DIY Base­ment Water­proof­ing – Pro­ceed with Caution

Apr 5, 2012 • By Matthew Stock.

Do-it-your­self home improve­ment is all the rage these days, thanks to the DIY Net­work and TV per­son­al­i­ties like Norm Abrams and Lou Man­fre­di­ni. Per­son­al­ly, I pre­fer the direct, no-non­sense approach of Mike Holmes of ​“Holmes on Homes” for my DIY edu­ca­tion, but this blog is not about me. It’s about you. 

I’m sure what you were expect­ing when you clicked on the title of this arti­cle was a sales pitch on why base­ment water­proof­ing should be left to a pro­fes­sion­al, but you had me wrong. First and fore­most, the goal of our blog, ​“Base­ment Mat­ters,” is to edu­cate home­own­ers about base­ment water­proof­ing. If you are a do-it-your­selfer and able to install a sump pump or repair a foun­da­tion crack, more pow­er to you. I mean that. But, there are plen­ty of home­own­ers out there who aren’t equipped to tack­le a base­ment water­proof­ing project them­selves and we want to pro­vide use­ful infor­ma­tion to all of you. 

How­ev­er, before you DIY­ers run over to Home Depot for some ​“More Sav­ing. More Doing”, there are a few things to consider.

DIY Base­ment Water­proof­ing Considerations:

Base­ment water­proof­ing is not always as expen­sive as you think. That’s right. Most base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies can repair a crack for under $500 and will stand behind their work with a life­time war­ran­ty. The price per crack also drops if you have more than one to be repaired. Cracks are the most com­mon source of seep­age in a poured con­crete foun­da­tion, so if you fall into that major­i­ty, a pro­fes­sion­al, war­rant­ed repair isn’t that expen­sive. How­ev­er, if you need more exten­sive repair like Inte­ri­or Drain Tile, that may be a dif­fer­ent story. 

Base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies pro­vide free con­sul­ta­tions. You real­ly have noth­ing to lose by get­ting a lit­tle edu­ca­tion from a rep­utable base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, oth­er than about an hour of your time. After your prob­lem is diag­nosed and the nec­es­sary repair explained, go for it if you think you can take on the project your­self. But…

You’ll need the right mate­ri­als and equip­ment. Home Depot has a lot of stuff, but they don’t car­ry every­thing you’ll need for your project. Sure, you can buy sump pumps at a big box store, but you might want to read our blog on DIY sump pumps before you make that choice. Our installers car­ry lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent items on their trucks — every­thing from spe­cial­ized ure­thane resins to a bitu­men-mod­i­fied polyurethane mem­brane. Try find­ing those at Home Depot! 

Got a strong back? If your base­ment water­proof­ing prob­lem can only be solved with Inte­ri­or Drain Tile or by exca­vat­ing around your foun­da­tion and apply­ing a water­proof­ing mem­brane, trust me when I say it’s very demand­ing work. Not only will you have to exca­vate, either inside or out­side, you’ll have to move lit­er­al­ly tons of bro­ken con­crete, grav­el and con­crete mix up and down stairs or in and out of a hole. I hope you’ve been work­ing out!

What hap­pens when it doesn’t work? OK, so you’ve tak­en on the chal­lenge and have aches in mus­cles you nev­er knew you had. Con­grat­u­la­tions. The next time it rains, you head into the base­ment to savor your tri­umph – and there’s water on the floor. Who you gonna call? In the rare event that hap­pens with work done by a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, your war­ran­ty assures you that they will be fix­ing the prob­lem, not you.

You’ll prob­a­bly sell your house some­day. And when you do, you might get ques­tioned by the new buy­er, or worse, their home inspec­tor. A savvy buy­er may seize on your DIY base­ment water­proof­ing job as a rea­son to nego­ti­ate the sell­ing price down or walk away from the sale entire­ly. You are oblig­at­ed by law to dis­close any seep­age issues when you sell, so if that do-it-your­self job didn’t turn out so well, you’re on the hook. When your work is done by a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, your war­ran­ty is trans­fer­able to the buy­er so you can sell (and they can buy) with confidence.

So, I’m not telling you not to take on that base­ment water­proof­ing job your­self, but I do urge you to con­sid­er the con­se­quences. You may save mon­ey, but you’re in for some real­ly hard work and will have to make do with the lim­it­ed equip­ment and mate­ri­als avail­able to con­sumers. And, when you’re done, you will only have to look as far as the mir­ror to find who’s respon­si­ble if some­thing goes wrong. Gain­ing expe­ri­ence through tri­al and error can be very frus­trat­ing and expen­sive, too.

If you choose to seek the advice of a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, take a look at some of our blogs on how to choose the one that’s right for you. Of course, if you think U.S. Water­proof­ing can help, give us a call or sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion online. 

Tags: basement waterproofing solutions, basement waterproofing facts, diy sump pump, diy basement waterproofing

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