Hello!

We have a side-entrance to our basement (ground-floor), with stairs and a drain in the bottom by the entry door. The drain is not connected to anything âÂ" under the grill-cover it is simply a hole under a foot deep with brick sides and sand bottom.

When it rains heavily we, sometimes, see standing water there âÂ" there is mold on the walls already and even (minor) water damage to the wooden floor by the entrance.

Questions:

2. Can anything be done to improve the throughput of such a drain? Digging it deeper, for example?

3. At the top of the drain âÂ" right under the grill âÂ" there is an opening of an old metal pipe. Maybe, it used to run water from some other place to this drain... I managed to push about 20 feet of fish tape into it before hitting an obstacle. That would place the other end well outside the room immediately by the entrance. Any tips on finding-out, where the other end is? I could then, perhaps, use it to run an electrical line to the drain to feed a small sump pump inside it...

Thanks!