Serving Ankeny
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Ankeny, IA
Basement seepage, failed sumps, and hydrostatic pressure against the foundation are extracted and dried, and the path from the ground is identified so the loss does not repeat. Groundwater and basement seepage are extracted and dried only after the path from the soil is identified — a wall, a slab, a drain, or a failed sump. Drying the interior without stopping that path returns the same water to the same floor.
Frequently asked questions
The subdivision is new and everything meets current standards.
Individually it does, and the cumulative effect is a separate question. Each development detains its own runoff to the standard of its day, but the creek downstream receives the sum of all of them plus whatever the standard did not capture. Compliance lot by lot does not guarantee the channel at the bottom was sized for the total.
This was a cornfield ten years ago.
And it was almost certainly drained by tile, much of which is still in the ground under the houses. Those lines were laid to a field pattern nobody has a complete record of, and they continue to carry water to wherever they were originally routed. They surface as unexplained wet spots and as water arriving at foundations from no visible direction.
Why does a new house have a wet basement?
Usually because the ground around it has not finished settling and the grading has changed since the builder left. Backfill against a new foundation compacts for several years, and as it drops it forms a channel directing roof and surface water straight down the wall. It is one of the most common patterns in recently built neighborhoods here.
The same questions, in context, on the Ankeny mold removal page.