I thought I'd ask here. This doesn't make sense to me, maybe I'm wrong in my assumptions.
I live in a suburb of Milwaukee.
The last few big rains (more than an inch or two in a short amount of time), basements of homes in some areas have flooded. Not mine, thank God.
The water comes in through the floor drain, I've read. The last couple of years, there have been some real downpours with several inches of rain in an hour or so. "Hundred-year rains," but we've had a cluster of them in a year or two. Yet, we have had very heavy rains previously. But basements didn't flood then.
ANYHOW... some basements are flooding and people are plenty upset. Some of these people have lived here for decades and never experienced water backing up into their basements.
The municipality hired consultants, and they seem fixated on "leaky laterals," or the main drain line from the home to the street. The consultants insist that leaky laterals allow rain water to infiltrate the storm sewer system, which causes sewer backups into homes.
What I don't understand is how the problem can occur so quickly after the heavy rain starts. These leaky laterals are ten feet or more under ground.
It seems to me that it would take rain water some time to work 10' down into the soil, find the pipe, and make it into the system. Also, a lateral isn't going to collect water from THAT wide an area, THAT quickly, is it? Basements start flooding within just a few minutes of the very heavy rains starting, I believe.
I also don't understand why, when we have had very heavy rains previously, we didn't have this level of flooding. When we first moved-in 16+ years ago, there were some very heavy rains, and spotty basement flooding. But, to the best of my knowledge, the water came in from outside the home, not from the floor drains.
The consultants and the village make it seems like we have rivers running underground near the laterals. But, if that were the case, I'd expect to see sink holes resulting from erosion. And I'd expect the department of public works to be complaining of lots of soil in the sewers.
The suspicious side of me thinks there is a chance that some of the extensive sewer work in the last ten years may have been done improperly. Perhaps some pipes were undersized. Perhaps some pipes were improperly combined. Perhaps some joints were poorly fitted.
The village wants to inspect all the laterals and force anyone with any cracks to replace or line the lateral. At great expense. That suspicious side of me thinks the consultant wants to line the pockets of contractor friends.
I'm concerned that all this work will be done and basements will still flood.
I do know that simply installing a backflow preventer would stop the backing-up problem. Many houses have valves already. It seems making nearly everyone with the old clay tiles cough-up $6k is a great way to line the pockets of contractors when adding a backflor preventor is less expensive and a guaranteed fix (compared to fixing laterals).
Any thoughts?
Anyone go through anything like this in your own neck of the woods?