New house- basement leaking

I think UGL drylock works better, but i'm not an expert on moisture control.

 

I'm slowly making some progress, a little bit less water every time it rains. Today it rained nearly 2 inches in maybe 6 hours or so, basically a lot of rain pretty fast, at least for my area. Checking things out downstairs and noticed water dripping out of this junction box, zero idea where the hell it's coming from or how it's getting into the box. I haven't opened the box yet since I'll need to cut the power and I want to wait for saturday, but any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

It's dripping from the white circular box at the top but that's not connected to anything other than the grey line and box below it. You can see the drop of water in the picture. Is the water somehow filling that grey line and going up to the white box? Is this something extremely dangerous? Should I call somebody asap to fix it, whatever it is?

Pictures:

 

Is there a conduit from that box to the outside ?

 

Edit , nevermind just re-read your post , yes I would suspect the conduit is full of water

 

I would pop that access plate on the elbow where it comes through the foundation - that'll keep the water out of the junction box. And, if it is that bad, what does that line go to on the other side of the foundation? If it's underground, it must be leaking. I'm wondering if there's any conduit at all outside which would make more sense.

 

Any ideas how it's getting in? I have no idea where that lower box would exit to, it's approximately where an outside outlet is but that outlet is much higher up on the outside. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the reasoning behind some of the things the previous owners did with this house.

 

Do you know where the other end of the conduit going through the foundation leads ?

If its open ended in a landscape box or similar that is uphill from the junction box the house end is acting as a drain

I've had this very situation before on a project

 

I guess I'll need to open that lower part up and see what's there, like I said I have no idea where it leads. Everything below the white upper box is below ground level, and that side of the house has a deck that is just above ground level so there is no way for me to see what's underneath unless I pull up parts of the deck.

 

I was just looking at my fuse box and I'm thinking that may have been connected to a pool, I know the owners 5 or 10 years ago had an above ground pool because it can be seen in sat photos and one of the labels in the fuse box is "pool". I know little to nothing about electricity, I'm assuming I should turn off everything (since I don't know what specific fuse it is) before I open that lower box?

 

Is there a lanscape box or some place the conduit may dead end to service the old pool location ?

 

Nothing at all.

 

I would wager that whenever they took out the pool that conduit was abandoned and is at or just below grade which works as a drain now draining heavy rainflow into your basement

I would want to find the end of it and at least cap it

Is the " Pool " breaker on ?

As mentioned above I would pop open the access cover

 

Good read on the how: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/...e-And-Why-Your-Basement-Leaks--By-Matt-Cantor

I battled the same problem for years before I smartened up and hired a foundation guy to bring in a small back hoe and dig a trench below my foundation out into the lower part of my back yard. Ran a corrugated line along the length of the trench and back filled with gravel and sand. When we had that Mother's Day storm a few years back in NH, water was gushing out of the line, and my basement stayed dry. Took me 20 years to figure it out, and the result paid off. I think you will need to do the same based on the water being pushed up the conduit to that junction box - you have pressure.

 

I would suggest if there was that much hydrostatic pressure is would likely be forcing water up through the slab to wall seam no ?

 

Not likely unless the ground itself is that high. I'm betting that conduit is open outside underground and the water is doing what it does best under pressure, taking the path of least resistance.

In my case it was coming up between the foundation walls and the slab. I knew the exact spot. Fortunately my place was built onto a hill, high in the front, walk-out in the back. Made my drainage wicked easy to do.

 

Yeah , I always use SuperSeal dimple membrane on my house foundations , works awesome

http://www.superseal.ca/dimpledmembrane.html

I still wager the conduit runs to a point higher than the junction box but you may be correct as well

Water follows trenches too , especially sand lined conduit trenches

 

I'll open it up tomorrow, I'm not sure how I would ever find the end of it though. The breaker is on. There aren't any permits or records so the only way I can even estimate where the pool was is looking at the sat photos, maybe I can somehow measure and try to find an approximate area to search for the end. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

 

Here's a shot of the end result of the line we put in to solve my problem. That's a small block chevy timing gear covering the end of the pipe keeping out the critters.

 

If you open the cap and there is a conduit outside the foundation wall you could run a fish tape out and measure it but if the breaker is on and not tripped its either servicing something else or is capped or in a junction box outside and not dead shorted

 

A decent amount of water in here when I opened it. I need to get new batteries For my volt sensor and verify but there doesn't seem to be any power connected here. There is wiring running from the fuse box to an outlet junction box and then to the white circle box. I plugged in a hair dryer to the outlet and with the"pool" switch flipped both ways there was no power to the hair dryer. I have the pools witch flipped off and haven't found anything in the house not working yet so I'm still trying to figure that out.