Water Problems?

When a house is built, a hole is excavated into virgin soil to accommodate the basement. The ground never "forgets" this hole, so when the ground becomes saturated, water will always seek to fill this hole. This creates pressure around your basement walls and floor that allows for seepage at any cracks or joints. This water pressure will occur during prolonged heavy rains despite your best efforts to keep ground water away from your home.

Waterproofing is not about getting rid of the water around your basement, but about diverting the water away from the inside of your basement and carrying it out of your basement where it does no harm.

Three Types of Leaks                                                                                           

Locating where water is entering your home is key to choosing the appropriate solution, so mark the source whenever the seepage is active.

(1) Through the walls:
The most common basement leak is from seepage through wall cracks. The cracks will continue to deteriorate and will eventually leak; and the seepage will get worse over time. Other possible wall leaks are at tie rod ends, honeycombed concrete and pipe penetrations.

(2) Through the floor or floor/wall joint:
Most modern homes are built with a drain tile system along the outside of the backfill, against the foundation. Some drain tiles run into a sump pump, others to the city storm sewer system.  If if your basement leaks,  check your sump pump first.  It could be caused by a faulty sump pump or by a mal-function of the drain tile system.

(3) Over the top of the wall:
Water entering at the top of the wall, between the concrete and wooden sill-plate, is due to one of 2 things: (1) The soil grade has been built up outside the home, higher than the concrete. Homeowners, in their efforts to keep water away from the foundation, build the dirt level higher than the concrete wall, ironically creating a seepage problem through the below grade brick or siding.

(2) Sometimes there is an above grade penetration of water because of a caulking or tuckpointing issue. Any water that penetrates the veneer of the house will run down the back side of the siding and appear at the sill-plate juncture in the basement. The surest way to verify which of these two "spillover" problems you have is to water test by running a hose on the ground on a dry day. If water comes in, it is a below-grade problem.  If water does not come in, then it is an above grade problem that will require caulking, tuckpointing or possibly roofing repairs.

The basement is a valuable part of your home and is intended to be dry, usable space, whether as a finished recreation room, a workshop, or simply a safe storage area. Once a leak occurs however, its usefulness and value is very limited.  Fortunately permanent solutions are available for all seepage problems.  Review our solutions on the left for more information.