Glimpsing into the window well of my soul

What do you do when you want a professional job done right? Just check off that you have all of the following:

1. The right tools for the job
2. A clean work area
   
3. Professional help

So, of course, if I want to make sure that my window well won't leak water anymore, I should get the job done by following those three tenets of quality work.

The right tools:

A clean work area:

Professional help:


So since, I had all of those important aspects of the project covered, I couldn't fail right? That depends on what you expected as the outcome.

I had two goals when I dug the window well 18 inches down next to the foundation:

1. Stop the leak into the basement by giving the window well deeper drainage. (Thus the 18 inches of additional dirt taken out.
2. Stop the leak into the basement by allowing me to pump out the water if I have to, or even stick a bucket down and heave it out if it comes to that!
   

As you can see, my main goal is to stop the leak:

So I dug the window down (with a lot of help from my Dad):

Dug it out a lot more (sorry no photo at this stage.
Started the base of my pump hole with cinder blocks and filled around it with gravel instead of dirt There are two more cinder blocks hidden from view under the pile at this stage, so that is about 2 ft down next to the foundation line:

Tested for leaks for about an hour before filling it up more:

Then I laid bricks down in a way that I hoped would allow good drainage down below the foundation:

After waiting another while to see if any water would leak in, I added more cinder blocks and more gravel:

The total height of the cinder blocks is 4 feet. I need to add some more gravel, but I'll have to buy some since that's all I have! The dirt I took out of the bottom made it quite a bit deeper.

Well, after all that, the lawn man came and fertilized the lawn. He asked me to water in the application, so I turned the water on the next morning even though I had decided not to waste any more water on our lawn this year.

So what was the result? It leaked some more.

At least I have option B still. I can pump, siphon or draw water out whenever I want. I've built my own well! That's a side benefit I didn't even think about. Wow, man.