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I’m renovating a 90+ year old row house and I have a damp basement to deal with. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
The basement floor is a mix of brick and concrete areas. The basement floor is about 3 foot below grade. I never get standing water in the basement, but the floor is damp nearly all the time.
The best solution would probably be to dig down and install a foundation drain, route it to a sump pit, and install a sump pump. I’m in search of an easier alternative (& I’m afraid to dig around that very old load bearing wall). My thought is that maybe I could dig a pit, install a sump pump, and surround it with gravel (try to lower the water table). However the dirt is mostly clay. Although it’s moist all the time, I question whether such a pit would actually fill up with water. In other words I get the feeling that if I dug a deep hole, the dirt all around the hole would be wet, but the hole itself would never accumulate any water.
By the way, blocking the vapor with a barrier and a floor on sleepers over it won’t work for me because I can’t afford even an inch of loss in height.
Maybe I should just get a dehumidifier?
Any advice or ideas?
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Hi J.
I doubt that your basement floor is much of a chore to remove. Should break up real easy, probably only 1 to 2 inches thick and poured in little batches.
So......put on your work gloves, rent an electric breaker and bust that sucker up into pieces small enough to carry out.
Lower the entire area by 8 inches.
Dig a trench around the entire perimeter, down about another 4 inches and 1 foot from the outside wall for a perforated drain pipe and at one corner, install a prefab sump pit.
Put in about 6 inches of crushed stone all over and once compacted, install a heavy duty poly VB, followed by 4" of concrete and finish.
When completed, have a beer, you would have done the job right and the payback will be forever.
Gabe
*Before breaking oiut the artillary, check your exterior water control measures: is water which is landing on the structure and next to it being lead away from it? I.e., good downspout extensions or working drain tiles; positive grading away from the stucture.This can be challanging in some old townhouses, but often some moderate effort outside will significantly reduce water in cellar.Keep in mind that in older structures the cellar was exactly that; they weren't thinking of it as living space and didn't take the same water control measures as we do today. It might always be a cellar, and not a basement.Bob
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Guys, thanks for your help.
Gabe, I have no doubt that your advice is the best way to really take care of problems, but I'm not sure the effort will pay off in value for the house. What I failed to mention before was that the basement ceiling is quite low - maybe 5'-8" of clear headroom. I'm not sure it's worth going to a lot of trouble for a space that will only be storage - never occupied (even the washing machine is upstairs).
I could dig out the floor and lower it, but I would have to lower it a good 18" to make it inhabitable. That would involve underpinning the foundation. I've heard a lot of bad tales of underpinning foundations on these houses. But more importantly, the gain in space would only be about 250SF (the rest of the area under the house is a crawl).
I dug down with a post-hole digger about 42". The hole isn't collecting any water, so I'm sure a pit alone would be worthless (except for maybe when it rains). But the basement is damp all the time, not just when it rains. You hit the nail on the head with the vapor barrier - that would block out the dampness.
Bob, I don't think I have a problem with pulling water away from the house. The house has a "flat" roof that gently slopes to a gutter in back. The back of the house is the crawl side, so I think even if it was operating poorly, water wouldn't make it's way all the way back to the basement area in the front of the house. As for the grading of the land - in the front of the house I have sidewalk and then street - both nearly flat.
Maybe I should phrase the question another way:
This is a small damp basement that will house a furnace, water heater, and storage. It lacks headroom and it's not all that big. The original construction never intended for anyone to live in that area of the house, and I don't have any reason to either.
What's the best way to get rid of dampness, bearing in mind major improvements will add virtually nothing to the value of the house?
I'm not a fan of shortcuts and crappy bandaid fixes, but I'm also not a fan of throwing time and money at repairs that add little value.
Thanks again.
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I have dealt with this exact problem on almost every rowhouse renovation I have done (six) in Philadelphia. Grading the land around the house isn't a solution because there is concrete and asphalt everywhere. I have tried Gabe's solution and I agree that its the only way to make your basement dry- adding the ceiling height is just an added benefit to make all that work seem more useful.
I will repeat, there is absolutely no way you will get your basement dry without taking out the floor, digging down, putting in gravel, vapor barrier and drains.
If you only have 6' and just want your utilities down there, why not break out a hole for a sump, hook it into the drain pipe, and put your furnace etc. on blocks. Other quick fixes that are really not worth the effort (but I've tried them):
Parge the basement walls, particularly the front and back walls. Make sure the seams between the backyard/front sidewalk slabs and the house are watertight.
Truthfully, breaking out the slab, digging and re-pouring is not an expensive job. You could do most of it yourself, as long as you don't go below the foundation, in a day or two (with help.) If the ground is really sloppy maybe you do need to sure your foundation. No joke, 22 houses have collapsed in Philadelphia in the last 10 days!
Dave
*Dave:<>Wha hoppin'd?Bob
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I'm renovating a 90+ year old row house and I have a damp basement to deal with. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
The basement floor is a mix of brick and concrete areas. The basement floor is about 3 foot below grade. I never get standing water in the basement, but the floor is damp nearly all the time.
The best solution would probably be to dig down and install a foundation drain, route it to a sump pit, and install a sump pump. I'm in search of an easier alternative (& I'm afraid to dig around that very old load bearing wall). My thought is that maybe I could dig a pit, install a sump pump, and surround it with gravel (try to lower the water table). However the dirt is mostly clay. Although it's moist all the time, I question whether such a pit would actually fill up with water. In other words I get the feeling that if I dug a deep hole, the dirt all around the hole would be wet, but the hole itself would never accumulate any water.
By the way, blocking the vapor with a barrier and a floor on sleepers over it won’t work for me because I can’t afford even an inch of loss in height.
Maybe I should just get a dehumidifier?
Any advice or ideas?