When a leaky basement isn't a leaky basement

from Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, MA

I was reminded of something that I want to write down before I forget again. After one memorable rain recently, everyone was telling stories about it the next day at work. But as I listened, I remembered how I used to always run down to our basement after a heavy rain to see if I could find where our basement was leaking. I assumed that as I plugged the leaks I found, it would get better but it never seemed to improve. I'd see water near the door out of our basement and I assumed there was a leak around our bulkhead door (that's a metal covering over the steps that lead out of our basement and up to the back yard). After all, if the basement wall wasn't cracked, how else could water be leaking into the basement?

I'd seal around the bulkhead and I'd seal the joints between the basement wall and the wall around the stairs leading out of the basement. Then, sometimes, after the next rain I would see no water. But other times, after a rain of similar proportions, I would see water. What was going on? And the worst part was, the more I sealed up what I thought were leaks, the worse it seemed to get. At one point, it looked like it wasn't just leaking into the basement but also leaking along the floor above. So, the leak must not be low in the wall but higher up near where the floor is. It was very frustrating and this went of for years. I just got used to running down stairs to mop up the water I'd find and then go on another search for where the water was coming in.

Finally, it got so bad that water was falling on our water heater and dripping on the electronic controller. At first I thought the leak was in the pipes leading to the water heater but I couldn't find any problems there. I fashioned a metal cover to try to keep the water off the controller but that leaked, too. We ended up having to get a new water heater. And the leaks in the base continued.

Finally, one day I happened to be down in the basement while the leaking was occurring. There was no rain outside and the water heater, which had just been installed a couple of weeks before, was not the problem. Then I realized that the dishwasher was running! It was right above the area where the leaks seemed to be coming from and where the water heater was located. With that thought in mind, I pulled back all the insulation in the basement ceiling and traced the wet floorboards back to the area where the dishwasher was standing on the floor above. I unhooked the supports for the dishwasher and pulled it out and there it was. The people who had installed the dishwasher had used copper pipe to hook up the dishwasher instead of flexible hosing.. When they'd pushed it back into place, the pipe had bent and weakened its walls. After years of using it, it started to leak and was getting worse. One of the factors that made it seem like it was night-time rains that were causing the problem was that this dishwasher was terribly noisy. You couldn't carry on a conversation or watch TV when the thing was on. So, we usually ran it at night while we slept upstairs.. If it happened to coincide with a night-time rain, I'd be down there looking for a leak and it reinforced that idea. If there was no rain during the night, I wouldn't check for it and if I happened to go down in the basement later and see water, I'd just think it was left over from the last big rain.

We got a new dishwasher and we haven't had the problem again. Plus, the new dishwasher is so nice and quiet that we can run it any time and it doesn't interfere with our TV watching or with our conversations. And it was hooked up with a flexible hose so a kinked copper pipe won't be a problem this time.  Sometimes, the solution to a problem depends on changing how you look for the problem. Or when you look.