First post here! A will apologize for the length of this post. But I want to provide as much information as possible to everyone so hopefully I get some solid feedback.
My wife and I moved into our current home in Sept 2013. This is the first home either of us have ever owned. The basement is finished except for part of the laundry room and the utility room. Half of the outside walls in the basement are the block foundation wall and the other half have crawl spaces on the other side. About 80% of the exterior walls are framed and have finished drywall on them (laundry and utility room being the exceptions). We have two sump pump pits, one at each end of where the wall is the foundation wall. I am assuming these are for the external drain tile along the footing outside.
For the first year and a half, no issues with water in the basement. Then in June of last year, we lost power for over 24 hours due to a storm that came with heavy rains when the ground was already very wet. We did not have any kind of backup system so we had a minor flood. Had standing water of about 1/8" wide spread across the basement. Luckily we got dried out and the only casualty was some old carpet in the living room. Since then we have installed battery backups which have worked great! We just lost power again for 3.5 days due to an ice storm just last month and the backups did their job. Had to swap out the batteries a couple times, but that was no biggie.
The next time we saw water in the basement was Thanksgiving 2015. There was a 3ft x 3ft area in the family room where the carpet was wet along the wall. It seems to only happen when there is a ton of rain or fast melting snow. There is a sump pump/sump pump cabinet right next to the affected area that had water in the cabinet from under the wall too. Total area of where the water is coming in is about 4 to 5 linear feet.
One thing I thought about was that where the leak is occurring is dead center on the outside wall so down spouts/gutters shouldn't be an issue. Never seen gutters putting water down on that area. However, the problem spot is right above where the fireplace is upstairs. So I am wondering if the chimney is somehow leaking down the wall, onto the floor and then pooling at the bottom of the wall. Thoughts?
So I called a basement contractor who sells Basement System products. He came out and spent about 2 hours with me going over the inside and outside of the house. We found something that even made my untrained eye twitch. The previous owners installed a baseboard dewatering system along the parts of the wall that are the block foundation wall. I now know that these are used for monolithic slabs, which I am 99% sure I dont have. I also know that they are probably the least effective of all the dewatering/waterproofing options, right next to doing nothing at all. But it gets better. The previous owners (I am pretty sure it was a DIY job) put the drains for this baseboard system ON THE FINISHED WALLS. So in theory, water can move from the foundation wall through the base plate and drywall before it gets to the drain to take it to the sump pump. We also found that they drilled some weeping holes in a few areas around the sump pump so the water would just freely flow into the sump pit. The basement guy had never seen anything like that before. At that point, even with my novice knowledge of basements and waterproofing, knew whoever did that had no idea what they were doing.
So the basement contractor suggested installing a partial interior perimeter system called Waterguard which sit on top of the foot opposed to sitting next to foot. It is partial because it didnt need to be installed on the perimeter where the other side was crawl space. Since I already had sump pump pits, the quoted cost to install was $3200. They'd also take out the crappy baseboard system and plug any weeping holes from that system too. They would need to cut up 2 to 3 feet of the framing/drywall to install the system. I probably have another $5000 in refinishing once they are done.
Almost done I promise! So that brings us to today. I did end up signing up for the Waterguard and they are coming out at the end of this month to install. I did my homework on other internal systems and they all seem to pretty much do the same thing. The main difference being where the drains are positioned - either on top of the foot (Waterguard) or along side the foot (B-Dry). One thing that kinda bothers me is that the base plates cannot be secured to the concrete floor after the system is in because there will only be about 3" of concrete between the top of the floor and the Waterguard. The basement contractor guy suggested gluing the base plate to the floor and then securing the 2 to 3 feet of new vertical framing to the existing vertical framing. He did not suggest using the basement wall to secure the framing. This makes sense as holes = somewhere water can get in. But I have never heard of reconstructing framing like he suggested. Any thoughts on this?
More and more lately, I have been thinking about doing this the harder way - excavating around the house. Its doable at our house as there is enough space between houses, but there obviously would be an impact on everything in the way of the excavation. We need a new deck anyways so I dont mind ripping that up. But I know the overall cost is much higher than the internal perimeter system. I know many people say take care of the issue outside, which makes sense. Don't let the water get to a point where it can come in. Give it somewhere else to go. But I have already heard many times that the outside drains at the foot will clog again at some point and the water barriers they put on the outside of the walls will also fail over time. It might be in a year or it might be in 30 years. And then you have to do it all over again. That was the main reason I went with the internal system. The basement contractor did not observe anything that needed to be corrected outside as far as grade, gutters, etc. He also looked into the crawl spaces and did not see anything that needed to be done there.
So I am at a crossroads right now. I do not have a warm fuzzy that what I have signed up for is the best solution. And the gluing of base plates is something new to me. Not saying either its wrong, I just dont know any better. Could the chimney be causing the issue? Am I a person who tends to worry and over think things? Yes! So maybe this is all just in my head and what has been proposed will work just fine. I am looking for some feedback/thoughts/alternatives. Feel free to ask questions! Thanks in advance!
My wife and I moved into our current home in Sept 2013. This is the first home either of us have ever owned. The basement is finished except for part of the laundry room and the utility room. Half of the outside walls in the basement are the block foundation wall and the other half have crawl spaces on the other side. About 80% of the exterior walls are framed and have finished drywall on them (laundry and utility room being the exceptions). We have two sump pump pits, one at each end of where the wall is the foundation wall. I am assuming these are for the external drain tile along the footing outside.
For the first year and a half, no issues with water in the basement. Then in June of last year, we lost power for over 24 hours due to a storm that came with heavy rains when the ground was already very wet. We did not have any kind of backup system so we had a minor flood. Had standing water of about 1/8" wide spread across the basement. Luckily we got dried out and the only casualty was some old carpet in the living room. Since then we have installed battery backups which have worked great! We just lost power again for 3.5 days due to an ice storm just last month and the backups did their job. Had to swap out the batteries a couple times, but that was no biggie.
The next time we saw water in the basement was Thanksgiving 2015. There was a 3ft x 3ft area in the family room where the carpet was wet along the wall. It seems to only happen when there is a ton of rain or fast melting snow. There is a sump pump/sump pump cabinet right next to the affected area that had water in the cabinet from under the wall too. Total area of where the water is coming in is about 4 to 5 linear feet.
One thing I thought about was that where the leak is occurring is dead center on the outside wall so down spouts/gutters shouldn't be an issue. Never seen gutters putting water down on that area. However, the problem spot is right above where the fireplace is upstairs. So I am wondering if the chimney is somehow leaking down the wall, onto the floor and then pooling at the bottom of the wall. Thoughts?
So I called a basement contractor who sells Basement System products. He came out and spent about 2 hours with me going over the inside and outside of the house. We found something that even made my untrained eye twitch. The previous owners installed a baseboard dewatering system along the parts of the wall that are the block foundation wall. I now know that these are used for monolithic slabs, which I am 99% sure I dont have. I also know that they are probably the least effective of all the dewatering/waterproofing options, right next to doing nothing at all. But it gets better. The previous owners (I am pretty sure it was a DIY job) put the drains for this baseboard system ON THE FINISHED WALLS. So in theory, water can move from the foundation wall through the base plate and drywall before it gets to the drain to take it to the sump pump. We also found that they drilled some weeping holes in a few areas around the sump pump so the water would just freely flow into the sump pit. The basement guy had never seen anything like that before. At that point, even with my novice knowledge of basements and waterproofing, knew whoever did that had no idea what they were doing.
So the basement contractor suggested installing a partial interior perimeter system called Waterguard which sit on top of the foot opposed to sitting next to foot. It is partial because it didnt need to be installed on the perimeter where the other side was crawl space. Since I already had sump pump pits, the quoted cost to install was $3200. They'd also take out the crappy baseboard system and plug any weeping holes from that system too. They would need to cut up 2 to 3 feet of the framing/drywall to install the system. I probably have another $5000 in refinishing once they are done.
Almost done I promise! So that brings us to today. I did end up signing up for the Waterguard and they are coming out at the end of this month to install. I did my homework on other internal systems and they all seem to pretty much do the same thing. The main difference being where the drains are positioned - either on top of the foot (Waterguard) or along side the foot (B-Dry). One thing that kinda bothers me is that the base plates cannot be secured to the concrete floor after the system is in because there will only be about 3" of concrete between the top of the floor and the Waterguard. The basement contractor guy suggested gluing the base plate to the floor and then securing the 2 to 3 feet of new vertical framing to the existing vertical framing. He did not suggest using the basement wall to secure the framing. This makes sense as holes = somewhere water can get in. But I have never heard of reconstructing framing like he suggested. Any thoughts on this?
More and more lately, I have been thinking about doing this the harder way - excavating around the house. Its doable at our house as there is enough space between houses, but there obviously would be an impact on everything in the way of the excavation. We need a new deck anyways so I dont mind ripping that up. But I know the overall cost is much higher than the internal perimeter system. I know many people say take care of the issue outside, which makes sense. Don't let the water get to a point where it can come in. Give it somewhere else to go. But I have already heard many times that the outside drains at the foot will clog again at some point and the water barriers they put on the outside of the walls will also fail over time. It might be in a year or it might be in 30 years. And then you have to do it all over again. That was the main reason I went with the internal system. The basement contractor did not observe anything that needed to be corrected outside as far as grade, gutters, etc. He also looked into the crawl spaces and did not see anything that needed to be done there.
So I am at a crossroads right now. I do not have a warm fuzzy that what I have signed up for is the best solution. And the gluing of base plates is something new to me. Not saying either its wrong, I just dont know any better. Could the chimney be causing the issue? Am I a person who tends to worry and over think things? Yes! So maybe this is all just in my head and what has been proposed will work just fine. I am looking for some feedback/thoughts/alternatives. Feel free to ask questions! Thanks in advance!
