How to Do Wet Basement Waterproofing in Glencoe, IL 60022
Glencoe, IL is a small, beautiful residential suburb on Chicago’s North Shore. Its lakefront setting is home to fewer than 9,000 residents who enjoy the town’s proximity to forest preserve land, the Skokie Lagoons and both public and private golf courses.
Glencoe is also a town with significant architecture among its housing stock, boasting of homes designed by such architectural heavyweights as Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Van Doren Shaw and David Adler, among others. Unlike other Chicago suburbs, Glencoe did not experience much of a post-war building boom in the 1950’s; half of its current 3200 homes had already been built. Any significant residential construction in Glencoe in recent years has been mainly tear-downs, replacing smaller, older homes with newer, larger ones.
Even with Glencoe’s architectural splendor, homeowners there are still subject to the maintenance woes that come with homeownership that includes, especially among the older houses, the need to do wet basement waterproofing.
Three Ways to Do Wet Basement Waterproofing in Glencoe
As in any community, a specific home in Glencoe, or in neighboring Northbrook and Kenilworth, requires a waterproofing remedy tailored specifically to its situation. However, there are three common practices that basement waterproofing companies will employ in a majority of cases:
Crack Repair – The most common foundation found in Glencoe homes is one of poured concrete; the most frequent cause of a wet basement in that type of foundation is a non-structural wall crack. Caused by foundation settling and sinking or by lateral pressure from swollen soil, these cracks are often found in more than one spot. They can be permanently repaired by injecting them with expanding polyurethane from the inside until the crack has been filled all the way to the outside soil. The urethane creates a seal against water that remains flexible when cured to allow minor foundation movement without cracking again.
If the crack cannot be repaired from inside, it can be fixed from the exterior by digging a small hole down to the foundation footings at the site of the crack. The hole is then filled with sodium bentonite clay to form a permanent, pliable barrier to water infiltration.
Exterior Waterproofing – When seepage occurs through the foundation wall a great way to stop it is to apply an exterior waterproofing membrane. This membrane is a thick coat of asphalt-modified polyurethane that is troweled onto the wall to form a permanent, impenetrable barrier against further seepage. A waterproofing membrane should not be confused with “damp-proofing,” a thin coating that is sprayed on during construction.
If there is a great deal of ground water present, the membrane can be supplemented with exterior drain tile and by adding a covering of drainage board that protects it and channels water to the drain tile.
Interior Drain Tile – One of the most versatile forms of wet basement waterproofing, interior drain tile is a system of perforated pipe buried underneath the basement floor in a bed of washed stone. The drain tile alleviates hydrostatic pressure and prevents seepage though cracks in the floor and cove joint; a complete system terminates at both ends at a sump pump that removes the water from the house. Interior drain tile requires no maintenance after installation.
Regardless of the source of seepage and the appropriate remedy, the Glencoe homeowner needs the best possible advice and superior service to handle wet basement waterproofing in his or her home. At U.S. Waterproofing, we have solved more than 300,000 wet basement problems for Chicago-area homeowners since 1957 and have helped hundreds of Glencoe families keep their basements dry and their homes safe. Why not ask for our free advice?