Servers in garage, worried about humidity

[gardar]

Hey there guys, I'm posting here since this sub-forum seems to have most of the storage/server gurus.

Here's my situation, I'm long overdue on moving my home servers ups and switches to a rack and out of the bedroom.
The ideal place to move my hardware to is a basement under the garage, the basement is under ground and keeps rather cold whole year it has been used as storage for bicycles etc over the winter time and has a lot of free space where I could set up racks.
It would be the ideal place but it has one big problem, after snow-heavy winters when the snow begins to melt there comes water up from the floor of the basement. I've seen it go up to like 10-20 cm from the floor. I have been told that the only way to get rid of this problem is to dig up the whole garden, driveway and even go under the house (the garage is inbuilt to the house), which makes that option out of the picture. I am not sure how long this situation has lasted, but it might be up to 4 weeks a year. I have never seen any water get in after heavy rain, just when the snow is melting. The last 3-4 winters have actually not been that heavy so there has no water gotten in but it's always a gamble.
We do have a pump in the basement that automatically goes on and pumps out water as soon as it reaches a level where it can be pumped out and we also do have euro-pallets on the floor so things that get stored on the floor actually won't get wet.


My question is if it would be safe to move my hardware to such an environment. The servers would obviously be mounted in the top of the rack cabinet and the rack be would be on euro pallets or something similar and never actually touching any water. There is electricity in the basement, for lighting and power sockets and it has never blown a fuse because of humidity.
How much humidity might I expect? and how much humidity can the hardware tolerate? The servers will obviously be pushing some heat which would help dry up the water and obviously create some humidity.
I could put in some humidity sensors in with the servers and in worst case scenario I'd run down the basement and move all the hardware out of there.

Is this something I should consider or should I stick to tower servers in the bedroom?

 

[flameofthevoid]

I would not put them down there, you are going to have issues with the humidity.

 

[misterpat]

Look into getting "French Drains" put in. If Your handy and dont mind the labor, You can do them Yourself. I have a similar problem in my basement and this fixed it. Zero water in the basement.

 

[gardar]

Look into getting "French Drains" put in. If Your handy and dont mind the labor, You can do them Yourself. I have a similar problem in my basement and this fixed it. Zero water in the basement.

I've never heard about "french drains" before but after digging up some information on google it sounds like an interesting option.
However most of the information I found is on soil and gravel and the basement of my garage has a concrete floor. Will the french drain still work in that case?

 

[misterpat]

I've never heard about "french drains" before but after digging up some information on google it sounds like an interesting option.
However most of the information I found is on soil and gravel and the basement of my garage has a concrete floor. Will the french drain still work in that case?

Yes, In a nutshell, You need to dig a trench about 16" out from the wall all the way around the basement. Also need to dig a sump pump pit. Line the trench with filter fabric then some 3/4 clean gravel. Lay some perforated pipe along the trench all the way around the basement ending both ends into the sump pit. Fill the trench up to the bottom of the slab with 3/4 clean gravel. Now You need to use whats called "Dimpled Membrane" to go along the top of the gravel and bend up the wall a few inches. Once thats in place, Mix and pour concrete to cover the membrane. Want to keep the concrete as thick as the original slab, so add/subtract gravel as necessary. Pour concrete around the sump pit the same. Now get Yourself a good sump pump and plumb it up and out of the house. The father away and down hill,the better.

Here is a video showing how its done.

http://vimeo.com/44040530