Base­ment Water­proof­ing Solu­tions – Fact vs. Fic­tion (Part 2)

Apr 10, 2012 • By Matthew Stock.

When I start­ed this blog ear­li­er this year, one of our most pop­u­lar posts talked about com­mon mis­con­cep­tions about base­ment water­proof­ing solu­tions. That was fun to write because those ​“fact vs. fic­tion” top­ics are things we talk about amongst our­selves in the indus­try. The blog was a per­fect plat­form to share with the pub­lic the ​“inside base­ball” of the base­ment water­proof­ing industry. 

Thou­sands of peo­ple all over the web read that blog, but my mis­sion of edu­cat­ing the pub­lic con­tin­ues. We still get calls and e‑mails ask­ing if ​“water­proof paint is going to take care of my base­ment seep­age prob­lem?” The answer is always the same, it won’t. 

Don’t get me wrong; we are see­ing results. Many of our cus­tomers have told us that they have learned from our blog and have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of base­ment water­proof­ing solu­tions as a result. As I said in our very first blog post, ​“My goal with this blog is to use it as a tool to edu­cate home­own­ers, archi­tects, con­trac­tors, prop­er­ty man­agers, build­ing engi­neers, home inspec­tors, real­tors and any­one else hop­ing to tap into our knowl­edge base.”

In pur­suit of that goal, I thought I’d take a shot at anoth­er round of base­ment water­proof­ing mis­con­cep­tions. These too might sound like rea­son­able solu­tions to an aver­age home­own­er but, as you have prob­a­bly guessed, they’re not!

More Base­ment Water­proof­ing ​“Solu­tions” We Often Hear:

​“I’m just going to patch the crack with hydraulic cement…”

Do your­self a favor and don’t try that. In order to per­ma­nent­ly seal a crack, you must either stop it with exte­ri­or water­proof­ing (known as ​“pos­i­tive side”) or seal the crack with polyurethane or epoxy crack injec­tion from the inside so the crack is filled and sealed all the way through to the out­side soil. Hydraulic cement has no strength and can eas­i­ly re-crack. It’s just a tem­po­rary patch and won’t hold up over the long run. 

​“The joint between my dri­ve­way (or side­walk) and my house just needs to be caulked…”

It’s quite com­mon in Chica­go and close-in sub­urbs to have dri­ve­ways or side­walks placed direct­ly against the foun­da­tion wall of a home. Caulk­ing has many appli­ca­tions, but it isn’t com­mon­ly used by base­ment water­proof­ing pro­fes­sion­als – because it doesn’t work for water­proof­ing! In all like­li­hood, the source of your base­ment leak is beneath your driveway. 

​“It only leaked once so I left it alone…”

Wish­ful think­ing can be fun, but I don’t think you’ll be able to wish your­self to a dry base­ment. If your base­ment leaked once, chances are it will leak again. We all know Murphy’s Law: ​“If some­thing can go wrong, it will go wrong.” Who­ev­er Mur­phy was, he’s the poster boy for hope­ful homeowners.

​“The city just fixed the sew­er in the street…”

Great! So what does that have to do with the price of milk? Noth­ing! Your home’s plumb­ing and sew­er sys­tems also have noth­ing to do with base­ment water­proof­ing. A new san­i­tary or storm sew­er sys­tem may make your life bet­ter in some ways but, if you have cracks in your foun­da­tion or seep­age between your foun­da­tion walls and base­ment floor, you’re still in for a wet basement.

​“I have a whole-house gen­er­a­tor. I don’t need a back-up sump pump…”

Whole-house gen­er­a­tors are great, espe­cial­ly in the Chica­go area where vio­lent sum­mer storms often knock out pow­er. They can keep a sump pump run­ning dur­ing a pow­er out­age but:

A dead sump pump won’t work no mat­ter how much pow­er you give it. Sump pumps are mechan­i­cal gad­gets that wear out or some­times just fail, espe­cial­ly if they run fre­quent­ly over long peri­ods of time. A back-up sump pump runs only when pri­ma­ry pumps fail or dur­ing pow­er out­ages and is built to last.

Also, not all ​“whole-house” gen­er­a­tors are real­ly ​“whole-house.” Many home back-up gen­er­a­tor sys­tems are designed to pow­er only select­ed cir­cuits dur­ing an emer­gency and units designed to take over an entire home pow­er sys­tem are very expen­sive. Your sump pump won’t work if its cir­cuit isn’t con­nect­ed to the generator.

Any­way, you get the pic­ture. As always, if you have any base­ment water­proof­ing ques­tions or prob­lems, feel free to con­tact U.S. Water­proof­ing.

Tags: basement waterproofing solutions, basement waterproofing facts

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