Busted Basement Window Well

One of the things we noticed immediately upon moving in was water in the basement. Not just some dampness but standing water from the storm 12 hours earlier. In the 3 weeks we have lived there we have had massive amounts of standing water every time it rains, definitely not the 'seepage' we were told. It was so wet that the carpenter ants had fashioned the rotted wood into canoes and were waging naval battle against the mice in their insulation fortress. 

Clearly the mice have an upper hand

The water isn't everywhere, mostly just the front of the house. During the dry times I have done some reconnaissance and found the likely culprits for the major sources of water:

1. Lack of gutters causing water to just fall right against the foundation. 
2. Poorly graded driveway holds the water against the foundation. 
3. Poseiden - God of the Sea, is angry that I keep throwing rocks at his house
4. A below grade basement window with a rotted sill and busted well. 

Hadn't realized that we purchased a house with an in-ground pool

We have #1 queued up to be fixed around mid-August. Not that I'm afraid of heights but I can imagine the spectacle of me trying to hang gutters. More likely the spectacle of the fire department coming to rescue me from being stuck hanging off partly installed gutters.

#2 will be something that we deal with "Later^TM". Again another one for the professionals. 

That leaves us with 3 and 4, as well as various cracks and whatnot that we can deal with later, hopefully. 

As seen in the above picture that pit is the perfect area for water to pool up and then leisurely follow the foundation down until hydrostatic pressure does it's black magic and teleports the water into our basement. I tried an experiment and just put a couple inches of water in the well and it drained faster than our bathroom sink. No joke, the sink has a pipe that is too small and the water doesn't drain well. 

I'm sure he is involved somehow too

I decided to build up around the well just to stop a majority of the water from pouring in. It doesn't have to be fancy, just functional until we can get the whole driveway replaced. Luckily there is a pile of old bricks that were left at the house and they seemed up to the task for holding back waves. Now I am no mason but it can't be that hard, right?

After thoroughly cleaning as much dirt and poison ivy roots from the well as I could, I dove into the sill area. There was so much silt from constant drainage over the years that there was a small jungle growing in there. I wish I had taken a picture of it, pretty sure we were in a partial Jumanji situation. 

Left unattended this was bound to happen

I didn't have any mortar for the bricks, wood to make a mold for concrete, knowledge or tools to do either. So I did the next best thing and just mixed up some old concrete that was left in the shed and started pouring it everywhere. 

Pro Tip: Concrete isn't designed to just pour on stuff and work. 

Somewhere in my mind I knew this but decided things could not be worse than they currently are. The amazing thing though is that you can pretty much do whatever you want to your house, as displayed by a lot of the existing work. I poured concrete all over the well and then started squishing bricks in wherever they fit. Amazingly it worked, kinda. 

It matches the house, sagging slightly in the middle

So there you go. Definitely not pretty but functional and a darn sight better than the crumbled concrete that was there before. Once it has cured I plan on going around the perimeter of the foundation and sealing everything with some finishing cement and waterproof paint, so this isn't the last we have seen of the busted window well. 

- The Porter -