Base­ment Water­proof­ing — Fre­quent­ly Asked Questions

Nov 12, 2012 • By Matthew Stock.

I’ve been in the base­ment water­proof­ing busi­ness for a long time and I’ve been in thou­sands of homes and talked to thou­sands of cus­tomers who were con­cerned about their base­ments and often about the struc­tur­al integri­ty of their homes.

As I’m sure you can imag­ine, those home­own­ers asked a lot of ques­tions and I thought the answers to those asked most often might be help­ful for oth­ers fac­ing base­ment water prob­lems or struc­tur­al foun­da­tion damage.

What Do Most Home­own­ers Ask Base­ment Water­proof­ing Companies?

How Much is This Going to Cost? Every­one asks this ques­tion and there’s no sim­ple answer because the cost will depend on the indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tion. If you have a seep­ing crack in a con­crete foun­da­tion wall, it can be per­ma­nent­ly repaired for a few hun­dred dol­lars. If you need inte­ri­or drain tile, the cost will be sev­er­al thou­sand, depend­ing on how much is need­ed. If you need struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair, it can run from a few thou­sand dol­lars to a size­able amount…but it beats hav­ing your foun­da­tion crumble.

Can’t You Just Caulk/​Patch/​Paint? Any respon­si­ble base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny will pro­pose no more work than is nec­es­sary and will look for the most cost-effec­tive solu­tion. How­ev­er, don’t trust a com­pa­ny who wants to slap on some­thing they bought at Ace Hard­ware. Caulk­ing, patch­ing with hydraulic cement and so-called water­proof­ing paints don’t work – that’s why pro­fes­sion­al water­proofers don’t use them.

Can I Do the Work Myself? Maybe. If you’re a skilled do-it-your­selfer, you could prob­a­bly install a sump pump or even put in an under­ground down­spout exten­sion. But, you won’t have access to pro­fes­sion­al grade mate­ri­als and water­proof­ing can be hard phys­i­cal work, espe­cial­ly when the dig­ging starts. More advanced repairs, like installing drain tile and inject­ing cracks, are usu­al­ly beyond DIY and struc­tur­al repairs are strict­ly for professionals.

How Do I Know Your Com­pa­ny is Rep­utable? Check us (or any oth­er base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny) out online. There are loads of review sites, like Yelp and Angie’s List, that car­ry reviews by pre­vi­ous cus­tomers. Check with the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau; look for ​“Accred­it­ed” com­pa­nies with high grades. Get a com­pet­i­tive quote if you want; just make sure that when you com­pare them you know exact­ly what each com­pa­ny is propos­ing to do to solve your problem.

What Hap­pens if I Don’t Fix Base­ment Water Prob­lems? Good ques­tion. If you have a fin­ished base­ment is fin­ished, your remod­el job is at risk from water dam­age. Fin­ished or not, your base­ment will be damp and the result­ing high­er humid­i­ty can spread through­out your home. Intro­duce water into the pres­ence of organ­ic mate­ri­als like wood, dry­wall, car­pet, fur­ni­ture, etc., and you’ve cre­at­ed a per­fect envi­ron­ment for mold, which can lead to dam­age to your home and ill­ness for you and your family.

How Long is All This Going to Take? Again, it depends on the size of the prob­lem. If you have a few seep­ing cracks in your walls, they can be per­ma­nent­ly repaired in a day. Need inte­ri­or drain tile around your whole base­ment? That’ll usu­al­ly take two or three days. New sump pump? Hours. The esti­mate from the base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny should be very spe­cif­ic as to the time involved.

This is just a hand­ful of the ques­tions most home­own­ers ask. We’ll revis­it our Fre­quent­ly Asked Ques­tions from time to time but the experts at U.S. Water­proof­ing are avail­able around the clock to answer your ques­tions so, why wait? Sched­ule a free con­sul­ta­tion at your convenience.

Tags: basement waterproofing facts, basement waterproofing costs, basement waterproofing estimate, how to choose a waterproofing company, basement waterproofing, basement waterproofing companies

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