LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got Jim on the line from Ohio who’s dealing with a high water table.
JIM: Hi. Our sump pump runs like crazy and we’ve tried to make sure that the drainage is far away from the foundation. We’ve even gone so far as to get the basement sealed and waterproofed, all that stuff, which I think we wasted our money on. But nonetheless, sump pump runs like crazy. All these things have been addressed. It’s just – and everybody says around here it is a hugely high water table, if that makes sense.
TOM: So, does your basement leak more after a hard rain?
JIM: Nope.
TOM: So the rainfall is consistent?
JIM: Right.
TOM: So this could be the unique situation where you really truly do have a high water table. If you get basement leakage and precipitation that is worse after a snow melt or a rainfall, then it’s almost always gutter problems or problems with drainage, angle of the grade, that sort of thing.
JIM: Right, right. As a matter of fact, we took your advice from past shows and had all that stuff addressed, because it is such a common issue. But this is the oddball. Leave it to us to have the oddball.
TOM: If you truly do have a high water table and you have a subsurface drainage system in below the floor of the basement, then that’s pretty much all that you really can or should be doing right now. Is the water evidencing itself in some way? Is it coming up beyond the floor?
JIM: No, no, no. It stays in the sump pump. I know my pump’s not going to last forever. We go through – we’ve gone through about 7 or 8 of them in 12 years.
TOM: Take a look at the pumps that are made by Wayne – the Wayne Pump Company. They make really good pumps that – in fact, they have pumps that are auto-reversing so that if they do get clogged, that they will reverse themselves to kind of spit out the clog and then come back on again.
JIM: Oh, OK. Awesome. Thanks, you guys.
TOM: That’s the solution. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
JIM: You guys rock.
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