a sump pump that runs pretty often on the north side of the house, i could put one on the south side in the basement too. the north side wall is mostly dry now because of the that pump and the one at the bottom of the basement stairs.

 
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Post by k-2 » Sat. Feb. 23, 2019 1:33 pm

Having a furnace run all summer is not as good as a dehumidifier. Yes it helps but you will be drawing in that humid outside air in spring and summer to feed the furnace. One thing that helped my damp basement is HPWH, Heat Pump water heater. It only uses 550 watts and dehumidifies as it makes hot water. Thing paid for itself in a year or so with electric savings.


 
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Post by CapeCoaler » Sat. Feb. 23, 2019 9:45 pm

And does he have a concrete guy that does radiant heating in the slab...

 
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Post by franpipeman » Sun. Feb. 24, 2019 5:28 pm

i have a device called a geyser hot water heat pump you add to your existing hot water heater electric it dehumidifies your room while making your domestic hot water , the only issue is will you use enough hot water to dehumifidy enough , the more showers the better

 
lincolnmania
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Post by lincolnmania » Sun. Jul. 03, 2022 8:06 pm

Basement has been dry with the boiler downstairs running 8 months out of the year. worked hard on fixing the leaking walls and it worked. also had the downspouts run under the driveway 30 foot from the house on one side and pumping the sump pump water 30 foot from the house. was just looking at my posts seeing how much coal has gone up every yr and saw this thread and thought I would update it.

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Mon. Jul. 04, 2022 8:58 am

Good work. You have made a lot of progress on that house.

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