Standing water in main trap

12 years ago

Hi all,

I have an issue with the house main trap in the basement. This only happens in the spring time and stops nearing the winter time. I noticed standing water in the trap long after a big rainstorm has arrived and would take days for it to seep back into the ground.

Luckily it is not high enough to get into the basement floor. Question is, how would you be able to fix that? Can I just open the gutter trap and let the water drain out whenever it rains? Outside the house is a 4x20feet vegetable garden and next to it is my neighbors driveway. I suspect all the water during the rainstorm goes into this garden and builds up enough water that it gets into the trap. Is there an easy fix to this? I thought about drywells but will it work? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Comments (3)

live_wire_oak
12 years ago
?? All traps have water in them, or they should. Water in a trap is what prevents sewer gas from entering the home.
ionized_gw
12 years ago
"main trap" and "gutter trap" ? these don't ring a bell with me. Maybe you have a French drain or dry well in the middle of your basement floor? If you see water in that after rain, I don't think there is much you can do except try to improve the drainage around your house. (Install utters and downspouts if you don't have them and put extensions on the downspouts or drain them into a better system if you already have them.) Even all that might not help if the house is low enough to put it near the water table.

I doubt that the garden is doing the damage unless it is sloped to drain surface water towards your foundation.

I still don't get the "gutter trap" though.
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barrychan
Original Author
12 years ago
Hello guys,

I apologize for not being clearer. The standing water is not the water inside the trap. The traps have a cleanout and it is covered by a rubber boot with stainless steel clamps. There are two cleanout traps. One is for waste from the house and the other is for the water from the gutters. I live in New York City and they put all the water from the gutters back into the sewer system in newer constructions.

The water I'm talking about is around the trap area and its not backup water since i have a floor drain in the boiler room and it hasn't overflown. Maybe around 1 foot deep of water after heavy rainstorm sitting in the 'trap location area' where the cleanouts are. It would stay there about a week below seeping back into the soil.

I'm thinking maybe I have a high water table or heavy clay material under the topsoil that is not draining water very well. The garden outside is sloped towards the back of my semiattached neihgboor's garage and driveway of another neighbor across. It was sloped like that when I bought the house. Hope the diagram below helps explain my situation.

One contractor told me to concrete the whole area but i'm afraid that he'll slope all the water to my across neighbor's driveway and would piss them off so i didn't go with that option. any more advice? Thanks for the attention.

back of semi-attached neighbor's garage
N:---------------------
e: g :m ****trap
i: a :y
g: r :
h: d :h
b: e :o
o: n :u
r: :s
d: :e
r: :
i: :
v: :
e---------------------
side of my garage