What are My Options for Repair?

There are five basic approaches to fixing a basement water problem.  They are:

• Negative-side Waterproofing
• Exterior Excavation
• Interior Footing Drain
• DryTrak
• WaterGuard

Without knowing anything about the five methods, wouldn't you suppose that some methods are better than others?

Negative-side Waterproofing
There are a few methods to approaching a basement water problem that don't work. Some folks think that the basement can be sealed from the inside so the water won't come in.

The trouble is that the water is already through the foundation by the time it gets to the sealer and this water in the wall separates the sealer from the wall causing the sealer to come off and the water to enter in anyway.

Some folks think that extending their downspouts and keeping their gutters clean will solve their basement water problem. This will always help and we recommend it to our customers. But it will never be a permanent or effective solution to keep your basement dry for a few reasons.

• Wind driven rains blow water against the side of the house and water runs down the side of the house into the backfill on the up-wind side without ever seeing the gutter.
• Leaves blowing onto the roof and ending up in the gutter. Even just a few leaves laying over the downspout can clog a gutter' and cause it to overflow right next to the foundation.
• Snow and ice cause the gutter to overflow in the winter and spring.

So no matter what you do the with the gutters and downspouts, the basement will still leak.

One method for repair is waterproofing the house's foundation from the outside through exterior excavation. In order to do this you have to dig all the way down to the bottom of the footing. This is a very large hole and anything in the way has to be removed, including:

• Sidewalks
• Porches
• Decks, and
• Landscaping

Then the hole is dug to the footing -- and this is a BIG hole. And all that dirt taken out of the hole is dumped on the rest of the yard. Then a proper waterproofing membrane is applied and a protective drainage board is put over it.

Clogged Drain Tile from Exterior Footing Drain

A new footing drain is then installed, just like the one you had before. Then the soil is put back, which is looser than before. The water will now run down the drainage board and into the footing drain, and if you don't have a steep grade or a deep storm sewer in the street to drain to a sump pump is installed.

But then the clogging problem is still there and in a number of years this drain too will have to be replaced. The loose backfill will settle over the years so you'll have to add soil around the foundation and then you can re-landscape and put things back around the house. As you can imagine this is very disruptive and cost prohibitive.

This is the same as the exterior footing drain from the last page, but done on the inside. This second approach is called an interior footing drain. With this approach a trench is jackhammered into the floor and a perforated pipe and stone bed are installed. Then the floor is re-concreted.

Can you see how this drain is the same as the exterior one? And we have the same potential clogging problems as the exterior system. Soil washes in over the years and clogs the system. And then you have to consider that all the soil that washes in washed out from under your foundation. So structural concerns come up. In fact most of the people that call us already have an interior footing drain.

With this method as with any waterproofing system of this type, a gap is left between the floor and wall to allow any incidental seepage from the wall to flow into the drain.

This seepage could be from a window well, a wall crack, a pipe penetration or even just condensation. But another challenge with this method is keeping debris out so it doesn't clog this gap. Plus the gap doesn't look too hot when it's done. It's something that can be overcome, but we have to consider it.

A fifth approach is a baseboard system. Weep holes are drilled into the foor-wall joint or into the walls if it is a block wall. Then the system which is a hollow vinyl baseboard is epoxied to the floor.

A sump pump is installed with a feed pipe to the sump. Any water from the blocks or foor-wall joints is drained behind the system to the sump.

This method is only used in the case of a monolithic floor or in other rare instances. DryTrak is the least disruptive of installations and will never clog or affect the foundation structurally.

The best and most reliable approach is the WaterGuard basement waterproofing system. While other approaches can work, this one is clearly the best.

First the perimeter of the floor is removed. If it's a block wall, weep holes are drilled into each core of each block to continually drain the water out of the wall.

Then the WaterGuard is installed. WaterGuard is a piping system engineered specifically for wet basement purposes, designed to avoid the problems of other approaches. Then it is backfilled and the floor is re-concreted.

Water from the block, Footing-wall joint, and from under the floor is all drained away through the system. The wall drain is a molding with spacers that create a neat-looking drain against the wall that will never clog because it sticks up above the floor about an inch, so dirt and small objects from the floor can't get in it.

The next benefit is very important. The WaterGuard is not sitting down in the soil so it will never clog, because the soil will not wash upward into the system. 5 or 10 or 20 years from now this system will still be clean and free draining. Can you see how this is very important?

We will install a sump pump -- preferably the TripleSafe or SuperSump -- and a feed pipe from the WaterGuard to drain all the water out of the system to the sump (or other drain).