How Does the 2021 Drought Affect My Home and Cause Base­ment Seep­age Issues?

Jul 7, 2022 • By Matthew Stock.

2021 was a tough year. Not only were we still knee deep into the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic, but we also expe­ri­enced the longest dura­tion of drought since 2000. Pre­cip­i­ta­tion was hard to come by and com­bined with the heat, the ground dried out. So how does the 2021 drought affect my home? And is the 2021 drought still caus­ing base­ment water prob­lems in 2022? These are both great ques­tions that we will touch on here.

Not many peo­ple know that a drought can be a major fac­tor in base­ment seep­age and foun­da­tion issues. Many things hap­pen to a foun­da­tion when the ground sur­round­ing it goes through dras­tic changes. 

The 2021 Drought

Over­all, the sum­mer of 2021 was 3 to 4 inch­es of pre­cip­i­ta­tion dri­er than nor­mal in North­west, Illi­nois. North­ern Illi­nois farm­ers faced the worst drought in almost 30 years caus­ing dam­age to crops, pas­tures, cre­at­ing fire risks and result­ing in low streams and reser­voirs. Near­ly 6% of the state suf­fered mod­er­ate drought while over 4% of the state suf­fered severe drought, accord­ing to the U.S. Drought Monitor. 

How Does a Drought Affect My Home?

A drought can cause struc­tur­al dam­age to a home and cre­ate cracks in base­ment walls. Lack of rain means no mois­ture is get­ting into the ground, this caus­es the dirt to shrink. With added heat from the sum­mer sun, remain­ing mois­ture leaves the ground caus­ing the dirt to shrink even more. This results in a gap between the foun­da­tion wall and the dirt around the home. When the ground has a nor­mal amount of water, there is a sta­bi­lized pres­sure that is placed on the foun­da­tion of a home. In the case of a drought, when the mois­ture dis­ap­pears and the dirt shrinks, that pres­sure is gone allow­ing the house to ​“set­tle”.

What Does it Mean When a House Settles? 

When a house set­tles, it shifts in the ground. This can become a prob­lem if a house shifts too much and is already not built prop­er­ly on good com­pact dirt. You may notice some signs of struc­tur­al issues such as doors and win­dows that stick, or door frames that look crooked, floors that slant, base­ment walls that look bowed. These signs require an expert to assess. 

Is the 2021 Drought Still Caus­ing Base­ment Water Problems?

The answer is yes. Now, in 2022, the water table, or amount of water in the ground has returned to nor­mal, putting a nor­mal pres­sure back onto the foun­da­tions of Chicagoland homes. All those homes that didn’t have pres­sure dur­ing the drought, had walls relax (mov­ing out­ward), and now, the walls are being ​“pushed” back towards a nor­mal posi­tion. Homes are not made of flex­i­ble mate­r­i­al, this caus­es foun­da­tion cracks as well as upper home move­ment in walls, fram­ing, doors, win­dows etc. 

Will the Sum­mer Rain of 2022 Make the Drought Issues on My Home Worse? 

Yes, it could. We could be on track for some decent rain this sum­mer in Illi­nois. If this proves to be true the water table could rise above nor­mal lev­els. Some areas have seen over 6 inch­es of rain in the past few days, with more on the way. Just as a drought removes need­ed pres­sure from foun­da­tion walls, a high-water table will add extra pres­sure to base­ment walls. 

There is no way to pre­vent foun­da­tion wall move­ment from hap­pen­ing when we are at the mer­cy of moth­er nature. The good news is that U.S. Water­proof­ing is a 65-year-old rep­utable com­pa­ny who has been in over 450,000 homes in the Chicagoland area and we can help. We are the largest base­ment water­proof­ing and foun­da­tion repair com­pa­ny in the Mid­west, and we bring with us an exper­tise like no oth­er. Our Advi­sors are expert­ly trained in diag­nos­ing foun­da­tion struc­tur­al issues as well as find­ing the best solu­tion to your base­ment seep­age prob­lems. We will come out, diag­nose, and offer a com­pre­hen­sive repair plan. We pro­vide qual­i­ty work that we stand behind with our war­ran­ty! Book a free, no oblig­a­tion con­sul­ta­tion now!

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