Hi all,
First time posting here or on ay type of forum of this kind. Thanks in advance for any advice. My wife and I purchased our first home this year in the northeast portion of the states, New England. The house was a flip job and in pretty rough shape before it was flipped. We’ve been there about 6 months and long story short our basement takes on water.
The house was built in 1940 and has a concrete block foundation. We believe the guy who flipped/sold it to us poured a new concrete floor less than 16 months ago, give or take. Unsure if it was dirt before or if he poured new concrete over old concrete. Also unsure if there are footers or not and the overall topography of the house is lower than it should be so we have a few issues at hand but overall I believe they’re all manageable.
So weve had 3 different estimates from basememt waterproofing companies with a pretty broad range of prices and recommendations. One company recomended a full french drain perimiter system, pump, the whole 9 for about 8k. The 2nd one was a sump pump with a small section of trench at the main entry point of the water (not an entire perimeter system) for about 4k. The 3rd one was just a sump pump with an outlet into a buried pot outside the house (away from septic obviously) for about 2k.
I will ad that recently we have noticed a hairlike crack in the basement floor which was not there before and it does bring water into the basement through said crack. Before the crack the only way the water came in was through the block walls, they look as though they’re crying. From the walls, once the water starts to come in it comes in pretty quickly unless its a slow rain then it takes some time. Now that the crack in the floor has appeared it only comes in through the floor (so far) and it comes in alot slower, slow enough that a dehumidifier will dry it after about 12hrs and it hasn’t come in through the walls since the crack showed up (yet). Could this crack be nornal concrete settling? I know it takes a long time to fully cure and its less than 2 years old as far as we know. Did the crack in the floor relieve pressure off the wall?
The company who gave us the 2k estimate to me, seemeed the best. Obviously the 2k price point is appealing BUT my wife and I don’t intend to live here forever and we just want a solution to remove the water once it comes in. We don’t want to stop it all together because we know that’s very unrealistic and probably impossible, we don’t want to spend thousands on a full perimeter system as we don’t really think its necessary. Also I don’t want to go digging too too much and possibly compromise anything as I don’t know about footings being in place or not. All 3 companies said they would check for a footing as well. The soil here is clay, allll clay.
Does letting the water enter as it probably has for YEARS then pumping it out pose any serious issues? Its not a finished basement, it doesn’t ever need to be and we dont care about looks.
Also Ive thought did pouring the floor actually cause this? Maybe it stopped some type of natural drainage which is why it comes in so fast through the walls now? And now that the floor is cracked did that alleviate the pressure?
This is a long winded post and I very much appreciate any responses and answer’s. Were going to have a job done soon Im just looking for input from different sources.
Thanks again!
Replies
Some will tell you there is only one real way to fix it and that is to dig the outside of the foundation up install a footer tile to a sump and waterproof the block wall.
Here’s the thing, almost all solutions are going to start or end with an interior sump pump to remove the water and send it somewhere else. So the reality is there is no harm in putting in a perforated sump pit surrounded by gravel to see if that is enough to drain the water out of the walls and from below the slab. It may work. It may work most of the time but still leak during heavy storms. But at the end of the day, as long as the sump pit is put in right, it shouldn’t have to be redone if more extensive work is needed later on.
For what it is worth, block walls typically weren’t filled way back when so the water is actually sitting inside the block and usually the way to fix that is to drill into each cavity of the block to get the water to drain out of the open cells. You then direct this water to the sump pit with some system. As I mentioned the ultimate fix is to keep the water out of the blocks in the first place but that can only be done from the outside... any other method is just water movement not waterproofing not that the former won’t satisfy your desire to eliminate the appearance of water on the floor.
This is more or less what I was thinking and yes I have no illusions that were fully waterproofing the place but considering the age of the home, the cost to do it from the outside and our desire to sell the home in the next 5 years or so I think the pump will remove what does come in VS us going down there with a small utility pump and running a Damn hose out the window. Thank you for your reply!
Greetings,
Do all gutter downspouts go well away from the house?
Describe the area outside the wall(s) that had the weeping block.
Yes re the downspouts, the area above groud on the side that weeps is our driveway side. Someone (not us!) before us made the driveway crushed stone and it is not really level dips and little humps is prob the best was to describe it. I have plans next spring/summer to strip the gravel off and level/grade the driveway out a little bit away from the house.
Yeah, your first step should be to tend to drainage outside the house. Do your best to make sure that the soil slopes away from the house, and that there's no water standing within 10 feet of the foundation.
We spent a lot of the summer doing just this and although it did help quite a bit the problem is still a bit larger than this being the only solution but it certainly helped a good amount !