Alma, MI Home on Former Swamp Land Saved by WaterGuard

Challenge

This customer called us with a very, very wet basement. At any given moment there was as much as two inches of standing water, and during the spring thaw all bets were off - water came in through the walls, the floor, anywhere it could!

Can you imagine trying to do laundry, reset the breaker, or dig up your holiday decorations and have to slosh through INCHES of water? It’s not only inconvenient, it’s dangerous. When the customers told us their house sat on land that used to be a swamp, everything made a little more sense, and we got to work.

Solution

The first issue was giving the water somewhere to drain, which we accomplished by installing the WaterGuard below floor perimeter drainage system. To do this, we had to remove the edges of the floor as well as a few feet of the walls (but don’t worry, we replaced them).

Now that the water had somewhere to go, we had to create a way out. A TripleSafe sump pump was the answer. The WaterGuard routes the water to the sump pump, which pumps it to the discharge line outside. To ensure that the pump never fails (and that you know the second there’s a problem) we also included an alarm and battery backup for the TripleSafe.

By installing the discharge line underground, we could direct the water far enough away from the house that it wouldn’t just rush right back in. In order to keep everything running smoothly, we installed a LawnScape outlet and IceGuard to keep the line from freezing in the winter.

Once everything was installed, we poured new concrete to cover the WaterGuard and restore the floor - it looks darker because it’s wet. At the customer’s request, we installed EverLast wall panels to replace the portion of the wall that had to be removed.

Now there’s no makeshift swamp and no excuse to avoid the laundry!