Serving Wichita
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Wichita, KS
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 floodway protects the city. Are we safe from flooding?
From the river, largely, and that is only one of the mechanisms. A floodway addresses the main channel; it does nothing about local rainfall that has nowhere to drain on flat ground, and nothing about a storm sewer that cannot discharge when the system is full. Most basement water in a city like this comes from local drainage rather than from the river, so the protection is real and it is narrower than it sounds.
Our basement is the storm shelter and it floods. What do we do?
Treat the shelter function as the one that cannot be compromised, and design around the water. That means not storing anything valuable at floor level, raising mechanicals where possible, and not finishing the portion most likely to take water. The goal is a basement that can get wet without becoming unusable or unsafe, because the moment you most need it to be usable is during the storm that is most likely to wet it.
Is a backup sump pump worth it here?
Yes, and the reason is the correlation rather than the reliability of the pump. Severe storms bring power outages and heavy rain together, so the pump loses power at the moment of maximum demand. A battery or water-powered backup breaks that connection. Relative to what is typically in a finished basement in this stock, it is one of the least expensive protections available and one of the most frequently justified.
These questions come from the Wichita page.