Basement Floor Cracks

It is com­mon for base­ment floors to crack. Shrink­age dur­ing orig­i­nal con­struc­tion is the most fre­quent cause. In most cas­es, crack­ing is innocu­ous and caus­es no prob­lems. Unlike your foun­da­tion walls, the base­ment floor rarely serves a struc­tur­al pur­pose; it’s pri­mar­i­ly there for your com­fort (oth­er­wise you would be walk­ing on dirt, which is often the case with crawl spaces). Sink­ing / set­tling floors, how­ev­er, can be the sign of a struc­tur­al prob­lem that should be fur­ther eval­u­at­ed.

When hydro­sta­t­ic pres­sure is present, water can be forced up from beneath the floor and cre­ate a messy prob­lem. Seal­ing floor cracks to solve a seep­age prob­lem is not rec­om­mend­ed, as it will only allow the water pres­sure to build and move else­where. Instead, our Base­ment Advi­sor will typ­i­cal­ly rec­om­mend installing an Inte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tem. This sys­tem relieves hydro­sta­t­ic pres­sure by drain­ing the water beneath the floor and direct­ing it to a sump pump.

Some floors are in such poor con­di­tion that you might con­sid­er replac­ing it with a new con­crete floor in order to make your base­ment usable again.

A func­tion­al drainage sys­tem is key to hav­ing a dry base­ment or crawl­space. A drainage sys­tem is com­mon­ly referred to as Drain Tile (which is not like a floor tile!) and is an impor­tant water man­age­ment tool. Drain Tile is sim­ply a per­fo­rat­ed drainage pipe some­times called a French Drain. At the time a home is typ­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed, a Drain Tile Sys­tem is installed on the exte­ri­or of the foun­da­tion at the deep­est part of the exca­va­tion next to the foot­ing (the widened con­crete base the foun­da­tion walls rest on). The Drain Tile is typ­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed to a sump pump locat­ed in the inte­ri­or of the home which col­lects and dis­charges the water harm­less­ly away from the building.

Over time Exte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tems fail due to the ele­ments. Small par­ti­cles mixed in with the soil (fines or silt) can find their way into the sys­tem and cause recur­ring clog­ging issues. Also tree roots can infil­trate mak­ing the sys­tem ineffective. 

What is an Inte­ri­or Drain Tile System? 

An Inte­ri­or Drain Tile sys­tem serves the same pur­pose as an exte­ri­or sys­tem except it is less impact­ed by the ele­ments. Installed on the inside of the home next to the foun­da­tion’s foot­ing and beneath the base­ment floor. This sys­tem pro­vides a much longer life expectan­cy at a low­er installed cost.

This sys­tem address­es seep­age by col­lect­ing water that comes up from beneath the base­ment floor and through foun­da­tion walls. 

How is an Inte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tem installed? 

U.S. Water­proof­in­g’s For­ev­er Flow Drain Tile Sys­tem pro­vides a dual fil­tra­tion process which makes it a per­ma­nent main­te­nance free solu­tion for keep­ing your base­ment or crawl­space dry. 

The sys­tem is installed by remov­ing the edge of the con­crete floor (about a foot from the foun­da­tion wall). Once the floor is removed, a trench is dug along­side the foot­ing and a lay­er of washed stone is placed at the base of the trench. A 4‑inch per­fo­rat­ed pipe (Drain Tile), pro­tect­ed by a fil­ter sock, is laid in the trench and then sur­round­ed with more washed stone. 

Our sys­tem is then con­nect­ed to a sump basin where a sump pump dis­charges the water to a suit­able location.

While many homes are equipped with a sump pump that can han­dle this addi­tion­al water, some are not. U.S. Water­proof­ing offers a full line of both pri­ma­ry sump pumps and bat­tery back­up sump pumps as well as basins that we can size to your needs. 

Unique to the water­proof­ing indus­try our exclu­sive Hol­low Cove Mold­ing (an L — shaped vinyl base­board) is installed atop the foot­ing against the foun­da­tion wall. Any seep­age from the foun­da­tion wall will drain down behind the cove mold­ing and into the For­ev­er Flow Drain Tile System.

The floor is then patched with con­crete to com­plete the installation. 

Why choose U.S. Waterproofing? 

Total peace of mind. We start with a free in-home con­sul­ta­tion where one of our high­ly trained Advi­sors will pro­vide you with a prop­er diag­no­sis, detailed repair plan, and cost of repair.

Next, we assign a Field Super­vi­sor to vis­it your home and review the project. Your Field Super­vi­sor can answer all your ques­tions pri­or to sched­ul­ing the work.

We know home improve­ment projects can be over­whelm­ing, espe­cial­ly if your base­ment is fin­ished. To lessen your stress we also offer a full line of job prep ser­vices to help you through the com­ple­tion of your project. 

Our For­ev­er Flow Drain Tile Sys­tem comes with a life­time trans­ferrable war­ran­ty (for res­i­den­tial home­own­ers). Since 1957, U.S Water­proof­ing has been com­mit­ted to unmatched cus­tomer ser­vice and get­ting the job done right the first time. We stand by our work and have over 500,000 sat­is­fied cus­tomers to our name. To find out if Inte­ri­or Drain Tile is the right solu­tion for your home, sched­ule your free con­sul­ta­tion online today!

Learn more about Inte­ri­or Drain Tile Systems.

There are a num­ber of prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with an exposed dirt / grav­el crawl space. Com­mon exam­ples include increased mold, radon and humid­i­ty lev­els — all which con­tribute to an unhealthy home. Uti­liz­ing a con­crete pump, we can install a new con­crete sur­face into your crawl space, which will iso­late these prob­lems and instan­ta­neous­ly make your home a health­i­er place. As an added ben­e­fit, it cre­ates usable space for storage.

We can also replace your old, dete­ri­o­rat­ed and cracked floor with a brand new floor more suit­able for future base­ment fin­ish­ing. We usu­al­ly rec­om­mend installing a new Inte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tem at the same time to pre­vent future base­ment seep­age. There are con­sid­er­able cost sav­ings doing them in con­junc­tion with one anoth­er. Sched­ule your free con­sul­ta­tion online today!

Learn more about con­crete floors.