I have an 80 year old house, and have lived here 28 years. We have never had water in the basement (other than when the sewer cleanout needed cabling). Suddenly we have water (flowing the last 3 days!). No leaky pipes, no backed up drains. Before we knew the water was still coming in we had the carpet cleaned, and when it was done you could see the carpet becoming wet from one corner coming out. No walls are wet; water seems to be coming in at floor level in this corner.

Is there anything I can do to avoid costly repair (again, never happened before). I found a clogged gutter and wetness on porch indicated it'd been overflowing. Ground is very wet from snow melting/rain several times during the week, but not raining now and water still seeping in). How long do I wait after cleaning gutter to see if this helps/water stops flowing!?

Thanks much for any advice!

As I said in plumbing, In a day or 2, I would start looking for another problem. You might inspect the area around the leaking gutter. It is possible it washed enough dirt away leaving a low place for water to collect and run in. If you see any low spots, fill them in with the heaviest clay you can find. Steal a bucket from a construction site or a creek bank if you have to.

I hate to double post, but unanswered questions make the site look bad.

Thanks (as I said over in plumbing as well). Sorry for the doublepost. I'm knew, and after posting here I got the impression from reading an answer to another post that this sort of question was better asked in plumbing. I feel encouraged by your response.

I have an 80 year old house, and have lived here 28 years. We have never had water in the basement (other than when the sewer cleanout needed cabling). Suddenly we have water (flowing the last 3 days!). No leaky pipes, no backed up drains. Before we knew the water was still coming in we had the carpet cleaned, and when it was done you could see the carpet becoming wet from one corner coming out. No walls are wet; water seems to be coming in at floor level in this corner.

Is there anything I can do to avoid costly repair (again, never happened before). I found a clogged gutter and wetness on porch indicated it'd been overflowing. Ground is very wet from snow melting/rain several times during the week, but not raining now and water still seeping in). How long do I wait after cleaning gutter to see if this helps/water stops flowing!?!

Thanks much for any advice!!
I have a hundred year old house and I had the same darn problem! Just in one corner and it took me awhile to figure it out but I solved it for myself. This may or may not be your problem but check it out. It seemed that I got the water whenever it rained of course so that led me to the outside during a rainstorm to see if I could follow the flow to my basement and sure enough I did. The water run off from the roof was pooling up around that corner of the house that was leaking in the basement! These old houses have questionable basement walls and some are just stones packed tightly together! I had some metal roofing so I made two units of roofing braced with two by fours and leaned it up against the house and my problem ended! The water is spread evenly on the lawn and no one can see the leaning metal framed units. Now, the final solution would have been to dig out the entire corner outside but I am not that eager to take on a digging project at age 66 and it would be a lot of digging, dig? Good luck!