If your home has a history of basement water problems, each rainstorm comes with a feeling of dread. How much water will get in this time? How long will the cleanup take? How high do I need to elevate appliances to prevent water damage? The solution: basement waterproofing.
A flooded basement is never good, if only for reasons like mold and mildew growth. If you have a finished basement, however, water damage can also be very expensive. Don’t just cross your fingers every time it rains. Get the problem fixed once and for all with an interior or exterior waterproofing plan designed for your home.
Unless you have had a pipe burst or a water heater begin to leak, chances are the water in your basement is entering from outside your home. There are multiple ways in whiceh this could happen.
It doesn’t take much space for water to seep through a crack in a basement wall. Even hairline cracks can sometimes allow water intrusion and when they get into the 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch range, they can definitely penetrate your basement walls. The pressure from the water itself can sometimes be responsible for opening the cracks.
Although water sinking in from above would first come in contact with basement walls, rising water tables as well as drainage issues can cause water to enter through floor cracks as well. Once again, the cracks need not be wide for water intrusion to happen.
Even when the basement walls are concrete instead of block, it is unlikely that your basement walls and slab floor are from the same pour. That means that there is a joint, called the cove joint, where the two meet. This is among the most common places for leaks to happen, even if the space between the wall and floor is barely perceptible.
There are other areas that can act as access points for water to get into your basement. For instance, if the places where pipes enter your basement aren’t properly sealed, that could be an access point. So too could window wells that aren’t properly draining.
Exterior waterproofing’s goal is to prevent water from ever entering your basement. While they aren’t often thought of as such, gutters and downspout extenders are among the most common exterior waterproofing products.
Once you move beyond simple gutters, however, the name of the game becomes drainage. At Pierman, we are experts in installing French drains, which are designed to divert ground water away from trouble areas, such as around your foundation.
Exterior waterproofing is generally more invasive, especially to your yard, than interior waterproofing, but it carries the added benefit of solve or minimize other problems that can come from having excess water near your foundation, including bowing walls and foundation heaving.
Interior waterproofing involves taking the water that would normally enter your basement and instead pumping it out to a place in your yard away from your foundation.
In interior waterproofing, a trench is dug in your basement along the perimeter walls and drain tile is laid in the trench. Tactics including weep holes and drainage board are used to direct the water into the drain tile.
The drain tile is graded to carry the water to a sump pit, from which the sump pump sends it into the yard where it can drain away from your foundation.
The drain is then covered with gravel or a similar substance that promotes drainage before concrete is laid on top of it, restoring the slab floor.
Unless you can trace a precise cause like a plumbing leak or a clogged gutter during a massive storm, once you start getting water in your basement, you are likely to keep getting water in your basement until you do something about it.
If you are finishing your basement, it might be a good time to install an interior waterproofing system, especially if any of the homes in your neighborhood have had water issues. Repairs stemming from flooding can be expensive and time consuming in finished basements, and damage from water seeping into your basement is rarely covered by insurance. Generally the process of finishing your basement will expose the areas necessary to do the waterproofing work as well.
If you are experiencing basement flooding or similar water issues in your Oklahoma City area home, give us a call or fill out our contact form. We can examine your waterproofing needs and come up with a plan that fits your home and can solve your water issues.
