On Mar 22, 2:27 pm, "Donna" wrote:
"Donna" wrote in message
The basement is fieldstone, painted with drylok. This keeps the bulk of
the basement dry (although in spots it needs to be repointed, which is
another "how do I do it" question, which I'll pose once the more pressing
problem has been solved.

The house is 80 or 90 years old. The floor is poured cement over the
original dirt floor. The basement is in two rooms - one finished as
above, and sculpted so that water runs to the sides of the room, and then
into a pipe exiting the house. I think this is called a French drain?
Whatever it's called, it works beautifully.

The water comes into the smaller unfinished room. It comes in through two
places 1) under the door from the garage (which is below the surface of the
floor. From the garage, you go down some cement stairs to the basement
door. Water pools in the stairwell when the water tables are high, and
runs under the door. I'm thinking a better door would fix this problem.
The second place water pours in is through the original house's coal chute,
which doesn't seem to ever have been sealed over. Water comes in through
a small passageway (I hate to say chimney - it looks like a cross between a
pipe and a chimney) which behind the cement wall, and opens into the
basement, at a low spot. I have been assuming that this is where the
original coal furnace lived, originally. From the outside, it's all been
turfed over, but when I was landscaping last year, i uncovered what looks
like a 3x5 by 8foot deep coal chute, filled with coal and dirt, then tarped
over, and turfed over. It's amazing that more water doesn't get in,
frankly.

I hope that is enough information. It's kind of a weird set up, as you can
see.

Having read all of your thoughtful posts, it looks an awful lot like the job
of installing a well is going to be beyond my abilities. It also looks like
it might be prohibitively expensive, unless the "put a sump pump in the low
spot and run a hose out the door" idea is feasible. Is it?

Thank you Donna for confirming my original answer. What you ask is
easily doable and better than a wet floor every time!! Just go out
and buy a pump. Many come with an adaptor for a garden hose. A
permanent install would likley use poly pipe and you can get a better
flow with a bigger pipe.

The solution seems to be to excavate the coal chute (But with what? I tried
to dig it out last year, and the fist-sized lumps of coal make it impossible
to do by hand. The location (in the corner of the house, flush with the
walls) makes it impossible to get a piece of earthmoving equipment in
there). I can't tell what the walls of the chute are made of -- they
could be cement, or they could be dirt. Or metal. Or some combination of
all three. Would excavating it by hand (litterally digging at it with a
trowel) a couple of feet down and pouring cement seal it off do you think?

By all means put your energy into eliminating the source of the
problem!! That should always be where you put your energy first.
I'm sorry I don't have a solution for you without seeing the property
but here are some ideas. Just thinkin out loud, OK?

Excavate and seal the old coal shute permanently where it exits the
ground and inside the house both. Water coming in from the driveway
and garage would have to be diverted at the street to keep it from
coming in. Where I live we use a culvert to keep water from flowing
down the driveway. If you are in a town then you may not have that
option. A re-constructed driveway might possible divert the water
elswhere.