How to Repair a Wet Basement in Naperville, IL 60540
Naperville IL was founded in 1831 and known as Naper’s Settlement. It remained a mostly rural farm town even though it was incorporated as the City of Naperville in 1890.
Because it didn’t experience a significant population growth until the 1960s, Naperville was a bit of a late bloomer, largely passed over by the population and housing boom that followed World War II. When its time came, though, Naperville caught up in a hurry, constructing 28,000 new homes in the city between 1980 and 2000.
Today, Naperville is the fifth largest city in Illinois with a population of more than 143,000. Residents enjoy excellent schools, parks and libraries and a well-preserved and thriving downtown area. Numerous college campuses are in or close to Naperville and the city boasts of a number of large businesses, including the Nabisco bakery that is the sole source of Triscuits for the U.S.
There are more than 45,000 homes in Naperville and, although most are on the new side, homeowners there still grapple with maintenance issues and problems, including wet basements.
Repairing a Wet Basement in Naperville
Of course, just as for homes in other Chicago suburbs of the same vintage, like Evanston and Oak Park, Naperville homes with wet basements are treated on a case-by-case basis but there are several common remedies.
Crack Repair – Most homes in Naperville are newer, so the prevailing type of foundation is poured concrete; the most common source of seepage in this type of foundation is a non-structural crack in the foundation wall. The best way to permanently repair such a crack is by injecting it with expanding polyurethane from inside the basement. The polyurethane fills the crack to the outside soil and remains flexible when cured to prevent minor foundation movement from causing the crack to re-open.
In a finished basement, the crack can be repaired on the exterior by digging a small hole next to the foundation at the site of the crack and filling it with sodium bentonite clay. The clay sets up a pliable but impermeable barrier against ground water on the “positive side” of the foundation wall.
Interior Drain Tile – Another common source of seepage in Naperville homes is when hydrostatic pressure in the ground below the foundation forces water through the cove joint and/or cracks in the basement floor. Installing interior drain tile, perforated pipe buried in a bed of washed gravel below the basement floor, alleviates this pressure and carries ground water away to a sump pump for removal. Properly installed, interior drain tile requires no maintenance.
Exterior Waterproofing – Water can also enter a Naperville basement through mortar joints, porous concrete or masonry or over the top of foundation walls. This seepage can be stopped or prevented by applying an exterior waterproofing membrane, a thick coating of asphalt-modified polyurethane applied with a trowel to the outside of a foundation.
If large amounts of ground water are present, the membrane can be augmented with exterior drain tile and drainage board to protect the membrane and channel water downward.
Regardless of the best method of repair, a Naperville homeowner with a wet basement needs the services of a professional basement waterproofing contractor that knows Naperville’s homes. At U.S. Waterproofing, we’ve been fixing wet basements around Chicago for 56 years and we’ve already helped hundreds of Naperville homeowners turn their wet basements into dry, healthy ones. Why not ask for a free consultation?
