The secret to a dry basement is to keep the foundation dry, not to seal it to the water builds up on the outside and pushes the wall in.
The most important and easiest thing is to have good gutters, downspouts and especially outspouts. When I bought a bank owned home, the outspouts were missing. To make matters worse, there was only one downspout for the south half of the house, so half the rain that hits the roof goes down the SW corner. With the sump on the north side of the basement, when that water was dumped right next to the basement, it filtered in through the wall and made a big mess in the basement as it went around the furnace and water heater on its way to the sump. Buying a 10' length of downspout and sticking it on the ground level elbow at the SW corner got rid of 95% of the water in my basement. Now I only see water when wind drives rain hard up against the house. The rest of the cure for me would be to excavate a foot deep, 2-3' wide all around the house, and lay down plastic in the trench sloping away from the house. Then any surface water gets diverted away from the basement walls. Basement walls cave in for two main reasons: Water pressure and frost heaves. If you seal the basement wall so that water can't get in, but still have the water building up outside the wall, the wall can buckle. A 1970s 1400 sq ft ranch near me sold for $3k in 2012, partly because of septic issues but mainly because a 48' long wall was bowing in from water pressure. (the underlying cause of both issues was a high water table) The way to get frost damage to your basement wall is to insulate the wall from the inside, allowing dirt touching the masonry to freeze because the masonry is cold. It's becoming quite common around here to finish basements, and the first thing they do is put insulation and drywall on the exterior walls. You can achieve most of what you want by insulating the outside of the wall where it's above ground, and letting the earth insulate the rest. Mitch. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
