Advice about Waterproofing Basement Walls

Firehawk734 · 12-07-2010, 06:43 PM

Hi Guys,

I just bought a 2003 1900 sq ft ranch home. The basement is huge. This house is barely 8 years old. The basement is poured concrete. There are no cracks anywhere in the walls (They look great). I dont know how basement walls today are actually poured, but it looks like they are done in around 20-24" sections almost because there are vertical lines running every 24 inches or so (didn't measure).

Anyways, I am planning to start remodeling the basement soon and was wondering if it would be worth dry-loc waterproofing the entire basement.

It's probably going to cost around 500 bucks to do, so I would rather not do it if it's unnecessary. I plan to live in this house for many, many years. Should I invest and do that anyways?

I live in SE Michigan.

Just Bill · 12-08-2010, 07:33 AM

Waterproofing is best done from the outside, by having gutters/downspouts that gets water at least 6' away from the walls. And grading that does the same thing. Those two things will cure 90% of basement water problems.

Poured concrete is not done in sections, it is a monolithic pour(continuous). What you are seeing are lines left by the forms.

Firehawk734 · 12-08-2010, 04:23 PM

I do have downspouts and such to run water away, but other than a slope away from the house on the exterior brick, there's nothing else taking water away (pretty typical).

So, should I bother or not?

Also, you said the lines left are from the forms. What's this process called then? I don't know what they call it when they lay the basement with this method.